Shawshank Redemption Deep-Dive: “No One’s At The Theatre” And The LA Times Hates It

WEBVTT

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Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, Dan Bettimore.

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I'm a produced writer of film and
television and now a podcast producer. And

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despite having every streaming service, I
never know what to watch. So anytime

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I watch something good, I talk
about it on the show. This way,

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you'll never have the same problem I
do. I watch this tonight,

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there's always something good to watch.
Let's get started. Today on the show,

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I'm doing one of my deep dives
into the making of The Shawshank Redemption.

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I found some really cool stuff and
researching this, including a review of

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the film by very prominent critic that
is one of the great It's up there

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with the Unforgiven Reader's Memo in terms
of just wow that. So I'm really

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excited to share that with you.
A lot of also interesting stuff about some

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tension in the making of the film
in different ways it could have been made,

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and the initial sort of belly flop
when it was first released, and

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all that kind of stuff. So
there's a lot of cool stuff here.

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There's been a good amount of reporting. I used the sources for this,

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Wikipedia, Vanity Fair, Business Insider, and the Los Angeles Times. So

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Shawshank Redemption obviously one of the greatest
movies ever made. I think it's still

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today the number one movie by user
rating on IMDb, which is an amazing

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accomplishment. Seven Oscar nominations. Library
of Congress initially only made sixteen million dollars

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at the box office, was considered
a flop, ended up doing three hundred

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and twenty thousand VHS rentals, where
it made an insane amount of money,

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and then even more in ancillary and
television and stuff like that. But it

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all started with Frank Darbat buying the
right to the short story in nineteen eighty

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seven. Five years later, writes
the script and it's to cass Rock gets

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twenty five million on our budget,
makes the movie. What I didn't know

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was that behind the scenes, even
though there's a movie with no women in

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it, there was a female producer
named Liz Glotzer who was essential to the

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success of this movie and had like
critical roles in it getting made and the

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quality of it pretty much all the
way through. So we're going to get

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to her and her involvement. Daribond
first connected with Stephen King by doing his

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Dollar Babies thing. So Stephen King
has this thing where if you want to

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get the right to one of his
short stories. He will essentially allow you

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to make a movie out of it
for a dollar, and you can make

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it as a short film. So
it's like a way to showcase yourself if

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you're an inspiring filmmaker. My cousin
actually did this. There's somewhere out there

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where we made a film based on
one of Stephen King's short stories, and

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that exists, so we know,
I know for sure it's real thing because

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we actually did it. So first
Deibond does that, and then four years

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later he buys the rights to Ria
Hayworth and the Shaw Shank Redemption. There

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are differing sources on how much he
paid. Wikipedia says five grand, screen

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Rand says one thousand. Either way, King never used the money, He

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didn't cash it. He just kept
it, and then later he framed it

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and returned it to Frank Darabot with
a note that said, in case you

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ever need bail money, love Steve
Now. At the time, prison movies

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were supposed to be unlikely to be
successful with the box office. Darabont's script

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was first read by Castle Rock Entertainment
producer Liz Gotser, who loved prison movies

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and she loved his script so much
she threatened to quit Castle Rock if they

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did not make the Shaw Shank Redemption. Obviously, Rob Reyner of Castle Rock

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had previously adapted King's nineteen eighty two
novella The Body and to Stand By Me.

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He wanted to do it with Tom
Cruise as Andy and Harrison Ford as

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read. The reason that Morgan Freeman
was cast was because Liz Gotser ignored the

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novella's description of a white guy,
a white irishman named Red. And you

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know, basically I guess one in
Freeman for it. So again, think

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about how critical her involvement that right
away, that's like half of the successive

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movie. Basically. Dary Bond initially
looked at some of his favorite actors like

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Gene Hackman and Albert Duval for the
role of Andy Dufraine, but they were

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unavailable. I would have loved to
see this with Duval, Tom Cruise,

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Tom Hanks, and Kevin Costner were
offered and passed on the role. But

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in Cruise's case, he attended table
readings in the script and he just didn't

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want to work for Darrebon because Darrebont
was not an experienced director. Now,

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at one point, and again according
to different sources on the Internet, it's

