Μύ After the slow-burning success of The Shawshank Redemption, writer/director Frank Darabont optioned another Stephen King prison yarn. A supernatural subplot meant The Green Mile wasn't quite as convincing and it clocked in at a "bum-numbing" three hours. Still, the appeal of Tom Hanks and a cute little mouse was enough to put a blockbusting amount of bums on seats.
In Lockdown
The movie takes up two discs, but Darabont shows no signs of exhaustion in his commentary. He dispenses plenty of behind-the-scenes trivia and some of it is alarming, eg Hanks was almost killed while driving a Model T Ford with a severed brake-line. We're assured this was a naturally occurring fault - or maybe his fellow actors were fed up of Tom hogging all the Oscar gold?
Those suspicions are quickly dashed in Acting On The Mile where the cast talk about the supportive atmosphere on set. We're given a glimpse of B-roll footage where Hanks plays a scene off-camera with Michael Clarke Duncan (as Coffey), just to help the young actor find the proper motivation for his big close-up.
Everyone gets to slap Stephen King on the back in another featurette (Hanks calls him, "The best storyteller around the campfire") and elsewhere Darabont talks about adapting his tome for the screen. The latter is a slightly weird insight into Darabont's creative process where he explains that he derived inspiration from his cat who was dying of cancer at the time.
Designing The Mile is a cursory look at the sets and costumes while The Magic Of The Mile reveals the secrets of key visual effects. For instance, Duncan was made to look taller by standing on apple boxes and shot against very small furniture. It turns out that Hanks did extensive makeup tests to play an older version of Paul Edgecomb (featured on disc one), but Darabont finally nixed the idea because the latex looked like latex.
The Problem With Mice
Looks were so important to Darabont that animal trainers had to breed mice for months to give Mr Jingles just the right hue. Even then they had to use baking soda to grey his fur as evidenced in The Tail Of Mr Jingles. The trainers also demonstrate how mice can be directed using scent trails and a small red tin. The rest of the cast are given the spotlight in Walking The Mile, a pedestrian 'Making Of' featurette - although it does include footage of King being strapped into 'old sparky'. He confesses, "This is like being too far inside my own head..."
Darabont gives optional commentary for raw prints of two deleted scenes. They don't add much to the story, except to amp up the melodrama of Coffey going to the electric chair. (The writer-director admits that it was "gilding the lily".) More interesting is a featurette on the teaser trailer that was produced but never shown in cinemas. It features Mr Jingles in close-up and Darabont was afraid it sent out the wrong message about the film ie "It's a big giant rat and Tom Hanks!" That controversial teaser trailer is shown in full and Duncan's teary-eyed audition tape is thrown in for good measure (again with Hanks off-screen). If you've got a lot of time on your hands, this two-disc package offers a fair diversion.
EXTRA FEATURES
