Cool Hand Luke (1967)

Director:

Stuart Rosenberg

Writers:

Donn Pearce (screenplay) and
Frank Pierson (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

1 November 1967 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Tagline:

"What we've got here is failure to communicate."

Plot:

A man refuses to conform to life in a rural prison.

Plot Keywords:

Prison | Prisoner | Escape | Authority | Chain

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 4 wins & 6 nominations

Cast

Paul Newman	...	Luke
George Kennedy	...	Dragline
J.D. Cannon	...	Society Red
Lou Antonio	...	Koko
Robert Drivas	...	Loudmouth Steve
Strother Martin	...	Captain
Jo Van Fleet	...	Arletta
Clifton James	...	Carr
Morgan Woodward	...	Boss Godfrey
Luke Askew	...	Boss Paul
Marc Cavell	...	Rabbitt
Richard Davalos	...	Blind Dick
Robert Donner	...	Boss Shorty
Warren Finnerty	...	Tattoo
Dennis Hopper	...	Babalugats

Runtime:

126 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Norway:16 | Canada:A (Nova Scotia) | Australia:M | Spain:7 | Portugal:M/12 | USA:Approved (certificate #21450) | Sweden:15 | France:-12 | New Zealand:PG | Finland:K-16 | Ireland:15 | UK:15 | Singapore:PG | USA:GP (re-rating) (1970)

Filming Locations:

Jacksonville, Florida, USA

Company:

Jalem Productions

Trivia:

The music cue where Luke gets the men to work faster on the road was used later for many years by many ABC television stations as their "Eyewitness News" theme.

Goofs:

Continuity: After Luke cuts his chains with the axe, he ties the chains to his ankles with a strip off his trousers. He ties his left ankle but not his right, yet as he gets up and runs away both are tied on.

Quotes:

Arletta: Why, we always thought you was strong enough to carry it. Was we wrong?
Luke: I don't know. Well, things are just never the way they seem, Arletta, you know that. A man's just gotta go his own way.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Kyle XY: Lockdown (#2.12)" (2007)

Soundtrack:

Just a Closer Walk With Thee

a classic anti-hero and a near-great Hollywood prison movie of the 1960s

I read another comment on here that said that this and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest are two films which are pretty much identical. While I was watching Cool Hand Luke I did recollect the other classic (to me still much more extraordinary) guys-locked-up movie Cuckoo's Nest, as it did have its hero knocking an authority as tough as a ton on bricks. But there's a big difference between the two films- in Cuckoo's Nest, you had in Nicholson a rebel-rouser who didn't mind getting some real words across to people with his plight, and the people he was locked up with are actually, to a basic degree, sane. Newman is, much as the title suggests, 'cool', as he really doesn't have that much dialog for most of the picture, and the system he's bucking isn't supposed to be "helping" him and the people he's with. They're there on the chain gang to bust ass and do the work that nobody in their right mind would do unless pointed by a gun to do so. Though on the other hand, this dynamic from Newman, amid a very good prison movie, still makes Cool Hand Luke quite memorable for its ways of bucking the system.

It's also by turns an often funny movie, with the centerpiece of the 50 egg bet being one that is just sheerly, unabashedly entertaining. And it's the kind of scene that does almost remind someone of that scene in Cuckoo's Nest where they all get riled up during the 'baseball game' on TV. But sometimes the filmmakers doing Cool Hand Luke do perhaps push a wee bit much allegory on such a simple set of events, less a story, than necessary. At the end of the 50 egg sequence, Newman is basically laid out on the table- and I'm sure it's meant to be intentional- in the form of Christ. This is played up for a lot of the rest of the film, as it's perhaps really intuited that he's suffering for the other prisoner's sins, and may even perhaps someday die for it all. This side ends up becoming a little preachy, even if its meant to be subtle, which I don't think it is, and it detracts from the greater pleasures of watching a picture like this.

Because really, aside from the allegory, this is just good old prison picture, and one that pushes the boundaries of the prisoner-escape angle, such as that Newman's Luke escapes for the whole second half of the movie! It's also kind of bittersweet that the filmmakers decide not to show how Newman gets captured, but leaves it at first on the prisoners- who after getting beaten up by Oscar winning George Kennedy's rily character, and getting them to fix a road like its some competition- and then just suddenly he's caught again. At one point this even leads to the now classic line, once sampled in a Guns n Roses song, "what we've got here is failure to communicate" by the always great character actor Strother Martin. Though if you're not really looking for message or allegory, it's also just a really neat 'guy' movie, in the best sense of the word, with scenes like the torturous girl-washes-car-in-front-of-chain-gang scene, and of course ones that just show them acting like real guys. It's populated by a plethora of acting talent, with Kennedy, Dennis Hopper, Luke Askew, and even a guitar strumming/singing Harry Dean Stanton! (Which is a hoot if you've seen as mant Stanton films as me).

And then finally there's Newman himself, definitely in one of his seminal roles even if it's not a full-on total masterwork. Here he actually does create a character out of someone who is really sort of a nobody with no real aims. He doesn't even know what do to when he breaks out of prison, even as he gets as far as Chicago. "I never planned anything in my life", he says at one point. That the character only has maybe 15 lines in the film isn't a problem for Newman either. He makes such a thin character, ultimately, likable and strong, and fulfills such an anti-hero very believably, especially when he's most needed to put up his acting chops towards the end of the picture. Even if you're not too much into prison movies- and this one does have in it the kind of spirit that speaks back to the films of the 30s (in a good way for the old-school fans)- it's worth it just to see what Newman does, alongside the other actors. It also holds up pretty well decades later, which is a credit not just to Newman but to the screenwriters and director Stuart Rosenberg, probably the highlight of an otherwise journeyman filmmaker career.