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between two and three million dollars.
Rob Ryner goes to Dary Bond and he

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says, if you let me make
the movie with Cruise like I'll direct the

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Cruisal starring it, I'll give you
three million bucks. Dere Bond's like,

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no, pretty remarkable. Brad Pitt
was initially cast in the role of Tommy,

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but he dropped out after his success
in Delma Louise and his was kind

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of a rising star and that kind
of thing. James Genelfini passed on portraying

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Bogs. In terms of the production, Morgan Freeman was pretty candid about Darbot

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being a pain in the ass.
He said, most of the time the

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tension was between the cast and director. I remember having a bad moment with

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the director, had a few of
those. He went on to say,

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the answer was no. In reference
to doing a lot of takes, I

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don't want to be chewing the scenery. Acting itself as indifficult, but having

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to do something again and again for
no discernible reason tends to be a bit

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debilitating to the energy. Interestingly enough, Morgan Freeman obviously was in seven David

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Fitcher film, So be interested to
know what do you thinks about David Fincher.

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But apparently it took nine hours to
film the part when Andy first approaches

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Read to procure a rock hammer.
They did so many takes that Freeman came

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to set the next day it was
his arm to sling and refused to do

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any indial takes. Darbot looking back, and it kind of has some quotes

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to suggest that he learned from it. He said, a director really needs

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to have an internal brometer to measure
what any of an actor needs. You

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know, as far as I start
what I mean, Darbot is one of

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the great writer, director, creative
people in the history of Hollywood. So

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it sounds like he learned from it
and probably made him a better director.

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But I mean, you know what
he said. I mean, the movie

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is amazing. It was it was
worth it. Yeah, I mean,

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it doesn't sound like he was abusive
or anything. It sounds like he just

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did a lot of takes. During
the iconic scene of Andy escaping your two

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freedom through a sewer pipe described as
a river of shit, Robin's crawled through

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a mixture of water, chocolate syrup, and sawdust. The stream that he

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emerged into was certified toxic by a
chemist and they had to damn the stream

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and use chlorination to partially decontaminate it. Robins said, when you're doing a

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film, you want to be a
good soldier. You don't want to be

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the one who gets in the way, so you will do things as an

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actor that are compromising to your physical
health and safety. We've gotten a lot

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better about that, said Roger.
Deakins said that the scene is one of

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his least favorite. He says he
overlid it. So this is scene when

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Robinson gets out of the sewer pipe
and all that. Darabont said that they

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had to be precisely what they could
film, so they had a limited filming

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schedule. He said he regretted that
he could not film a close up of

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Robin's face as he climbed down out
of the hole from his cell. So

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again, it just shows you that
no matter what you do, no matter

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how great of a thing you're creating
your life, you're always going to be

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like, oh man, I could
have been a better if I just did.

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It's amazing. That part's great,
Like what this like iconic said about

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It's just this is what I love
about doing these. One scripted scene,

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which Darabont described as his best work, was left unfilmed because of the shooting

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schedule, and the scene a dreaming
Red is sucked into the poster of Rita

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Hayworth to find himself alone and insignificant
on the Pacific shore, saying I am

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terrified. There's no way home.
Darabont said that you were gretted being unable

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to capture the scene that actually would
have been kind of cool, especially considering

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the ending. In Darabon's original vision
for the end of the film, Red

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is seen riding a bus towards the
Mexican border, leaving his fate ambiguous.

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Glotser insisted on including the scene of
Red and Andy reuniting and Zewatanejo, she

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said. Dara Bond felt this was
a commercial, sappy ending, but Glotser

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one of the audiences season together again. Can you imagine it's the difference if

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that was not there. It was
decided to mostly omit Stephen King's name from

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the advertising because the studio wanted to
attract a more prestigious audience who might reject

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a film from the writer of The
Shining and Kujoe Following a Hollywood tradition of

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visiting different theaters and opening night to
see the audience few their film live,

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Dara Bonning Lotser went to the Cinerama
Dome, so which is here, actually

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was down the street from where used
to live, but they found no one

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there. Glotzer claimed that the pair
actually sold two tickets outside the theater,

