How well do you remember The Shawshank Redemption?

Morgan Freeman's character, Elis Boyd Redding, was originally written as white. Harrison Ford and Robert Redford were under consideration for the role.

Someone always cries the first night, Red says. His bet is on Andy, but he loses that wager.

Director Frank Darabont wanted Morgan Freeman for Red from early on. Despite the character in the novella being white, Darabont felt only Freeman had the gravitas for the role.

Red says that every prison in America has "a con like me." He's the one who can get prisoners what they need, like cigarettes or skin magazines.

The number of bullets - four per victim - according to the prosecutor, implies cold-bloodedness. The killer took the time to reload his six-shot revolver in order to shoot the victims once more apiece.

Andy maintains his innocence throughout his trial. He intended to shoot the lovers, but couldn't, and he tossed the gun in a river -- where, unfortunately, police couldn't find it to verify his story.

Red is at first worried that Andy will use the hammer in a fight, or use to to try to tunnel out. Andy, though, says he wants it to refine rocks he finds in the yard -- he's a rockhound.

Andy says that a prisoner on a work detail feels like more of a man if he can have "a bottle of suds." The usually nasty Captain Hadley complies with this request.

Andy's wife was cheating on him with the golf pro at their country club. He allegedly shot them both. Why do fictitious rich people join country clubs, anyway? It never ends well for them.

Brown has done a lot of work in science fiction and horror films. He played an immortal hunter in the film "Highlander."

Andy works in the laundry. It's also, unfortunately, where he's first cornered and sexually assaulted by Boggs and The Sisters.

In the scene where Brooks feeds Jake the crow a maggot, the Humane Association objected to a live maggot being used. So a live one is seen on Andy's plate, but the crew had to find a dead one for the shot where Brooks feeds it to his bird.

Andy is reassigned from the laundry to the library, where he works for Brooks. The job is mostly a cover for Andy to work on the prison staff's finances.

Shawshank State Penitentiary in Maine is mentioned in several of Stephen King's books. It's part of a fictional world he's created, like William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County.

They are in a projectionist's booth, while a movie is being shown. Boggs and The Sisters beat Andy so badly that he's in the infirmary for about a month. But Hadley and another guard -- who by now find Andy useful -- get revenge by severely beating Boggs, then transferring him to another prison.

It's during the movie Gilda that Andy comes to Red and asks him to get "Rita Hayworth" into the prison. This seems like an impossible request, until we find out that the two men are discussing a poster.

Brooks believes the only way the prison board will let him stay is if he stages a violent assault on another inmate. He's afraid of life on the outside after so long in Shawshank.

Brooks is given a room at a halfway house and the job at the grocery store. Unable to adapt to his new life, Brooks soon kills himself.

After writing weekly letters for six years, Andy receives $200 and several boxes of donated books. The enclosed letter says, "We will now consider this matter closed," and requests that he stop writing them.

Andy does seem pleased about the gift. But it's not enough for his ambitious plans for the library, so he redoubles his efforts.

The credits say it was based on the "short novel by Stephen King." The film's producers might have worried that audiences wouldn't know what a novella is. (It's a work of fiction that falls between about 20,000 and 50,000 words.)

Andy locks the door to the warden's office, where the record player is, turns on the loudspeaker, and plays The Marriage of Figaro. The stunt infuriates the prison staff and earns him time in "the hole."

Williams is a cocky but likable young thief. Soon, Andy is educating him so that he can get his high-school diploma.

Tommy learned the information from a former cellmate. The man, who liked to talk, shot the pair in a botched burglary. He was gleeful that "some hotshot banker" was convicted in his place.

Andy calls the warden "obtuse" because he refuses to believe that there could be any truth to Tommy's story. Of course, Norton isn't so much being "obtuse," or unable to see the obvious, as he is unwilling to let Andy go free.

The warden arranges a private meeting with Tommy, outside the prison's front door. When Tommy affirms that he's willing to testify on Andy's behalf, Norton has Hadley shoot him from the tower. Norton isn't about to let his prized bookkeeper go.

Tommy earned a C+. A guard gives Andy the news through a narrow food slot. Andy is in the hole, being punished for his veiled threat to blackmail Norton. (At least, Norton thought it was a threat).

Andy wants to live in a town called Zihuatenejo, in Mexico. This comes out in a poignant scene between Red and Andy, sitting against the prison wall. Andy wants to open a small hotel and fix up a boat to take his guests charter fishing.

There was no Betty Grable poster. Why Andy wanted to change out his poster, we don't know. But by the time he escapes, Raquel Welch is guarding his tunnel, dressed in her iconic animal-skin bikini.

Andy was incarcerated in 1947. He makes his escape, therefore, into the world of the mid-60s; quite a change of pace.

It's a bit of a plot convenience that even though Andy is Norton's prized bookkeeper, the warden still has him shine his shoes and take his clothes down to the laundry. Not to mention that they fit well enough not to raise eyebrows.

"Randall Stephens" was the identity that Andy created to shelter Norton's ill-gotten gains. In conversation with Red, Andy makes it seem like this is for Norton's legal protection -- but it actually sets Andy up to claim the money, no questions asked.

In his last parole hearing, Red gives up on the standard platitudes; instead he talks about how he doesn't know what "rehabilitated" even means. Somehow, it does the trick, and he's released.

Andy has told Red to go to a hayfield in Buxton, and to look under a black obsidian rock. Here, Red finds cash and an invitation to join him in Mexico.

King's novella ends with Red on the road to meet Andy; the last line is, "I hope." The movie provides an unequivocal happy ending, showing the two meeting again, on the beach where Andy is rehabbing his boat.