Inside Movies
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Prison Night ............................... Prison Night coming soon to Channel 4 celebrates the very best prison movies insidemoviesIn association with Channel 4 and explores what it is about this genre June 2015 and Double Act Productions that we find so compelling. It will tell riveting stories of the prisons and the prisoners that inspired these movies – from lifers, great escapers and the wrongfully convicted to dead men walking, execution experts and even prisoners working on a chain gang. There will be interviews with experts, cons, ex-cons and prison officers who will be revealing how realistic these movies are portraying a life behind bars, throwing a light on the age old question of ‘does prison work’? The Best Prison Movie Ever will be voted for by you - the UK’s prison population. So ...WE NEED YOUR VOTES! See page 8 for details cell empty. An irate Warden Norton throws a rock at the poster of Raquel Welch hanging on the wall. Removing the poster, the warden discovers a tunnel that Andy dug with his rock hammer. The previous night, Andy escaped through the tunnel and used the prison's sewage 1 pipe to reach freedom. Andy poses as Randall Stephens and visits several banks to withdraw the laundered money. Finally, he mails the ledger and evidence of the corruption and murders at Shawshank to a local newspaper. After serving 40 years, Red is finally paroled. He struggles to adapt to life outside prison and fears he never will. Remembering his promise to Andy, he visits Buxton and finds a cache containing money and a letter asking him to come to Zihuatanejo. Red violates his parole and travels to Mexico. On a beach in Zihua- tanejo he finds Andy, and the two friends are happily reunited. Do you know? ...................... 4 Andy and Red’s opening chat in the prison yard - in which Red is pitching a baseball Image courtesy of Castle Rock Entertainment - took 9 hours to shoot. Morgan Freeman pitched that baseball for the entire 9 hours without a word of complaint. He showed The Shawshank Redemption up for work the next day with his arm in a sling. Starring: Tim Robbins (Andy Dufresne), Morgan Freeman (Ellis Boyd ‘Red’ Redding) 4 Stephen King sold the film Director: Frank Darabont Released: 1994 Awards: Nominated for 7 oscars rights for his novel “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Tagline: ‘Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free’ Redemption” for $5,000. He never cashed the check. Years 1947 banker Andy Dufresne is wrongfully Hatlen. Andy's new job is a pretext for him to burglary. He joins Andy's and Red's circle of after Shawshank came out, the convicted of murdering his wife and her lover begin managing financial matters for the friends, and Andy helps him pass his G.E.D. exam. author got the check framed and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences prison employees. As time passes, the Warden In 1966, Tommy reveals to Red and Andy that at the fictional Shawshank State Penitentiary. begins using Andy to handle matters for a an inmate at another prison claimed responsi- and mailed it back to the director Andy befriends prison contraband smuggler, variety of people including guards from other bility for the murders Andy was convicted of, Frank Darabont with a note Ellis "Red" Redding, an inmate serving a life prisons and the warden himself. implying Andy's innocence. Andy approaches inscribed: “In case you ever sentence. Red procures a rock hammer and Warden Norton with this information, but the need bail money. Love, Steve.” later a large poster of Rita Hayworth for Andy. In 1954, Brooks is paroled, but cannot adjust warden refuses to listen and sends Andy back Working in the prison laundry, Andy is to the outside world after fifty years in prison and to solitary. Norton then has Captain Hadley 4 regularly assaulted by the "bull queer" gang hangs himself. Andy receives a library donation murder Tommy. Andy refuses to continue the The film’s initial gross of $18 "the Sisters" and their leader, Bogs. that includes a recording of The Marriage of money laundering, but relents after Norton million didn’t even cover the Figaro. He plays an excerpt over the public threatens to burn the library. Andy is released cost of its production. It did In 1949, Andy overhears the brutal captain of address system, resulting in his receiving from solitary confinement after two months another $10 million in the wake the guards, Byron Hadley, complaining about solitary confinement. In 1963, Norton begins and tells Red of his dream of living in Zihua- of its Oscar nominations but the being taxed on an inheritance and offers to exploiting prison labour for public works, tanejo, a Mexican coastal town. Red promises help him legally shelter the money. After a profiting by