Script 5

EXERCISE YARD
(Andy reads the letter to Red and the others:
ANDY: I doubt they'll kick up any fuss. Not for an old crook like me. P.S. Tell Heywood I'm sorry I put a knife to his throat. No hard feelings. Brooks
(A long silence. Andy folds the letter, puts it away. Softly:
RED: He should'a died in here.
GUARD DESK/WARDEN'S OUTER OFFICE
Dozens of parcel boxes litter the floor. WILEY, the duty guard, picks through them. Hadley enters, trailed by Andy.
ANDY: What's all this?
HADLEY: You tell me, fuck-stick! Their all addressed to you, every damn one!
(Wiley thrusts an envelope at Andy. Andy just stares at it).
WILEY: Well, take it.
Andy takes the envelope, pulls out a letter, reads:
ANDY: "Dear Mr. Dufresne. In response to your repeated inquiries, the State Senate has allocated the enclosed funds for your library project..." (stunned, examines check) This is two hundred dollars. In addition, the Library District has generously responded with a charitable donation of used books and sundries. We trust this will fill your needs. We now consider the matter closed. Please stop sending us letters."
(Andy gazes around at the boxes. The riches of the world lay at his feet. His eyes mist with emotion at the sight).
HADLEY: I want all this cleared out before the warden gets back.
(Hadley exits. Andy touches the boxes like a love-struck man touching a beautiful woman. Wiley grins).
WILEY: Good for you, Andy.
ANDY: Only took six years. From now on, I send two letters a week instead of one.
WILEY: I believe you're crazy enough. You better get this stuff out of here like the Captain said. I'm gonna go pinch a loaf. When I come back, this is all gone, right?
Andy nods. Wiley disappears into the toilet. Alone now, Andy starts going through the boxes like a starving man exploring packages of food. He doesn't know where to turn first. He rips open a box with stacks of used record albums. Andy starts flipping through them. Used Nat King Coles, Bing Crosbys, etc. He comes across a certain album -- Mozart's "Le Nozze de Figaro." He pulls it from the stack, gazing upon it as a man transfixed. It is a thing of beauty. It is the Grail.
GUARD STATION/OUTER OFFICE
He slides the Mozart album from its sleeve, lays it on the platter, and lowers the tone arm to his favorite cut. The needle HISSES in the groove...and the MUSIC begins, lilting and gorgeous. Andy sinks into Wiley's chair, overcome by its beauty. It is "Deutino: Che soave zeffiretto," a duet sung by Susanna and the Contessa.
BATHROOM
(Wiley pauses reading, puzzled. He thinks he hears music).
WILEY: Andy? You hear that?
GUARD STATION/OUTER OFFICE
Andy shoots a look at the bathroom... and smiles. Go for broke. He lunges to his feet and barricades the front door, then the bathroom. He returns to the desk and positions the P.A. microphone. He works up his courage, then flicks all the toggles to "on." A SQUEAL OF FEEDBACK echoes briefly...
SHAWSHANK PRISON -- VARIOUS LOCATIONSCons all over the prison stop whatever they're doing, freezing in mid-step to listen, gazing up at the speakers. The stamping machines in the plate shop are shut down... The laundry line goes silent, grinding to a halt... The wood shop machines are turned off, buzzing to a stop... Nobody moves, nobody speaks. Everybody just stands in place, listening to the MUSIC, hypnotized.GUARD STATION Click here to download the song in RA

(Andy is reclined in the chair. Ecstasy and rapture. Shawshank no longer exists. It has been banished from the mind of men).
(V.O.) RED: I have no idea to this day what them two Italian ladies were singin' about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I like to think they were singin' about something so beautiful it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it.
I tell you, those voices soared. Higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made these walls dissolve away...and for the briefest of moments -- every last man at Shawshank felt free... It pissed the warden off something awful.
GUARD STATION/OUTER OFFICE -- DAY (1955) 147
(Norton and Hadley are outside of the lock door wanting in, the Warden is shaking the soor).
NORTON: Open the door (Jiggling the handle). Open it up, Dufresne, open this door! Turn that off! I am warning you Dufresne, turn that off!
(Andy smiles and leans forward to turn the music up).
HADLEY: Dufresne, you're mine now...
(V.O.) RED: Andy got two weeks in the hole for that little stunt.
MESS HALL
(Andy's out of the hole).
HEYWOOD: Couldn't play somethin' good, huh? Hank Williams?
ANDY: They broke the door down before I could take requests.
FLOYD: Was it worth two weeks in the hole?
ANDY: Easiest time I ever did.
SKEET: Bullshit. No such thing as easy time in the hole.
EARNIE: A week seems like a year.
ANDY: I had Mr. Mozart to keep me company.
FLOYD: So they let you tote that record player down there, huh?
ANDY: (taps his heart, his head) The music was here...and here. That's the beauty of music, they can't get that from ya. Haven't you ever felt that way about music?
