Goofs

A friend of the warden bribes him with a pie made by his wife which was baked in a disposable aluminum pan. The warden later gives the pie to Andy, who shares it with Red. While Red's eating it, the pan is now made of strong metal.

When Red and Andy meet for the first time, an extra is seen behind each of them. It is the same scene but as the lines were filmed at different times, the extra is wearing different shirts - one prisoner shirt the day that Red's lines were shot, and a different shirt behind Andy the day his lines were filmed.

When they're tossing the cells, Hadley knocks over the small stone-works Andy has made. The bishop is alternately standing up/knocked over between shots.

At one point, one can clearly see Andy aging - his hair becomes more gray - but a few minutes later, there is less gray and he looks younger again.

When Andy is assigned to the prison library, Brooks tells him he'll give him a tour. As he says this, Brooks is standing in the doorway to the library. The room is very dimly lit. But when Brooks and Andy walk in seconds later, it is full of sunlight.

At 1:27:56 minutes, Andy Dufresne is obviously a very intelligent man, and fond of playing chess in his prison cell. However the improper backwards set up of the chess board is obvious. Unfortunately the chess board was incorrectly set up, so that the bottom-right square is black.

Unfortunately as a consequence, the black queen and king plus the white queen and king are all on the wrong starting squares. No one ever plays the game of chess with the bottom-right square as black, because then all the kings and queens would then be incorrectly placed on the wrong color starting squares. How to set up the pieces on a chess board: First set up the board so that the bottom-right square is white . . . Place a rook on each of your two corners . . . Place the knights next to the rooks . . . Place the bishops to the inside of the knights . . . Place the queen on the remaining, matching-color square . . .

In the scene where Andy is crawling through the sewage pipe, Red, in his narration says that he crawled through 500 yards to the end of the pipe. He then says that is "almost a half mile". A mile in yardage is 1760 yards so it would not be "just shy of a half mile", it would be between a third of a mile and a quarter of a mile not "just shy of a half mile".

While both the federal government and the state of Maine had Estate Taxes in 1947, neither had an Inheritance Tax. This means the money Captain Hadley inherited from his brother's estate would have come to him free of any tax burden.

There is a typo in the credits of the film. The title for "Additional ADR Recordists" is misspelled as "Aditional ADR Recordists".

Sewage pipes are traditionally made of iron. A simple rock like the one Andy used would have to be very strong, plus the opposite force of the rock towards Andy's hand would most likely injure it.

It has been previously noted that after Brooks delivers Andy's rock hammer, he continues pushing his cart past Andy's cell. But Andy's is the last cell on that tier... so Brooks might have had nowhere to go.

In fact, there is a walkway at the end of the row that crosses to the other side of the cell block. It is visible several times throughout the movie.

Andy may well have been crawling through unspeakable filth in that pipe, but the deadly danger came from the Hydrogen sulfide, a toxic gas, given off by bacteria in sewerage. This gas is impossible to breathe, unconsciousness quickly follows and then death. Andy could never have survived a crawl through "five football fields" of such toxic gas to freedom. Andy busted a hole to get out and the other end was open. Therefore the pipe could have been vented enough to provide putrid smelling but breathable atmosphere.

Andy has a poster of One Million Years B.C. (1966) nearly a year before the movie came out. This was common practice in the 1960s.

Andy Dufrense is wanted man. Yet after his escape and despite being a well-known convicted murderer, he takes no steps to alter or conceal his identity. In fact, he travels around the various banks in the region looking as he always does., while withdrawing large sums of money. However, it is explained and is easily obvious, that he had the warden's suit, shirt, tie, and shoes, and had the driver license, birth certificate, and social security card of the alter ego the account was under. Also, it was clearly explained he started visiting the banks around the time the guards and warden found him missing, and if questioned, could easily state that they might be thinking of someone else. Therefore, he hatched his plan perfectly and was gone before anyone realized it might be him.

When Andy is undressing in his cell, it is revealed that the suit and tie he took from Norton are solid black. When he walks into the Maine National Bank the next morning, he is wearing a striped suit and a striped red/black tie. But this is not necessarily the first bank he entered - he could have picked up several thousand dollars from one, bought a new suit that fit him, and then gone to the bank we see.

