The Shawshank Redemption · written by Frank Darabont · 1994

Red examines the harmonica Andy gave him but cannot bring himself to play it.

Scene 122 of 249 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 1:04 into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 122

After a banker is wrongly imprisoned for murder, he uses patience, expertise, and friendship to survive Shawshank and build a path to freedom.

Scenes 1–8
Andy’s former life and conviction frame a banker whose apparent control has vanished.
Scenes 9–10
Inside prison, Andy needs a way to survive without surrendering the inner self he is trying to protect.
Scenes 11–30
Andy enters Shawshank and confronts its violence, hierarchy, and rules.
Scene 31
Andy and Red begin the friendship that will carry the film’s argument about hope and connection.
Scene 51
Andy tells Red that prisoners retain an inner life and hope, though Red warns hope can be dangerous.
Scene 112
Andy broadcasts Mozart; the whole prison experiences a brief freedom of mind, revealing what hope can still do.
Just before
Scene 119
Andy and Red reunite in the yard and wonder where the years went.
Scene 120
For their ten-year anniversary, Andy finds a note and a new poster on his bunk.
Scene 121
Marilyn Monroe’s poster replaces Rita Hayworth’s on Andy’s wall.
Scene 122
This scene

122INT -- RED'S CELL -- NIGHT (1957)

...and we find Red gazing blankly as darkness takes the cellblock. Adding up the months, weeks, days... He regards the harmonica like a man confronted with a Martian artifact.

He considers trying it out -- even holds it briefly to his lips, almost embarrassed -- but puts it back in its box untested. And there the harmonica will stay...

FADE TO BLACK

WE HOLD IN BLACKNESS as THUMPING SOUNDS grow louder...

RED (V.O.)

Andy was as good as his word. He

kept writing to the State Senate.

Two letters a week instead of one.

...and the BLACKNESS disintegrates as a wall tumbles before our eyes, revealing a WORK CREW with picks and sledgehammers, faces obscured outlaw-style with kerchiefs against the dust. Behind them are GUARDS overseeing the work. Andy yanks his kerchief down, grinning in exhilaration. Red and the others follow suit. They step through the hole in the wall, exploring what used to be a sealed-off storage room.

RED (V.O.) (CONT'D)

In 1959, the folks up Augusta way

finally clued in to the fact they

couldn't buy him off with just a

dollar check. Appropriations

Committee voted an annual payment

of dollars, just to shut him up.