Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0684870061, Paperback)

Stephen King fans fervently awaited The Green Mile, filmmaker Frank Darabont's second movie adaptation of a King novel (the first being The Shawshank Redemption, another period piece set in prison). The Green Mile: The Screenplay reveals Darabont's deft script style despite nary a character description. The adaptation must be one of the most pure ever written; nearly every character and major scene from the novel is represented in the screenplay, often with verbatim dialogue. Both Darabont and King contribute introductions, illustrating the warm friendship between the two, and detailed film credits, drawings of two storyboarded sequences, and 20 black-and-white photos enrich the script. For those interested in witnessing how a movie changes from screenplay to final product, the shooting script version of The Shawshank Redemption makes for a far more intriguing read--and Darabont's post-production essay on the metamorphosis is fascinating. --Doug Thomas