13 Hidden Details You Never Noticed In The Green Mile

green mile Just one of those movies that’s impossible not to love. Another classic Stephen King adaptation, this film starring Tom Hanks and Michael Clarke Duncan doesn’t look at all like the kind of novel Stephen King would write (but if we say Truth be told, it seems like a lot of his best work) is writing that doesn’t fall under his traditional horror umbrella).

green mile This is a movie that has stood the test of time, a great movie that anyone can watch and enjoy over and over again.However, whether you have seen green mile Once, ten times, even a hundred times, there are undoubtedly some important details in the film that you never noticed.So here are ten tidbits green mile You may never notice, even though those details are right in front of you.

Update December 16, 2019: Added some extra fun tidbits about the Green Mile, since we couldn’t limit it to ten!

rat invasion

Fans around the world deserve credit for their incredible skill at capturing the tiniest of details in the movies they watch. But even the sharpest-eyed cinephile could be forgiven for not being able to identify the many different rats that appear in The Movie. green mile.

Mr. Clank itself is like a character in the film, but the production actually used as many as 15 different rats throughout the film, and spent months training each rat to perform the specific tricks needed for the shoot .

exotic place

Author Stephen King is undoubtedly known for his horror work, so it’s easy to forget that he actually enjoys telling stories of all kinds, including green mile.

but one thing makes green mile Even more unlike a Stephen King story, and very unusual by his standards, the story isn’t actually set in his native Maine. The film itself was shot in a dilapidated prison in Tennessee, but the story itself takes place in Louisiana.

Correctional officer uniform

John and the two guards in The Green Mile

More often than not, anachronisms in movies are just plain old mistakes, not intentional choices made by filmmakers.but green mile Even though there were no official uniforms for correctional officers at the time, their decision to make uniforms for all correctional officers was an understandable choice.

They could have made the movie a more accurate reflection of the period, but the irony is that if these characters weren’t wearing uniforms, audiences would likely have a hard time believing these characters were guards. Also, the source material does specifically mention guard uniforms, so at least they’re faithful to the book.

Percy’s flexible age

Percy in The Green Mile.

When a movie studio decides to adapt a novel for the big screen, the production staff usually makes tweaks and allowances to the source material to make the adaptation better, or at least easier.

However, the character of Percy in the books is 21 years old, and actor Doug Hutchison was almost twice that age when he played the character. Hutchison was 39 at the time of filming, but he lied to Frank Darabont about his age, saying he was in his early 30s. Ultimately he’s perfect in the role, so making Percy a little older is a small price to pay for one of the creepiest performances ever made.

Commitment to the role

Sam Rockwell as Wild Bill in 'The Green Mile'

Sam Rockwell is a talented, chameleon-like actor who seems very committed to playing his character as convincingly and authentically as possible.exist green mile Rockwell plays the wild Bill Walton, whose character seems to be severely affected by severe acne.

To stay as true to the character as possible, when Sam was faced with shooting a nude scene in the film, he went so far as to ask the film’s makeup team to smear pimples and acne marks all over his body to really sell his image. appearance.

michael clarke duncan momentum

Michael Clarke Duncan on the verge of crying in 'The Green Mile'

John Coffey should obviously be an absolute man, and Michael Clarke Duncan is a very good choice for that particular requirement (not to mention he just kills the character overall).

Despite his natural size, the film had to use a lot of creative angles to make him appear to be much larger than any other actor on screen. Duncan appears burly compared to other actors of average stature, but for the likes of David Morse (6ft 4in) and James Cromwell (6ft 6in, actually an inch taller than Michael) actor, they had to work hard to make him look a lot bigger.

unusual props for john coffey

So, in the same spirit, filmmaking isn’t just about using some creative cinematic tricks to make John Coffey look like the biggest guy ever compared to the rest of the cast. To really sell his size, they even made smaller versions of some typical props to make the already huge Michael Clarke Duncan look even bigger.

They shrunk his prison bed down to make him look bigger, and they even swapped out the electric chair that’s used for most of the movie for a smaller version when John comes up to bat.

old shiny anachronisms

As far as movie props and plot devices go, it’s hard to find a bigger one than the Electric Chair, affectionately known as “Old Spark.” green mile. Undoubtedly one of the most gruesome forms of capital punishment ever used in modern times, it’s no surprise that King chose it as his method of execution.

However, green mile The story takes place in 1935 in Louisiana, a state that did not use the electric chair to carry out executions until 1940. Before that, they hanged prisoners on death row.

fasten your seatbelt

sam rockwell in the green mile

Making historical movies is always a tricky business, because on the one hand everyone likes to see something that looks historical, but on the other hand, if the general audience can follow and believe the story more easily, see to something they are familiar with.

This anachronism is far from the most egregious in the world, but it’s still a historical mistake.exist green mile The straitjackets used on prisoners are described as having buckles, but buckles were not introduced into straitjackets until the 1980s. Before that, they were all laced.

unusually annoying

Doug Hutchison as Percy in The Green Mile

Sometimes the small details in the film work so well because they’re all part of a larger plan, but in other cases things seem to come together more by accident.

Apparently, when the actors were in costume for the shoot, director Frank Darabont realized that Doug Hutchison was wearing the squeaky shoes Darabont had ever heard. Darabont thought it was an apt representation of the excruciating and irritating character of Percy, so he decided to keep the squeaky shoes. As a result of this decision, Percy’s shoes squeak are occasionally heard throughout the film.

We all know that movies are dramatized versions of reality, and let’s be honest, if many things were depicted in a realistic way, they wouldn’t have the same visual or emotional impact on the viewer.This does seem to apply to the reality of electrocution versus other deaths green mile Appears to be executed by electric chair.

When the death row prisoners were actually executed by old Spark, their reaction was very violent screaming and convulsions, but in fact, when they were executed by electricity, their whole body’s muscles contracted, and they couldn’t even open their mouths.

weapons inspection

green mile Doesn’t seem to describe prison guard standard operating procedures very well. Not only will they not be wearing the uniforms we see in the movie, but they won’t be armed while inside the prison.

Obviously, the police and many other law enforcement officers carry weapons, but prison officers do not, because the risk to prison inmates of obtaining a gun is too high. At best, prison guards may carry weapons outside the prison, but when they are inside and near prisoners, they usually carry non-lethal weapons.

Prison without segregation?

Tom Hanks, The Green Mile

You’d think that allowing black prisoners to live with white prisoners wouldn’t be too much of a requirement if prisoners were indeed going to be executed by the U.S. government, but even that would have been too much for the Louisiana prison system in 1930.

Obviously, this is something any fan would consider out of place. green mile Happy to overlook, as the mix of black and white characters actually really adds to the story. While we all know America’s dark history with regards to race, it remains a shame that Louisiana in the early 20th century failed to become the bastion of racial equality that the American South is today.

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