Cool Hand Luke (1967) Cool Hand Luke (1967)

See also: _Index | Plot Structure (Cool Hand Luke) | Backbeats (Cool Hand Luke)

Quick Facts

  • Director: Stuart Rosenberg
  • Screenplay: Donn Pearce and Frank Pierson (from the 1965 novel by Donn Pearce)
  • Starring: Paul Newman (Lucas "Luke" Jackson), George Kennedy (Dragline), Strother Martin (the Captain), J.D. Cannon (Society Red), Lou Antonio (Koko), Robert Drivas (Loudmouth Steve), Jo Van Fleet (Arletta), Anthony Zerbe (Dog Boy), Morgan Woodward (Boss Godfrey, the Man With No Eyes)
  • Cinematography: Conrad L. Hall
  • Editor: Sam O'Steen
  • Music: Lalo Schifrin
  • Runtime: 127 minutes
  • Budget: approximately $3.2 million
  • US Box Office: approximately $16.2 million
  • Release Date: November 1, 1967 (US)
  • MPAA Rating: Not rated at original release; later rated GP / PG
  • Distributor: Warner Bros.-Seven Arts

Overview

A decorated WWII veteran sentenced to two years on a Florida chain gang for cutting the heads off a row of parking metersb1 b3 refuses, scene by scene, to take the institution seriously, and the institution responds by escalating until the only honest reply available to him is the one that gets him shot. Paul Newman plays Luke as a man whose defiance is not strategy but constitution — the bluff at the poker table,b10 the fifty eggs,b17 the three escapes,b22 b25 b32 and the prayer in the empty country churchb33 are all the same gesture pitched at different scales. The film is widely read as a parable of authority, faith, and the American refusal-to-fit; the closing eulogy by George Kennedy's Draglineb38 b39 canonizes Luke into the legend the surviving prisoners will tell themselves, which is exactly the form of defeat the system permits to remain.