The Green Mile

As you know, I love vintage things. I just finally saw the movie, “The Green Mile,” with Tom Hanks and wanted to write about it, since it takes place during the Great Depression. What an amazing movie! If you haven’t seen it, here is some trivia for you about the film.

–The name for the character John Coffey was lifted from a college professor, Rev. John Coffee. Stephen King had met him once and really liked his name and used it in “The Green Mile”. Reverend Coffee taught history classes at Emerson College in Boston Massachusetts. He retired in May 2005.

–Originally set in 1932, the timeframe was bumped to 1935 so the movie Top Hat (1935) could be featured.

–In actuality, Michael Clarke Duncan is of a similar height as his co-star David Morse and is a couple inches shorter than James Cromwell. Among other things, creative camera angles were used to create the illusion that Duncan as John Coffey towered over the prison staff, even Brutal Howell and Warden Moores.

–Michael Jeter (who plays Eduard Delacroix) was also in Mousehunt (1997), another film which co-starred a gifted mouse.

–At the beginning of the movie, when the old Paul Edgecomb is walking to get some breakfast after waking from that bad dream, he is walking on a tiled floor that is very green, as if it’s his Green Mile.

–The prison guards wear uniforms to give the movie a better feel, even though uniforms weren’t in use at the time in which the movie is set.

–The music played over the loudspeakers in the retirement home as Old Paul Edgecomb first walks out of his room is the same as the music the nurses played at medication time in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975). The music used is Mantovani’s Charmaine.

–Originally, Tom Hanks was going to play the Old Paul Edgecomb but the makeup tests didn’t make him look credible enough to be an elderly man. Dabbs Greer was cast instead as the older Paul Edgecomb.

–By the time Paul introduced Elaine to Mr. Jingles, the mouse would have to be at least 64 years old – over nine times the age of the oldest ever known real mouse.

–While many of Stephen King’s novels are set in the author’s native Maine, The Green Mile takes place in Louisiana. However, the surname of the main character – Edgecomb – is the name of a town on Maine’s mid-coast.

–The plot unfolds in the form of Paul telling Elaine the story of the Green Mile. In the book, Paul writes his story down in the form of a novel. At the end of the film, as Paul leaves the cemetery after Elaine’s burial, a tombstone can be seen behind him that reads “Greene”, and two others, one in the foreground and one to the right of the screen, that read “Story”.

–Doug Hutchison (Percy) was given, according to the director, the squeakiest shoes he’d ever heard. He thought this was the greatest bit of fate, and a “perfectly wonderful, annoying character trait” that he kept it in the movie, and you can hear sometimes how loud his shoes are.

–When Stephen King visited the set he asked to be strapped into Old Sparky to see how it felt. He didn’t like it and asked to be released.

–When the producers were having trouble finding the right actor to fill the role of John Coffey, Bruce Willis suggested Michael Clarke Duncan with whom he had co-starred in Armageddon (1998).

–John Travolta was offered the role of Paul Edgecomb but turned it down.

–More than 30 works of Stephen King have been adapted for movies, but this is the only one to have broken the $100 million mark at the North American box office (as of November 2007).

–Many actors in this film have previously or subsequently appeared in other Stephen King adaptations. David Morse appeared in The Langoliers (1995) (TV) and Hearts in Atlantis (2001). James Cromwell appeared in ‘Salem’s Lot (2004) (TV), which was previously made with his wife, Julie Cobb. Patricia Clarkson appeared in Carrie (2002) (TV). Jeffrey DeMunn and William Sadler appeared together in The Shawshank Redemption (1994), also directed by Frank Darabont. Harry Dean Stanton appeared in Christine (1983), and Gary Sinise appeared in “The Stand” (1994).

–When Melinda Moores (Patricia Clarkson) is visited by John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan), she gives him a St. Christopher medal. In Catholicism, St. Christopher is known as the patron saint of travelers (John Coffey describes himself as a wanderer), and, like Coffey, died a martyr.

–Michael Clarke Duncan was uncomfortable with having to grab Tom Hanks’ crotch for the scene where he takes his infection away. Hanks left the set, came back to do the scene, Duncan grabbed at Hanks’ crotch and was shocked because Hanks had put an empty water bottle in his pants. After that, Duncan felt more comfortable with the scene.