(1999) The Green Mile

It happens that ''The Green Mile,'' written by Stephen King at great length and in multiple installments, does not truly warrant such a marathon. It boils down to a well-populated drama with a relatively simple story, one that could have been told with more economy and fewer talky bits of business around the cellblock.

There is remarkably little difference - the movie follows the book extremely closely, more so than just about any film adaption I can think of. There are a f...

'We think of this place like an intensive care ward of a hospital.' So says Paul Edgecomb, who is in charge of Death Row in a Louisiana penitentiary during the Depression. Paul (Tom Hanks) is a nice man, probably nicer than your average Louisiana Death Row guard, and his staff is competent and humane--all except for the loathsome Percy, whose aunt is married to the governor, and who could have any state job he wants, but likes it here because 'he wants to see one cook up close.' One day a new prisoner arrives. He is a gigantic black man, framed by the low-angle camera to loom over the guards and duck under doorways. This is John Coffey ('like the drink, only not spelled the same'), and he has been convicted of molesting and killing two little white girls. From the start it is clear he is not what he seems. He is afraid of the dark, for one thing. He is straightforward in shaking Paul's hand--not like a man with anything to be ashamed of.

Remembered for its long runtime, for launching Michael Clarke Duncan into stardom, and for being one of the few adaptations of his writing that Stephen King actually enjoyed, the 1999 film The Green Mile has certainly left its mark on contemporary cinema. Here are a few things you may not have known about the heartwarming and occasionally bone-chilling fantasy film.

No one was sure, when 'The Green Mile' was released 15 years ago this week (on December 10, 1999), whether lightning could strike twice in the same spot for Frank Darabont. Sure, the writer/director's first Stephen King prison drama, 1994's 'The Shawshank

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