undercutting skilled labour costs Andy that if he is ever released he will visit a film was still deemed to be a vicious assault by the Sisters nearly kills Andy, and receiving kickbacks. He has Andy launder specific hayfield near Buxton, Maine and box office flop. But it became Hadley beats Bogs severely. Warden Samuel the money using the alias Randall Stephens. retrieve a package Andy buried there. one of the highest grossing Norton meets Andy and reassigns him to the video rentals of all time. prison library to assist elderly inmate Brooks In 1965, Tommy Williams is incarcerated for The next day at roll call the guards find Andy's insidemovies Insidetime June 2015 2 the Green Mile Starring: Tom Hanks (Paul Edgecomb), Michael Clarke Duncan (John Coffey) Director: Frank Darabont Released: 1999 Awards: Nominated for 4 oscars Tagline: ‘Paul Edgecomb didn’t believe in miracles. Until the day he met one’ Image courtesy of Castle Rock Entertainment In a Louisiana nursing home in 1999, Paul afterward, he will transfer to an administrative world, to which he is sensitive, and says he is shedding tears, asks Paul not to put the tradi- Edgecomb begins to cry while watching the post at a mental hospital. An agreement is “rightly tired of the pain” and is ready to rest. tional black hood over his head because he is 1935 film Top Hat. His elderly friend Elaine made, but then Percy deliberately sabotages For his last request on the night before his afraid of the dark. Paul agrees, shakes his shows concern for his behavior, and Paul tells the execution: Instead of wetting the sponge execution, John watches the film Top Hat. hand as a goodbye, and John is executed. her that the film reminded him of his youth, used to conduct electricity and make execu- When John is put in the electric chair, he, when he was a prison officer in charge of tions quick and effective, he leaves it dry, death row inmates at Cold Mountain Peniten- causing a disturbing and dramatic malfunction tiary during the summer of 1935. The scene to the execution, leaving the inmate to suffer shifts to 1935, where Paul works with fellow a very painful death. Do you know? guards Brutus “Brutal” Howell, Harry Terwil- ...................... liger, and Dean Stanton. Unlike the other Meanwhile, a violent, psychopathic prisoner guards, Paul is a very calm guard and is sym- named “Wild Bill” Wharton has arrived, to be 4 In actuality, Michael Clarke Duncan is of a similar height as his pathetic with some inmates. executed for multiple murders committed co-star David Morse and is a couple of inches shorter than James during a robbery. At one point he seizes John’s Cromwell. Among other things, creative camera angles were used to One day, John Coffey, a giant African-Ameri- arm, and John psychically senses that Wharton create the illusion that Duncan as John Coffey towered over the prison can man convicted of raping and killing two is also responsible for the crime for which John staff, even Brutal Howell and Warden Moores. young white girls, arrives in the prison, was convicted and sentenced to death. John sentenced to death row. However, much to “takes back” the sickness in Hal’s wife and the surprise of the other guards and inmates, regurgitates it into Percy, who then shoots 4 Voted number 2 in Channel 4s “Top 100 Tearjerkers” countdown, he is very shy, soft-spoken, and a very Wharton to death and falls into a state of losing first place to “E.T The Extra Terrestrial”. emotional person. John reveals extraordinary permanent catatonia. Percy is then admitted powers by healing Paul’s urinary tract infection to Briar Ridge Mental Hospital as a patient 4 According to one of the features on the DVD, Stephen King called and resurrecting a mouse only by his touch. rather than an administrator. In the wake of this film ‘the’ single most faithful adaptation of his work. Later, he heals the terminally ill wife of Warden these events, Paul interrogates John, who says Hal Moores. When John is asked to explain his he “punished them bad men” and offers to 4 When Stephen King visited the set he asked to be strapped into power, he merely says that he “took it back.” show Paul what he saw. John takes Paul’s Meanwhile, Percy Wetmore, a sadist with a hand and says he has to give Paul “a part of Old Sparky to see how it felt. He didn’t like it and asked to be released. fierce temper, has recently begun working in himself” in order for Paul to see what really the death row inmates block; his fellow guards happened to the girls. 4 The music played over the loudspeakers in the retirement home dislike him, but are unable to get rid of him as Old Paul Edgecomb first walks out of his room is the same as the because of his family connections to the Paul asks John what he should do, if he should music the nurses played at medication time in One Flew Over the governor.