The Shawshank Experience

The Shawshank Experience

Maura Grady Tony Magistrale The Shawshank Experience Tracking the History of the World s Favorite Movie

Maura Grady Ashland University Ashland, USA Tony Magistrale University of Vermont Burlington, Vermont, USA ISBN 978-1-137-53213-8 ISBN 978-1-137-53165-0 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-53165-0 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016957786 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Cover illustration: Ohio State Reformatory at Night. Digital photo by Scott Sukel, 2010 Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Nature America Inc., USA The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY 10004, U.S.A.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors wish to acknowledge the assistance, encouragement, and direct aid of several individuals and institutions that contributed to making this book possible. First, our students at both Ashland University and the University of Vermont deserve more than just an appreciative acknowledgment, as we have both been teaching Darabont s film and King s novella for many years; most of the ideas in this book were born and refined in our university classrooms. University of Vermont colleagues and students read draft sections in manuscript form and provided crucial feedback for revision and further writing: Christopher Magistrale, Philip Baruth, Sarah Turner, Sarah Nilsen, Huck Gutman, Liz Paley, Dennis Mahoney, Hubert Zapf, Larry Bennett (and especially UVM alumni, Jess Slayton and Matt Muller, two outstanding students from The Films of Stephen King class, who offered new ideas that shaped and influenced Chap. 3 ). A section of this chapter initially appeared as Robert Frost s Voice in The Shawshank Redemption, Green Mountains Review 28:2 (2015): 225 232; we thank the journal s poetry editor, Elizabeth Powell, for publishing it first. This project, which looks at Shawshank s film tourists, would not exist at all without Richard Robby Roberson, with whom this project began in 2013 his contributions extend well past ch. 4. In Ohio, April and Bill Mullen and Bob Wachtman lead a long list of Shawshank fans whose lives were forever changed by their direct contact with this movie and the subsequent preservation of its continued presence in the Shawshank Trail. We are grateful for their warmth, passion, and know-how. Thank you to Ashland University s Honors 390 students for the first Shawshank fan research project in 2013 and to Almatourism: A Journal of Culture, v

vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Tourism and Territorial Development, which published the results of that study as The Shawshank Trail: A Cross Disciplinary Study in Film Induced Tourism and Fan Culture in 2015; portions of this research are reprinted in Chap. 4. We are indebted to the members of the Mansfield Convention and Visitors Bureau, especially Jodie Puster-Snavely and Lee Tasseff; the staff and tireless volunteers at OSR, particularly Mary Cabrera and Paul Smith, who opened their doors and gave so generously of their time; as well as Becky McKinnell who repeated our interview when recording devices failed. We are grateful to Amy Daubenspeck and the Ashland Convention and Visitors Bureau, Hilary Donatini, and Dawn Weber, for helping to get Tony to Ohio to deliver the Keynote Address at the twentieth anniversary celebration of the film s release. Thank you to Kathy Larsen, Lynn Zubernis, and Paul Booth for their work on fandom and helpful advice. Thanks are also due also to Sharleen Mondal, Emily Hess, Craig Hovey, Deleasa Randall-Griffiths, and Patty Saunders for reading early drafts of this manuscript. Thanks to Pippa, Ada, Cash, and Zoe for their patience and to the Johnson family and Pearce family for their support. But Ohio s biggest thanks go to Tim Johnson for reading every word and to Delia Roberson for absolutely everything. At Palgrave Macmillan, Shaun Vigil, our acquisitions editor, and Sowmiya Swamikannu, who served as the manuscript s production manager, were instrumental in bringing this book into existence and convincing us that Palgrave was the right place to publish it.

CONTENTS 1 Introduction 1 2 In the Belly of the Beast: Ohio State Reformatory and The Shawshank Redemption 27 3 Interpreting Shawshank 87 4 Fandom and the Shawshank Trail (research contributions by Richard Roberson, Jr.) 169 Works Cited 217 Index 229 vii

LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 1.1 Actor Bob Gunton introduces himself to Warden Samuel Norton (also Bob Gunton) during the cocktail party held at OSR during The Shawshank Redemption Twentieth Anniversary Event in 2014 3 Fig. 2.1 View from top floor of Ohio State Reformatory central cellblock 36 Fig. 2.2 The central guard room at OSR 45 Fig. 2.3 One of the two-person cells at OSR 48 Fig. 2.4 The Ohio State Reformatory, ca. 1950 64 Fig. 2.5 Prop used for Andy s escape into the Shawshank sewer system, on permanent display at OSR. Note the thickness of its concrete opening 77 Fig. 2.6 The central cellblock at OSR. Solitary confinement cells are located on bottom floor; one of these was refurbished and then used to imprison Andy during his time in the hole in The Shawshank Redemption 83 Fig. 3.1 Under the spell of Mozart via the Shawshank PA system 118 Fig. 3.2 Nameless graves in the shadows of OSR s prison graveyard 121 Fig. 3.3 Andy cruising in his red Pontiac Phoenix 134 Fig. 3.4 Andy and the first of his movie posters, Rita Hayworth in Gilda 153 Fig. 4.1 Bill and April Mullen with Red (Morgan Freeman) at a charity event 180 Fig. 4.2 The Shawshank oak tree after a 2011 windstorm, shorn but still standing. The tree finally fell on July 22, 2016 185 ix

x LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 4.3 Scott Mann s poster for the Twentieth Anniversary s celebration of the release of The Shawshank Redemption. The 24 36 mosaic is made up of 20,636 tiles, using 765 different images consisting of poster and DVD covers in 29 languages, photos, and movie stills pulled by Scott from the movie 191 Fig. 4.4 One of Emily Pugh s layered screenshots, Tommy and the Shawshank Woodshop 210 Fig. 4.5 The authors at the entrance to the Ohio State Reformatory 212