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with the promise that if the buyers
did not like the film, they could

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ask Castle Rock for a refund.
Quote. That was our big opening night,

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Glasser said dryly. While critics praise
the film, Glotser believed that a

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lackluster review from the Los Angeles Times
pushed crowds away. And here is that

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review from Kenneth Duran nineteen ninety four. This is what he said. Awash

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in a bad news culture where horrors
compete for media attention, America's appetite for

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feel good movies is all but insatiable. How else to explain The Shawshank Redemption,

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a film that hides a warm and
cuddly fantasy about prison life behind sleek

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brutality. So much the better to
convince us that even inside those walls,

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life can be grand. Starring Tim
Robbins and Morgan Freeman is two lifers who

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demonstrate the great things prison can do
for you. Shawshanks sense mentality is of

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a new Hollywood variety. Its message
of hope and friendship comes premixed to the

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sizeable ballop of unappetizing violence, intended
to convince audiences that what they're watching is

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in a big love of cotton candy
after all. Adapted from a Steve that

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just keeps going Like This, adapted
from a Stephen King novella. Shawshank also

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labors under its literary origins, with
many of its situations feeling like thin doodles

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blown up to big screen size,
and its entire last section has the kind

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of serious pausibility problems that are early
apparent when the written word takes physical form.

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Paradoxically, it is shaw shanks zealousness
in trying to cast a rosy glow

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over the prison experience that makes us
feel we're doing harder time than the folks

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inside. So Keath Duran basically thought
this movie sucked. He thought watching this

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movie was like being in prison.
He said, in fact, it was

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worse to be a prison. We're
doing harder time than the folks inside.

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I wonder if when Keneth Turan,
you know, Keneth Duran was obviously a

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very well known critic, retired from
Los Angeles Times at seventy three years old

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and twenty twenty. Do you think
when Keath Duran like hangs out with the

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other film critics, they give him
shit for this because there are I mean,

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when you go to press screenings,
it's there, there's all the different

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critics are invited and they all go
and you see each other again. You

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know, I did this in college, and I have to imagine that at

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least once or twice in his life. There must have been another critic was

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like, yeah, Shaw, Shank
really sucked huck Ken and really gave him

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for it. After bombing initially,
the movie did so well on television that,

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according to Business Insider, the actor
who plays the warden he said,

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he still gets residual payments, not
huge, but steady close to six figures.

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And even you know, this goes
all the way we're talking about like

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two thousand and four, like like
well after the movie is released. He

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even said, I suspect my daughter
years from now will still be getting checks.

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And then lastly, I thought Tim
Robbins kind of said it best the

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enduring power of the movie. He
said that I believe part of the reason

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the movie is so important to people
is that, in a way it works

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as a whole for whatever your life
is. That no matter what your prison

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is, whether it's a job you
hate, a bad relationship that you're slogging

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through, whether your warden is a
terrible boss or a wife or a husband,

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it holds out the possibility that there
is freedom inside you and that at

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some point in life there was a
warm spot in the beach and that we

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can all get there, but sometimes
it takes a while. How beautifully sad

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about Tim Robbins. So that's Shaw
shank Man. It's so great to see

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Tim and Silo. I don't know
what the hell they're doing with this character.

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I feel like they haven't given him
enough to do. I sincerely hope

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he is like way more prominent in
the rest of it. He's so good.

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It's like I talked about this when
I do the Silo episode. It

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just feels like, for whatever reason, they haven't figured out another role like

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that to give him. You know, he's he's so great if you can

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find the right thing to plug him
into and he's still relatively young, you

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know. I mean, there's still
time for him to have another sort of

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career defining role. And when you
think about Shaws Shank, you think about

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him and it Man. So that's
the making of the Shaw Shank redemption.

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With apologies to Kenneth Duran, that
is the show for today. I should

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no knock on wood. That's me
knocking on wood. I should have to

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really cools interviews as the next two
episodes. If all goes well, if

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something goes catastrophically wrong, you'll probably
just hear a regular episode M. But

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that's it for now. Thank you
so much as always for listening. Until

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next time, Bye bye, m
M.