Cool Hand Luke  

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Cool Hand Luke is a 1967 American prison drama film directed by Stuart Rosenberg, starring Paul Newman and featuring George Kennedy in an Oscar-winning performance. Newman stars in the title role as Luke, a prisoner in a Florida prison camp who refuses to submit to the system.

The film, set in the early 1950s, is based on Donn Pearce's 1965 novel of the same name. Pearce sold the story to Warner Bros., who then hired him to write the script. Due to Pearce's lack of film experience, the studio added Frank Pierson to rework the screenplay. Newman's biographer Marie Edelman Borden states that the "tough, honest" script drew together threads from earlier movies, especially Hombre, Newman's earlier film of 1967. The film has been cited by Roger Ebert as an anti-establishment film which was shot during the time of the Vietnam War, in which Newman's character endures "physical punishment, psychological cruelty, hopelessness and equal parts of sadism and masochism." His influence on his prison mates and the torture that he endures is compared to that of Jesus, and Christian symbolism is used throughout the film, culminating in a photograph superimposed over crossroads at the end of the film in comparison to the crucifixion. Filming took place on the San Joaquin River Delta, and the set, imitating a southern prison farm, was built in Stockton, California. The filmmakers sent a crew to Tavares Road Prison in Tavares, Florida, to take photographs and measurements.

Upon its release, Cool Hand Luke received favorable reviews and became a box-office success. The film cemented Newman's status as one of the era's top box-office actors, while the film was described as the "touchstone of an era." Newman was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, George Kennedy won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Pearce and Pierson were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and the score by Lalo Schifrin was also nominated for the Best Original Score. In 2005, the United States Library of Congress selected it for the National Film Registry, considering it to be "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." It has a 100% rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. The quotation used by the prison warden (Strother Martin) in the film, which begins with "What we've got here is failure to communicate," was listed at No. 11 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 most memorable movie lines.

Contents

Plot

Decorated war veteran Lucas "Luke" Jackson (Paul Newman), is arrested for cutting the "heads" off parking meters (cutting the meters off their poles) one drunken night. He is sentenced to two years in prison and sent to a Florida chain gang prison run by a stern warden, the Captain (Strother Martin), and a stoic rifleman, Walking Boss Godfrey (Morgan Woodward), whose eyes are always covered by a pair of mirrored sunglasses. Carr (Clifton James) the floorwalker, tells the rules to the new set of prisoners, with any violations resulting in spending the night in "the box," a small square room with limited air and very little room to move.

Luke refuses to observe the established pecking order among the prisoners and quickly runs afoul of the prisoners' leader, Dragline (George Kennedy). When the pair have a boxing match, the prisoners and guards watch with interest. Although Luke is severely outmatched by his larger opponent, he refuses to acquiesce. Eventually, Dragline refuses to continue the fight. Luke's tenacity earns the prisoners' respect and draws the attention of the guards. Later, Luke wins a poker game by bluffing with a hand worth nothing. Luke comments that "sometimes, nothing can be a real cool hand", prompting Dragline to nickname him "Cool Hand Luke".

thumb|left|Luke and the chain gang finish paving the road|270px After a visit from his sick mother, Arletta (Jo Van Fleet), Luke becomes more optimistic about his situation. He continually confronts the Captain and the guards, and his sense of humor and independence prove to be both contagious and inspiring to the other prisoners. Luke's struggle for supremacy peaks when he leads a work crew in a seemingly impossible but successful effort to complete a road-paving job in less than one day. The other prisoners start to idolize him after he makes and wins a spur-of-the moment bet that he can eat fifty hard-boiled eggs in one hour.

One day, Luke picks up a deadly rattlesnake from the grassy ditch and holds it up for Boss Godfrey to shoot with his rifle. Luke tosses the snake to the boss as a joke, before he hands him his walking cane. Dragline advises Luke to be more careful about his actions pertaining to the "man with no eyes." A rainstorm causes everyone to prematurely end their work. Before he joins the other prisoners in the truck, Luke shouts to God, testing him. On that same evening, Luke receives a letter stating that his mother has died.

After news of his mother's death reaches Luke, the Captain, anticipating that Luke might attempt to escape in order to attend his mother's funeral, has him locked in the prison punishment box. After being released from the box, receiving word that his mother's burial is completed and being told to forget about her, Luke is determined to escape. Under the cover of a Fourth of July celebration, he makes his initial escape attempt. He is later recaptured by local police and returned to the chain gang, but not before one of the bloodhounds sent after him dies from strain caused by struggling through barbed-wire fences. After his capture and return, the Captain has Luke fitted with leg-irons and delivers a warning speech to the other inmates, explaining, "What we've got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it. I don't like it any more than you men."

