Regardless if you’re a fan of Morgan Redemption or Tim Robbins, a remarkably “obtuse” question would be, “Have you ever seen The Shawshank Redemption?” It’s a classic, and yet, the movie is embroiled in controversy. Well, one scene is.
The script, taken from a 1982 Stephen King novella “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption,” was an unsuspecting adapting. It was a short story that inspired a near 2.5-hour movie. The film’s two main characters are nothing short of revelatory. Morgan Freeman as Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding walks us through the life-altering journey of hope and his incarcerated best friend, Andy Dufresne (played with dizzying force by Tim Robbins).
The 1994 Frank Darabont film is a cinematic masterpiece. In fact, it’s the cinematic masterpiece, depending on which authoritative list you recall. Long anecdote, short: By now, everyone who loves movies has seen it and loves it.
Center to the story is a prison break, which is where Rita Hayworth and the aforementioned 30-year plothole comes in the conversation. It has finally been addressed and now we know how Rita kept her girlish figure on the wall in Andy’s cell.
Tim Robbins and the “River of Sh!t”
If you have a pulse, odds are high you know this scene of rejoice and tears. But, it’s the particular quote about the trek to get to this moment most cinephiles remember and recall.
Andy Dufresne, who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side.
Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding, The Shawshank Redemption, 1994
Regretfully, trolls of all ages and sizes try to whizz all in that water and over this scene with one of the thorough debate in movie plothole history, “Andy crawled through a hole in a wall he had been digging for over 20 years. Covering that hole was a series of posters, beginning with then-Hollywood bombshell, Rita Hayworth. So, how in the love of all things Stephen King is that poster fastened for that crooked warden to swipe it from the cell wall?!”
I get your frustration and have heard the disputes. Well, finally, the mystery of Andy’s escape is solved. And by none other than Tim Robbins. During a delightful fireside chat presented by the 2024 Turner Classic Movies Film Festival celebrating the 30-year anniversary of the triumphant film, the moment happens.
This is a dark horse film that flopped at the box office. Hard. And today, people tear up even thinking about certain scenes. This being one of them.
Morgan Freeman asks Tim Robbins a direct question with a sea of under-breath chuckling. “How did Andy get that poster back in place after he got into that tunnel?” The crowd cracks up, as if their bent-up laughter was the Mentos dropped in a bottle of Coke.
BOOM! And it’s pretty contagious because Lord knows everyone was thinking it. How?!
“Easy. This is so easy,” Robbins said. The actor held his hands up, imitating putting up the poster, and said, “Pinned up here [at the top of the poster]. Pull up here [lifting the bottom of the poster]. Go underneath. Go in.”
Watch all of it, but enjoy beginning at the 9:50 mark as Tim Robbins talks water, the river, and about Rita. And as Andy once opined, “Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”
(Fan service quote) “You’re G.D. right.” And that includes this plothole argument. Case closed.
Since he saw ‘Dune’ in the $1 movie theater as a kid, this guy has been a lover of geek culture. It wasn’t until he became a professional copywriter, ghostwriter, and speechwriter that he began to write about it (a lot).
From the gravitas of the Sith, the genius of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, or the gluttony of today’s comic fan, SPW digs intelligent debate about entertainment. He’s also addicted to listicles, storytelling, useless trivia, and the Oxford comma. And, he prefers his puns intended.
