Character mistake: Red says that Andy crawled to freedom through 500 yards - 'just shy of half a mile'. 500 yards is far less than half a mile; in fact, it's less than a third of a mile. It is however just shy of half a kilometer, which may be what King was thinking of when he wrote the book.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
1 character mistake
Directed by: Frank Darabont
Starring: Morgan Freeman, Clancy Brown, Tim Robbins, William Sadler, Bob Gunton, Gil Bellows
Character mistake: Red says that Andy crawled to freedom through 500 yards - 'just shy of half a mile'. 500 yards is far less than half a mile; in fact, it's less than a third of a mile. It is however just shy of half a kilometer, which may be what King was thinking of when he wrote the book.
Red: Andy Dufresne - who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side.
Trivia: There are many references to the number 237 in the movie. For instance, this is the number of Red's cell, and these digits are on Andy's prison I.D. This number makes appearances throughout Steven King stories, the most famous one being the room where the murders take place in "The Shining".
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Chosen answer: In a nutshell, tax evasion. He's running the prison like a company doing building work with, as its described by the builder in the movie, a pool of slave labour to allow him undercut other contractors. He is skimming profit for his own pockets, along with taking bribes, etc. that Andy's creative book keeping is hiding from the IRS.