Behind a modern movie classic

The story of the film The Shawshank Redemption may not be as dramatic as the story in the film, but it comes close. Mark Dawidsiak tells about it in The Shawshank Redemption Revealed: How One Story Keeps Hope Alive (2019).

It was director Frank Darabont's first movie. With the exception of Rob Reiner's Stand by Me, adaptations of Stephen King stories had not been well received by either audiences or critics. The actors wanted for the lead roles were not available. The movie, when it was released in 1994, was a box office disappointment and was left in the dust by Forrest Gump when the awards were handed out. Yet today, more than 25 years after its release, movie fans, many of whom confess to watching it several times a year, rank it among the very best of all time, well above Forrest Gump.

The film became a success when it was released on home video and when television networks found that their ratings shot up whenever they showed it. 

Meanwhile Mansfield, Ohio, a city of about 50,000 people midway between Cleveland and Columbus, suddenly became a popular destination for tourists from around the world because that is where most of The Shawshank Redemption was filmed. The former Ohio State Reformatory, completed in 1900 and closed in 1990, had been scheduled for demolition, but that was postponed so Darabont could make his movie there. It had previously been used as a set for Harry and Walter Go to New York and Tango and Cash, but now that all prisoners had been moved to a new prison next to OSR, the entire property was available to the director. Afterward the striking old prison, sometimes called Dracula's Castle, attracted so many visitors that it was saved from demolition.

So popular has the movie become over the years that Dawidsiak had no trouble finding people eager to talk about it, including its usually reticent star Tim Robbins. He also talked with the other major star, Morgan Freeman, Darabont, Stephen King, other members of the cast and crew and many Ohio people who worked as extras or were otherwise involved in making the movie. He also spoke with many of those who have traveled many miles, in some cases halfway around the world, to sit on the bench where Brooks (James Whitmore) sat to feed pigeons and to walk down the country road where Red (Freeman) walked.

In fact, Dawidziak does a marvelous job of covering just about every aspect of the film. His book is filled with photographs, including stills from the movie and shots taken by Becky Dawidziak, his daughter.

As a personal note, I will mention that Mansfield is where I worked as a journalist for more than 40 years. As a rookie reporter I was given a sobering tour of OSR while it was a high-security prison. One of my colleagues, reporter Lou Whitmire, plays a newspaper reporter in the film. (This wasn't the only case of typecasting. Former OSR guards also appeared as Shawshank guards.) My son, then a college student, worked that summer in a prison uniform, an extra in the background of several scenes.