1. Nick Carraway
   Paul Edgecomb
2. Paul Sheldon
   Marcus Wells

Paul Edgecomb was the chief guard on "The Green Mile." If the name "Paul Sheldon" is familiar, he's from another Stephen King novel-turned-film -- he's the main character in "Misery."

1. Cold Mountain Penitentiary, where the Mile is
   Briar Ridge Mental Hospital
2. a nursing home
   the Edgecomb farmhouse

The movie's "frame tale" is Paul Edgecomb telling his story to a fellow resident. (A frame tale is the beginning and end segments that "frame" the real story in a movie. Occasionally writers jump back to the frame story at several points, but most often, it's just the beginning and end -- hence the term "frame.")

1. Peter Straub
   Graham Greene
2. Stephen King
   Anne Rivers Siddons

"The Green Mile" was originally published as six retro-style serial paperbacks, then collected into one volume. Fun fact: "Graham Greene" is the name of both a writer and an actor. The actor co-starred in "The Green Mile."

1. John Coffey
   Jack Torrance
2. John Smith
   the Man in Black

Stephen King commented later that he took flack from critics for giving his saintly, doomed hero the same initials as Jesus Christ. King laughed it off, suggesting they were taking a serial novel way too seriously.

1. Arlen Bitterbuck
   Frankie Flowers
2. Gary Stone
   William Wharton

Graham Greene is an actor of First Nations lineage (the equivalent of "Native American" in the US). He plays the Cherokee inmate, Arlen Bitterbuck, leading one Green Mile guard to speculate that they'll need to bring in a native shaman for Bitterbuck's execution. (Not so: Bitterbuck is Christian, as Edgecomb explains).

1. the guard Percy Wetmore
   the prison administrator Hal Moores
2. the inmate William Wharton
   both #1 and #3

John Coffey calls these two "the bad men." Wait, they're just victims of bad upbringing and societal -- oh, never mind! We're with you on this one, John.

1. Frank Darabont
   Stephen Spielberg
2. Rob Reiner
   Zack Snyder

Darabont jokes that he has the world's smallest niche: prison movies adapted from Stephen King novels. This is because Darabont also directed "The Shawshank Redemption," which was set mostly in a Maine prison.

1. attempting to assassinate the governor
   murdering a pregnant woman
2. murdering two little white girls
   shooting a police officer in the back

The girls' names were Katie and Cora. Coffey was found holding them in his arm and weeping, saying "I tried to take it back."

1. he has an epileptic seizure
   he's immensely hungry
2. he sheds a single tear
   he exhales grayish-brown particles from his mouth

Some ideas that work well in novels can look almost comic as a CGI effect on film. This was probably the case with what we'll call, for lack of a better term, the "sickness confetti."

1. Colorado
   Louisiana
2. Maine
   Wisconsin

Stephen King rarely sets his work outside Maine, except for one ("The Shining") set in Colorado -- both states where he has lived. But for "The Green Mile," King evidently wanted to use the Southern color and racial politics that a Louisiana setting could provide.

1. 78
   87
2. 63
   108

Paul tells this to his friend Elaine, who has thought of him as decades younger (which he looks). Paul credits his incredible longevity to John Coffey's touch -- he "gave a little bit of himself" to Paul when he shared the vision of Wharton killing the two girls.

1. an ice-cream man who visits the prison
   the executioner
2. a mouse
   a nickname for the governor

When we first see the tame mouse, it's calmly approaching the guards on E Block. The younger guard, Dean, says it isn't normal for "a mouse to walk up on people like that" and suggests it's rabid, but this isn't the case.

1. to dictate a letter to his siblings
   to see a movie
2. for the guards to find Mr. Jingles
   to have a new suit for his burial

If Coffey has any siblings, this isn't revealed in the movie. Instead, he tells Paul "I've never seen a flicker show." He watches "Top Hat," with Fred Astaire, in the prison's movie theater.

1. a quiet pond
   John Coffey's grave
2. Mr. Jingles
   Brutal's grandchildren on their farm

Incredibly, the mouse is still alive. Paul credits this to John Coffey, who held him during Del's execution and passed some of his power into the mouse.

1. Edward Norton
   Tim Robbins
2. David Morse
   Alec Baldwin

The nickname "Brutal" is misleading; Howell is mild-mannered, like Edgecomb. Morse is often called on to play law-enforcement professionals and/or big, calm, voice-of-reason types.

1. Eduard Delacroix
   Percival Robicheaux
2. Ti Beau Maisonette
   Cletus Purcel

Delacroix is a colorful and good-natured prisoner. But if you've read the book, you also know he's an arsonist and a murderer.

1. Paul's
   Hal's
2. the governor of Louisiana
   the governor of Louisiana's wife

For this reason, Percy can't easily be fired. This is why the other guards have to put up with his cowardice and cruelty.

1. John Coffey
   Eduard Delacroix
2. Arlen Bitterbuck
   William Wharton

Delacroix is delighted by the mouse's exploits and its friendliness. The guards find Delacroix a cigar box and some cotton batting for Mr. Jingles to sleep in.

1. Brutal
   Dean
2. Paul
   Percy

Wharton fakes being drugged and submissive until they reach E Block, when he gets a stranglehold on Dean. This scene is mostly to show that Percy, while a sadist, is actually a coward -- he freezes and fails to hit Wharton on the head with his nightstick, though he has a clear shot. Brutal, arriving from the yard, has to do it.