RED: Played a mean harmonica as a younger man. Lost interest in it. Didn't make much sense in here.
ANDY: Here's where it makes most sense. We need it so we don't forget.
RED: Forget?
ANDY: Forget that, there are places in the world not made out of stone. That there are something inside that they can't get to, that they can't touch, it's yours.
RED: What are you talking about?
ANDY: Hope.
RED: Hope. Let me tell you something my friend, hope is a dangerous thing. It can drive a man insane. It's got no usa on the insided. Better get used to the idea.
ANDY: (softly) Like Brooks did?
SHAWSHANK HEARINGS ROOM(Red enters, ten years older than when we first saw him at a parole hearing. He removes his cap and sits).MAN # 1: It says here you've served thirty years of a life sentence. You feel you've been rehabilitated? RED: Yes sir, without a doubt. I can say I'm a changed man. No danger to society, that's the God's honest truth. Absolutely rehabilitated.

PRISON YARD -- DUSK
(Andy and Red are talking).
RED: Thirty years. Jesus. When you say it like that...
ANDY: You wonder where it went. I wonder where ten years went.
(Red nods, solemn. They settle in on the bleachers. Andy pulls a small box from his sweater, hands it to Red).
ANDY: Here, a little parole rejection present, go ahead and open it.
(Red does. Inside the box, on a thin layer of cotton, is a shiny new harmonica, bright aluminum and circus-red).
ANDY: Had to go through one of your competitors. Hope you don't mind. I wanted it to be a surprise.
RED: It's very pretty, Andy. Thank you.
ANDY: You gonna play it?
(Red considers it, shakes his head. Softly:
RED: Not right now.
CELLBLOCK FIVE/ANDY'S CELL -- NIGHT
Men line the tiers as the evening count is completed. The convicts step into their cells. The master switch is thrown and all the doors slam shut -- KA-THUMP! Andy finds a cardboard tube on his bunk. The note reads: "A new girl for your 10 year anniversary. Red."
ANDY'S CELL -- LATER
Marilyn Monroe's face fills the screen. SLOW PULL BACK reveals the new poster: the famous shot from "The Seven Year Itch," on the subway grate with skirt billowing up. Andy sits gazing at her as lights-out commences...
RED'S CELL -- NIGHT
...and we find Red gazing blankly as darkness takes the cellblock. Adding up the months, weeks, days... He regards the harmonica like a man confronted with a Martian artifact. He considers trying it out -- even holds it briefly to his lips, almost embarrassed -- but puts it back in its box untested. And there the harmonica will stay...
WE HOLD IN BLACKNESS as THUMPING SOUNDS grow louder...
(V.O.) RED: Andy was as good as his word. He wrote two letters a week instead of one.
...and the BLACKNESS disintegrates as a wall tumbles before our eyes, revealing a WORK CREW with picks and sledgehammers, faces obscured outlaw-style with kerchiefs against the dust. Behind them are GUARDS overseeing the work.
Andy yanks his kerchief down, grinning in exhilaration. Red and the others follow suit. They step through the hole in the wall, exploring what used to be a sealed-off storage room.
(V.O.) RED: In 1959, the state Senate finally clued in to the fact they couldn't buy him off with just a 200 dollar check. Appropriations Committee voted an annual payment of 500 dollars, just to shut him up.
PRISON LIBRARY
(Red and the boys are opening boxes, pulling out books).
(V.O.) RED: You'd be amazed how far Andy could stretch it. He made deals with book clubs, charity groups...he bought remaindered books by the pound...
HEYWOOD: Treasure Island. Robert Louis...
ANDY: ...Stevenson. Fiction. Adventure. What's next?
RED: I got here an auto repair and soap carving.
ANDY: Trade skills and hobbies, those go under educational. Stack right behind you.
HEYWOOD: The Count of Monte Crisco...
FLOYD: Cristo, you dumbshit.
HEYWOOD: ...by Alexandree Dumbass. Dumbass?
(Red can't help but to laugh).
ANDY: Dumbass? (Heywood shows him the book) Dumas. You know what that's about? You'll like it . It's about a prison break.
RED: We outa file that under educational too.
WOOD SHOP
Red is making a sign, carefully routing letters into a long plank of wood. It turns out to be --
PRISON LIBRARY
-- the varnished wood sign over the archway: "Brooks Hatlen Memorial Library." TILT DOWN to reveal the library in all its completed glory: shelves lined with books, tables and chairs, even a few potted plants. Heywood is wearing headphones, listening to Hank Williams on the record player.
(V.O.) RED: The rest of us did our best t pitch in, when and where we could. By the year Kennedy was shot, Andy had transformed a broom closet smelling of turpentine into the best prison library in New England. Complete with a fine selection of Hank Williams.
