Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption

There's a guy like me in every state and federal prison in America, I guess - I'm the guy who can get it for you. Tailormade cigarettes, a bag of reefer if you're partial to that, a bottle of brandy to celebrate your son or daughter's high school graduation, or almost anything else...within reason, that is. It wasn't always that way.

Above is the first paragraph in the story written by Stephen King, the same story that the movie Shawshank Redemption was based on. I decided to read the story after years of proclaiming the movie to be the best prison movie ever. Why I must've seen the movie no less than ten times over the years and each time is almost as good as the first, a sure sign of a great movie.

In reading the book I found the voices of the movie's characters as well as their faces filling my head. It was a fun experience, but I often found myself comparing the two stories as I read, which is not the best way to enjoy a story. So I vowed early in my reading to let go of my preconceptions of what the story should be and just sit back and enjoy the book, letting the story unfold in front of me.

I couldn't do it. From that first paragraph I could hear Morgan Freeman's voice just as clear as ever. The actual narrator of the story in the book, also named "Red", is not a Black man but Irish, and that somehow takes away from the special friendship established in the movie between Andy and Red.

I did enjoy the book mind you, but I don't think I would've enjoyed it as much had I not had the sights and sounds of the movie to fill in the blanks. Usually its the other way around where a book is so much better and has so much more detail than the movie, but that just wasn't so in this case.

Again, I think anyone who has seen the movie and then reads the book will enjoy the book. But I don't think the book added anything to the story that made it better. On the contrary, it was the movie that took a mediocre story and made it special. Nothing against the writings of Stephen King, but in comparing the book and the movie I wonder if maybe King's story was cut down for marketing purposes. Maybe the movie allowed King the format to give his story it's full range to reach it's total potential. Either way we as readers and movie goers are treated to a very enjoyable experience in the story Shawshank Redemption.

I guess I should give more praise to the book. There were some lessons to be learned about the effects of prison life on an individual. The reason for Rita Hayworth being part of the book's title is also made clear in the book.

Here's a part from the book where "Red" (Morgan Freeman) is talking about what its like once a convict's been in for awhile, like himself, and gets "institutionalized":


When you take away a man's freedom and teach him to live in a cell, he seems to lose his ability to think in dimensions. He's like the jackrabbit I mentioned, frozen in the oncoming lights of the truck that is bound to kill it. More often than not a con who's just out will pull some dumb job that hasn't a chance in hell of succeeding...and why? Because it'll get him back inside. Back where he understands how things work.