Int. Corridor - morning

T H E G R E E N M I L E

Screenplay by Frank Darabont

from the novel by Stephen King

First Draft

11/4/97

" We each owe a death, there are no exceptions..."

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A SONG BEGINS, distant as a faded memory on an old Victrola:

Once I built a railroad, made it run... Made it race against

time...Once I built a railroad, now it's done...Brother, can

you spare a dime...

Opening credit sequence

plays against footage of the Great Depression, images

haunting and sepia-toned, defining an era. The bread

lines...the soup kitchens...the dust bowl refugees heading

west with their possessions on their backs and no hope in

their eyes...the strutting gangster royalty flaunting their

bootleg riches...an entire generation of lost youth riding

the rials...the U.S. army troops raining truncheon blows on

the half-starved and forgotten veterans of World War One as

" Hooverville" is set afire in the very shadow of the nation's

capitol...

All these faces, all these lives, in a world not really so

very long ago...

EXT. FIELD - DAY(SLOW MOTION)

...where cattails sway in the sepia-toned heat. A small scrap

of fabric is snagged in the nettles, fluttering languidly...

COLOR BLEEDS SLOWLY IN as mosquitoes swarm and dragonflies

skitter, showing the fabric scrap to be pale yellow...

Suddenly, a MAN WITH A SHOTGUN comes crashing through the

cattails, wiping through frame and exiting...

...then ANOTHER MAN...and ANOTHER...armed with rifles,

plowing through the brush, exiting frame...

...and now comes KLAUS DETTERICK, a farmer one step above

shirt-tail poor, a double-barrel shotgun in the crook of his

arm. He pauses, horrified, seeing the scrap of cloth. He

pulls it loose, turns back, screaming something in anguish...

...and still more men come crashing into view, flooding by us

with dreamlike, slow-motion grace. ONE MAN is leading a team

of DOGS, trying to untangle the leads. DEPUTY ROB McGEE is

shouting for everybody to stay together...

...and under it all, we hear a sibilant, frightening whisper:

WHISPERING VOICE (V.O.)

You love your sister? You make any

noise, know what happens?

And off that horrible voice, we

CUT TO:

INT. GEORGIA PINES NURSING HOME - MORNING(PRESENT DAY)

A CLOCK RADIO spews the morning weather report, abruptly

pulling us into the present with a prediction of rain. PAUL

EDGECOMB, late 70's/early 80's, wakes to another day...

INT. PAUL'S ROOM - MORNING

Paul stands at his bathroom mirror, meticulously buttoning

his shirt. He picks up a hairbrush, starts tidying his hair...

INT. CORRIDOR - MORNING

THE OLD AND INFIRM haunt these corridors like ghosts. A WOMAN

inches along on a walker. A MAN shuffles by with a rolling

I.V. stand. The floor is a limey, institutional green.

Paul comes into view, spry for his age, murmurs an occasional

greeting.