On the newspaper front page announcing the "corruption" story, the word "indictment" is misspelled as "indictement".

If the poster of Raquel Welch was only secured at the top, then it would react to pressure changes in the tunnel as soon as it breached the wall of the utility corridor. Therefore, it would either flap or, if the bottom of the poster was secured, it would dimple. Either way, it would make noise, which undoubtedly would attract the attention of guards.

When Red is sitting in his chair in his apartment with the compass you can tell he has done the scene over and over again. When he opens the compass it does not spin. With that type of compass when it is closes it locks the compass needle in place. So when you open it it spins until it settles on North. When he opens it however it is pointing perfectly north and does not spin.

If you look at the prison buildings in the background of most outdoor shots, you'll notice many of the panes of glass are missing. It's most obvious when Andy is being dangled from the roof of the number plate factory and again in the scene where the prisoners are in the yard listening to the opera music.

The poster in Andy's cell is apparently fastened securely following his escape, as evidenced when the warden throws a rock through it. Unless Andy had an accomplice (and there is no indication that he did) the poster could not have been been securely placed back over the hole while he was inside the tunnel.

Circa 1963, Heywood is shown listening to the record "24 of Hank Williams' Greatest Hits", released in 1970.

When Tommy goes out into the yard to talk to Warden Norton, Warden Norton offers him a cigarette. The pack of Marlboros that he offers him has Marlboro Miles on them, which weren't around until the 1990s.

Federal income taxes were due on March 15th in the 1940s, not April 15th as they are today.

When they are on the roof during the tar job, in either 1949 or 1950, Andy tells Hadley that the IRS allows a gift to a spouse tax free. At that time, the Internal Revenue Service was known as the Bureau of Internal Revenue. It did not become known as the IRS until the 1950s.

The stamp used by the parole officers in 1947 prints in the Helvetica font, which was not invented until 1957.

Towards the beginning of the film, during a beautiful aerial shot of the bus entering Shawshank Prison, the camera flies over the buildings, where we see the prisoners on their way to "greet" in the new inmates. As the camera circles around, at the top of the frame, in an area of green grass, near a building, the shadow of the camera's helicopter is clearly visible.

Though Shawshank Prison is supposedly in Maine, not a single character speaks with a New England accent.

Coming from Portland, Maine, Andy would more likely have crossed the border at Brownsville, Texas, 2,293 miles, instead of Fort Hancock, Texas, 2,449 miles away. Brownsville is also a significantly shorter drive of 826 miles, instead of Fort Hancock, Texas, 1,263 miles, to Zihuatanejo. Overall, both Andy and Red had to travel an additional 593 miles to get their Pacific destination.

Norton and Hadley are apparently surprised by the arrival of the police at the prison. However, they wouldn't have been arrested (and the article in the newspaper wouldn't have been published) simply on an anonymous letter and some evidence. There would have been an investigation first, which would have tipped them off.

Andy is obviously intelligent and a quick thinker. He therefore should have been able to reason that Warden Norton would not have supported his attempt to have Tommy testify in his favor, in order to commute his sentence, due to the illegal activity that Andy was performing for him. It would have made more sense for Andy to contact a lawyer outside of the prison.

When the warden says the roof of the license plate factory needs resurfacing, the Boom Mic can be seen reflected from the left side of both eyes of his glasses.

Captain Hadley said his brother left him $35,000 in 1949, and said after taxes it would be "enough to buy a car". Adjusted for inflation, that would be almost $352,000 in 2015. The average price of a car during that time period was approximately $1,650.

In the original scene where Andy is switching the books and shoes he hands the warden the deposit slips and says, "three deposits, Sir". When Red is retelling the story and the scene is repeated Andy says, "three deposits tonight."

When Red describes the escape, he says that they found "... an old rock hammer, damn near worn down to the nub." But in the snapshot where an officer holds up the hammer they found, it doesn't look worn down much, certainly not near down to the nub.