1. Billy the Kid
   a rose and cross
2. a naked woman
   a devil

Wharton likes to think of himself as a 1930s Billy the Kid. He objects to the guards calling him "Wild Bill," whom he does not admire.

1. a brain tumor
   lupus
2. breast cancer
   inability to conceive

Hal confides that he's worried about Melinda early in the film. An X-ray reveals that these fears are well-founded: she has a brain tumor the size of a lemon.

1. asthma
   glaucoma
2. a summer cold
   a urinary-tract infection

An online article on "Actors Who Do the Same Thing in Every Movie" once identified urination as Tom Hanks' particular bit (note especially his first scene in "A League of Their Own.") We're sure that "every" movie is an exaggeration, but admittedly, in "The Green Mile" Hanks's first scene shows him painfully urinating in the restroom of E Block.

1. Briar Ridge Mental Hospital
   the boys' correctional facility
2. the governor's office
   Angola prison

The job Percy has applied for is administrative, with "better pay," Paul explains. Paul also believes that Percy hasn't moved on yet because he wants to see an execution up close.

1. "Everyone walks their own mile."
   "You fall in love with the Mile, but it doesn't love you back."
2. "What happens on the Mile, stays on the Mile."
   "Come for the executions, stay for the pie."

This feels a little bit out of place in a movie set in 1935. So does the phrase, "Knock yourself out," which a guard says to Percy when he wants to tear apart the restraint room looking for the mouse. But it's a rare historical movie that doesn't have at least one anachronism in its dialogue, since most screenwriters don't have a background in linguistics.

1. a grape
   a pencil
2. a marble
   a spool

What's a thread spool doing in a prison? That's one of the unsolved mysteries of "The Green Mile."

1. the guards clean his cell
   the guards rehearse his execution
2. the guards slip John Coffey out of the prison
   Wharton steals his personal possessions

From the first, the audience knows something is up. One visitor who has supposedly come from the state government to see Mr. Jingles perform is actually the prison's plumber, required to put on a tie to look the part. But Delacroix believes the ruse -- until Percy tells him otherwise.

1. Brutus Howell
   Melinda Moores
2. Eduard Delacroix
   Mr. Jingles

Percy, who has disliked the mouse since the first day he saw it, steps on Mr. Jingles and kills him just before Delacroix's execution. Coffey holds the mouse in his hands and brings it back to life.

1. he tried to make amends for something
   he tried to heal someone
2. he tried to unthink a bad thought
   this is never made clear

We learn about midway through the film that Coffey refers to healing as "taking it back," "it" being an illness or injury that passes physically into his body from the other person's. So his conviction for murder hung largely on confusion about language: When he said "I tried to take it back" about Katie and Cora, the authorities didn't understand that he meant he tried to help them.

1. that a prisoner is about to take his last walk
   that the prison is on lockdown
2. that the prison transport van is rolling out
   that the executioner should start the flow of electricity to the chair

We hear the phrases "Roll on one" and "Roll on two" several times in the movie. Three inmates are executed by the end, the last being, of course, John Coffey.

1. Brutal
   Percy
2. Hal
   a civilian witness

Percy is angry at Del for several reasons. One, his attempt to kill Mr. Jingles failed; two, Del mocked him after Percy wet himself when Wharton grabbed him through the bars. So Percy deliberately failed to soak the sponge that goes under the cap during the execution, meaning that electricity was not properly conducted to Del's brain, and his death was prolonged and painful.

1. there's been a riot
   Wharton has escaped
2. they are bringing Coffey to heal Melinda
   they mistakenly believe Melinda has died

The clandestine trip requires a lot of preparation, including drugging Wharton so be won't be a witness and locking Percy in the restraint room. These measures don't go as well as planned -- Wharton wakes up while the men are slipping out of E Block, and grabs John Coffey's arm, saying, "Where do you think you're going?"

1. coffee and pie
   her St. Christopher medal
2. her family Bible
   nothing

Melinda apparently doesn't remember anything since heading to Vicksburg to get her X-ray. Yet she recognizes Coffey when she sees him, and gives him a hug and her St. Christopher medal.

1. electrical surges
   shaking walls and furniture
2. wind and dark clouds gathering outside
   both #1 and #2

Coffey's power shakes the walls and furniture of the Moores's house when he heals Melinda. More often, power surges occur, often overloading light fixtures, which spark and die. This mirrors what happens during an execution on the Mile.

1. Arlen Bitterbuck
   William Wharton
2. a traveling preacher
   this is never made clear

This shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone -- Wharton killed three people, including a pregnant woman. Coffey learns the truth when Wharton grabs his arm. Later, by taking Paul's hand, Coffey passes his vision of the murder onto​ him.

1. he wants to die before he can be executed
   he physically can't
2. he waits to pass it into Percy
   he waits to pass it into Wharton

It's Paul's theory that Coffey wants to die of (somewhat) natural causes. But back at E Block, Coffey grabs Percy by the throat and exhales all the "sickness confetti" into his mouth, giving him Melinda's illness.

1. immediately dies
   shoots William Wharton
2. weeps and repents of his sins
   asks to be taken to the infirmary

Melinda didn't seem to be violent under the influence of her brain tumor, but it affects Percy differently. He empties his gun into Wharton and then becomes catatonic. Coffey says simply, "I punished the bad men." That's an understatement!