A short time later, Luke escapes again by using string to shake a bush and distract the guards, visiting a nearby house where he uses an axe to remove his shackles. To keep the guard dogs from following his scent, he spreads curry powder and chili powder across the ground to send them into sneezing fits and overload their sensitive sense of smell. While free, Luke mails Dragline a magazine that includes a photograph of him with two beautiful women. He is soon recaptured, beaten, returned to the prison camp, and fitted with two sets of leg irons. Luke is warned by the Captain that if he ever attempts to escape again, he will be killed on the spot. Luke is now annoyed by the other prisoners fawning over the magazine photo and reveals it to be a fake. At first, the other prisoners are angry, but after a long stay in the box, when Luke is forced to eat a huge serving of rice, they come to help him finish it.

As punishment for his escape, he is forced to repeatedly dig a grave-sized hole in the prison camp yard, fill it back in, and then be beaten. The prisoners observe his persecution, singing spirituals. Finally, as the other prisoners watch from the windows of the bunkhouse, an exhausted Luke collapses in the hole, begging God for mercy and pleads with the bosses not to hit him again. Believing Luke is finally broken, the Captain stops the punishment. Boss Paul warns Luke that he will be killed if ever he runs away again, which Luke promises in tears not to do. The prisoners begin to lose their idealized image of Luke, and one tears up the photograph of Luke with the women.

thumb|250px|Luke defies the authorities for the last time Seemingly broken, and again working on the chain gang, Luke stops working to give water to a prisoner. Watched by the disappointed prisoners, he runs to one of the trucks to take Boss Godfrey's rifle to him. After Boss Godfrey shoots a snapping turtle, Luke retrieves it from a slough for him, complimenting the boss for his shot. Luke takes one last stab at freedom when he is ordered to take the turtle to the truck. He steals the dump truck, as well as the keys to the other trucks. In the excitement of the moment, Dragline jumps in the dump truck and joins Luke in his escape. Later, after abandoning the truck, Luke tells Dragline that they should part ways. Dragline agrees and leaves. Luke enters a church, where he talks to God and blames Him for sabotaging him so he cannot win in life. Moments later, police cars arrive. Dragline walks in and tells Luke that the police and bosses have promised not to hurt Luke if he surrenders peacefully. But Luke, feeling that his life is no longer worth living, walks to a window facing the police and mocks the Captain by repeating the first part of his speech ("What we've got here is a failure to communicate."). He is immediately shot in the neck by Boss Godfrey. Dragline carries Luke outside, then charges at Boss Godfrey and attempts to strangle him until he is beaten and subdued by the other guards. In tears, Dragline implores Luke to live. The local police want to take Luke to a nearby hospital, but the Captain tells them to take him to the prison hospital instead, a long enough distance that Luke's chances of survival are slim. As the captain's car drives away, it crushes Boss Godfrey's glasses. After Luke's implied death, Dragline and the other prisoners reminisce about him. In the final scene, the prison crew is seen working near a rural intersection close to where Luke was shot. Dragline is now wearing leg irons, and there is a new Walking Boss. As the camera zooms out, the torn photograph of Luke grinning with the two women is superimposed on a bird's eye view of the cross-shaped road junction.

Cast

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Production

Script

Pearce, a merchant seaman who later became a counterfeiter and safe cracker, wrote the novel Cool Hand Luke, about his experiences working on a chain gang while serving in a Florida prison. He sold the story to Warner Bros. for US$80,000 and received another US$15,000 to write the screenplay.Template:Sfn After working in television for over a decade, Rosenberg chose it to make it his directorial debut in cinema. He took the idea to Jalem Productions, owned by Jack Lemmon.Template:Sfn Since Pearce had no experience writing screenplays, his draft was reworked by Frank Pierson. Conrad Hall was hired as the cinematographer,Template:Sfn while Paul Newman's brother, Arthur, was hired as the unit production manager.Template:Sfn Newman's biographer Marie Edelman Borden states that the "tough, honest" script drew together threads from earlier movies, especially Hombre, Newman's earlier film of 1967.Template:Sfn Director Stuart Rosenberg altered the original ending in the script, adding "an upbeat ending that would reprise the protagonist's (and Paul Newman's) trademark smile."Template:Sfn

Casting

Paul Newman's character, Luke, is a decorated war veteran who is sentenced to serve two years in a Florida rural prison. He constantly defies the authorities of the facility, becoming a leader among the prisoners, as well as escaping multiple times.Template:Sfn While the script was being developed, the leading role was initially considered for Jack Lemmon or Telly Savalas. Newman asked to play the leading role after hearing about the project. In order to develop his character, he traveled to West Virginia, where he recorded local accents and surveyed people's behavior.Template:Sfn George Kennedy turned in an Academy Award-winning performance as the leader of the prisoners, Dragline, who fights Luke, and comes to respect him.Template:Sfn During the nomination process, worried about the box office success of Camelot and Bonnie and Clyde, Kennedy invested US$5,000 in trade advertising to promote himself. Kennedy later stated that thanks to the award his salary was "multiplied by ten the minute (he) won," also adding "the happiest part was that I didn't have to play only villains anymore."Template:Sfn