SHAWSHANK PRISON -- DAY
Warden Norton addresses MEMBERS OF THE PRESS:
(V.O.) RED: That was also the year Warden Norton instituted his famous "Inside-Out" program. You may remember reading about it. It made all the papers and got his picture in LOOK magazine.
NORTON: ...no free ride, but rather a genuine, progressive advance in corrections and rehabilitation. Our inmates, properly supervised, will be put to work outside these walls performing all manner of public service. These men can learn the value of an honest day's labor while providing a valuable service to the community -- and at a bare minimum of expense to Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Taxpayer.
WOODED FIELDS
(ROAD-GANG is pulling stumps, bogged down in mud)
(V.O.) RED: 'Course, Norton failed to mention to the press that "bare minimum of expense" is a fairly loose term. There are a hundred different ways to skim off the top. Men, materials, you name it. And, oh my Lord, how the money rolled in...
(Norton strolls into view with NED GRIMES at his heels).
NED: This keeps up, you're gonna put me out of business! With this pool of slave labor you got, you can underbid any contractor in town.
NORTON: Ned, we're providing a valuable community service, here.
NED: That's fine for the papers, but I got a family to feed. Sam, Sam, we go back a long way. I need this new highway contract. I don't get it, I go under. That's a fact. (hands him a box) Now you just have some'a this fine pie my missus baked specially for you, and you think about that.
(Norton opens the box. Alongside the pie is an envelope. He runs his thumb across the thick stack of cash it contains).
NORTON: Ned, I wouldn't worry too much over this contract. Seems to me I've already got my boys committed elsewhere. You be sure and thank Maisie for this fine pie.
NORTON'S OFFICE
(V.O.) RED: And behind every shady deal, behind every dollar earned... there was Andy, keeping the books.
(Andy finishes preparing two bank deposits. Norton hovers near the desk, keeping a watchful eye).
ANDY: Two deposits, Maine National and New England First. Night drops as always, sir.
(Norton pockets the envelopes. Andy crosses to the wall safe and shoves the ledger and sundry files inside. Norton locks the safe, swings his wife's framed sampler back into place. He cocks his thumb at some laundry and two suits in the corner).
NORTON: Get my stuff down the laundry. Two suits for dry clean and a bag of what not. Tell 'em if they overstarch my shirts again, they're gonna hear about it from me. (adjusts his tie) How do I look?
ANDY: Very nice, sIr.
NORTON: Big charity to-do up Portland way. Governor's gonna be there.
ANDY: Um
NORTON: (indicates pie) Want the rest of this? Woman can't bake worth shit.
ANDY: Thanks you sir.
LIBRARY -- DAY
(Red is eating the Warden's Pie. As he helps Andy sort books on the shelves).
RED: Got his fingers in a lot of pies, from what I hear.
ANDY: What you hear isn't half. He's got scams you haven't dreamed of. Kickbacks on his kickbacks. There's a river of dirty money flowing through this place.
RED: Problem with having all that money is sooner or later you gotta explain where it came from.
ANDY: That's where I come in. I channel it, filter it, funnel it ...stocks, securities, tax free municipals... I send that money out into the real world. And when it comes back...
RED: It's clean as a virgin's honey powder?
ANDY: Cleaner. By the time Norton retires, I will have made him a millionaire.
RED: They ever catch on, he's gonna wind up wearing a number himself.
ANDY: (smiles) Now Red, I thought you had more faith in me than that.
RED: I know your good, Andy, but all that paper leaves a trail. Anybody gets too curious -- FBI, IRS, whatever -- It's gonna lead to somebody.
ANDY: Sure it is. But not to me, and certainly not to the warden.
RED: Alright who?
ANDY: Randel Stevens.
RED: Who?
ANDY: The silent, silent partner. He's the guilty one, your Honor. The man with the bank accounts. That's where the filtering process starts. They trace anything, it's just gonna lead to him.
RED: Who is he?
ANDY: A phantom. An apparition. Second cousin to Harvey the Rabbit. I conjured him out of thin air. He doesn't exist...except on paper.
RED: Andy, You can't just make a person up. ANDY: Sure you can, if you know how the system works, and where the cracks are. It's amazing what you can accomplish by mail. Mr. Stevens has a birth certificate, driver's license, social security number. They ever track those accounts, they'll wind up chasing a figment of my imagination. RED: I'll be damned. Did I say you were good? You're Rembrandt.

ANDY: It's funny. On the outside, I was an honest man. Straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook.
PRISON YARD -- DUSK
RED: Does it ever bother you?
ANDY: I don't run the scams, Red, I just process the profits. That's a fine line, maybe. But I've also built that library, and used it to help a dozen guys get their high school diplomas. Why do you think the warden lets me do all that?
RED: To keep you happy and doing the laundry. Money instead of sheets.
ANDY: I work cheap. That's the trade-off.
(TWO SIREN BLASTS draw their attention to the main gate. It swings open, revealing a prison bus waiting outside).