Strother Martin, known for his appearances in westerns,Template:Sfn was cast as the Captain, a prison warden who is depicted as a cruel and insensitive leader, severely punishing Luke for his escapes.Template:Sfn The role of Luke's dying mother, Arletta, who visits him in prison, was passed to Jo Van Fleet after it was rejected by Bette Davis.Template:Sfn Morgan Woodward was cast as Boss Godfrey, a laconic, cruel and remorseless prison officer who Woodward described as a "walking Mephistopheles."Template:Sfn He was dubbed "the man with no eyes" by the inmates for his mirrored sunglasses.Template:Sfn The blonde Joy Harmon was cast for the scene where she teases the prisoners in washing her car after her manager, Leon Lance, contacted the producers. She auditioned in front of Rosenberg and Newman wearing a bikini, without speaking.Template:Sfn

Filming

Filming took place on the San Joaquin River Delta.Template:Sfn The set, imitating a southern prison farm, was built in Stockton, California.Template:Sfn The filmmakers sent a crew to Tavares Road Prison in Tavares, Florida to take photographs and measurements, where Pearce had served his time.Template:Sfn The structures that were built in Stockton included barracks, a mess hall, the warden's quarters, a guard shack and dog kennels. The trees on the set were decorated with spanish moss that the producers took to the area.Template:Sfn The construction soon attracted the attention of a county building inspector who confused it with migrant worker housing and ordered it "condemned for code violations."Template:Sfn The opening scene where Newman cuts the parking meters was filmed in Lodi, California.Template:Sfn Meanwhile, the scene in which Luke is chased by bloodhounds and other exteriors were shot in Jacksonville, Florida, at Callahan Road Prison. Luke was played by a stunt actor, using dogs from the Florida Department of Corrections.Template:Sfn

Rosenberg wanted the cast to internalize life on a chain gang and banned the presence of wives on set. After Joy Harmon arrived on location, she remained for two days in her hotel room, and wasn't seen by the rest of the cast until shooting commenced.Template:Sfn Despite the directors' intentions, the scene was ultimately filmed separately.Template:Sfn Rosenberg instructed an unaware Harmon of the different movements and expressions he wanted.Template:Sfn Originally planned to be shot in half a day, Harmon's scene took three. For the part of the scene featuring the chain gang, Rosenberg substituted a teenage cheerleader, who wore an overcoat.Template:Sfn

Soundtrack

Template:Main article The Academy Award nominated original score was composed by Lalo Schifrin, who created tunes with a background in popular music and jazz.Template:Sfn While some of the tracks include the use of guitars, banjos and harmonicas, others include trumpets, violins, flutes and piano.Template:Sfn

An edited version of the musical cue from the Tar Sequence (where the inmates are energetically paving the road) has been used for years as the theme music for local television stations' news programs around the world, mostly those owned and operated by ABC in the United States. Although the music was written for the film, it became more familiar for its association with television news, in part because its staccato melody resembles the sound of a telegraph.Template:Sfn

Themes

Christian imagery

Pierson included in his draft explicit religious symbolism.Template:Sfn The film contains several elements based on Christian themes, including the concept of Luke as a Saint who wins over the crowds and is ultimately sacrificed.Template:Sfn Newman's character of Luke is portrayed as a "Jesus-like redeemer figure."Template:Sfn After winning the egg-eating bet, Luke lies exhausted on the table in the position of Jesus as depicted on his crucifixion. After learning about the death of his mother, Luke sings "Plastic Jesus."Template:Sfn Greg Garrett also compares Luke to Jesus, in that like Jesus, he was not physically threatening to society because of his actions, and like Jesus' crucifixion, his punishment was "out of all proportion."Template:Sfn

Luke challenges God during the rainstorm on the road, telling him to do anything to him. Later, while he is digging and filling trenches and confronted by the guards, an inmate performs the spiritual "No Grave Gonna Keep my Body Down."Template:Sfn Toward the end of the film, Luke speaks to God, evoking the conversation between God and Jesus at the Garden of Gethsemane, depicted in the Gospel of Luke.Template:Sfn Following Luke's talk, the film depicts Dragline as a Judas, who delivers Luke to the authorities, trying to convince him to surrender.Template:Sfn In the final scene, Dragline eulogizes Luke. He explains that despite Luke's death, his actions succeeded in defeating the system.Template:Sfn The closing shot shows inmates working on crossroads with the repaired photo of Luke and the two women superimposed.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Use of traffic signs and signals

Different traffic signs are used throughout the film, complementing the actions of the characters during the scenes. At the beginning, while Luke cuts the heads off the parking meters, the word "Violation" appears. Stop signs are also seen. Instances include the road-paving scene and the last scene, where the road meets at a cross section. Traffic lights turn from green to red in the background at the time Luke is arrested, while at the end, when he is fatally wounded, a green light in the background turns to red.Template:Sfn




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Cool Hand Luke" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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