Cool Hand Luke (1967)

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Directed by Stuart Rosenberg
Screenplay by Donn Pierce and Frank Pierson
starring
Paul Newman
George Kennedy
Strother Martin
Morgan Woodward
Jo Van Fleet

Having had the advantage of reading Donn Pearce's novel about a year before seeing Cool Hand Luke, it was with great anticipation that I awaited it's transfer to the big screen. It was one of those books that could make you laugh out loud through one chapter, and make you feel depressed several chapters later. It would be a difficult task to bring such a novel to the screen intact but I was not disappointed.

Cool Hand Luke could easily have been just another prison yarn. You know the drill. A mean despicable warden and his guards spend most of their screen time beating down and torturing the inmates whenever the opportunity arises until the inmates riot and justice prevails. But Cool Hand Luke somehow manages to go beyond the type of generic prison flick that we have become accustomed to. This is due in no small part to a smart screenplay by Donn Pearce (who also penned the novel) and Frank Pierson, excellent direction by Stuart Rosenberg, and two unforgettable performances by Paul Newman as Luke Jackson and George Kennedy as Dragline.

Luke's story is the study of one man who refuses to conform to many of the rules and sometimes unnecessary regulations forced upon him by society. In prison or out, there are always rules and regulations which Luke seems to be butting heads with. It's not that he's a bad person. He simply wants to be able to be free and to live life in his own way without being boxed in. He views many of these rules as being instituted with no real purpose in mind and sometimes it seems that the only reason many of them exist is simply because somebody with a lot of free time on their hands decided it was a good idea to make another regulation.

When you were growing up, how often after questioning your parents as to why you couldn't do something, the answer was simply,"Because I said so." How often have you bumped heads with any law, rule, and regulation and said aloud, "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of." But you obey the rule anyway.

And that's how Luke pretty much sees what he is up against except he can never reconcile the notion of being cornered so that he can become the type of person society wants him to be instead of just being free to be himself.


When Lucas Jackson is arrested for cutting heads off parking meters, his explanation to the prison captain (Strother Martin) is "Small Town, not much to do in the evening", which would have us believe he was just being drunk and stupid. Later, to one of the other inmates he mutters the same answer, but importantly adds "just settlin some old scores". It is a brief but important point in helping to define the character of Luke beyond just being drunk and damaging public property. He doesn't break the rules just because he can, he does so only when there is a reason to. We never find out what the old scores he was wanting to settle were but it doesn't matter. It only matters that we know Luke wasn't out braking the law just because he could. There is always a reason or a purpose, even if its such a simple thing like correcting injustices.


As a service man, we also discover that Luke won a bronze star, silver star, two purple hearts, achieved the rank of sergeant but still came out as a buck private. Again, early evidence that Luke is willing to follow the regulations up until those regulations are deemed useless. You don't become a sergeant and win a bronze star if you don't at least try to fit in and obey the rules in some manner.

When Luke and several other inmates are settling in on their first day, Carr the Floorwalker, runs off a littany of rules as if he is reciting the Catholic Mass in Latin:

Carr: Them clothes got laundry numbers on them. You remember your number and always wear the ones that has your number. Any man forgets his number spends a night in the box. These here spoons you keep with you. Any man loses his spoon spends a night in the box. There's no playing grab-ass or fighting in the building. You got a grudge against another man, you fight him Saturday afternoon. Any man playing grab-ass or fighting in the building spends a night in the box. First bell's at five minutes of eight when you will get in your bunk. Last bell is at eight. Any man not in his bunk at eight spends the night in the box. There is no smoking in the prone position in bed. To smoke you must have both legs over the side of your bunk. Any man caught smoking in the prone position in bed... spends a night in the box. You get two sheets. Every Saturday, you put the clean sheet on the top... the top sheet on the bottom... and the bottom sheet you turn in to the laundry boy. Any man turns in the wrong sheet spends a night in the box. No one'll sit in the bunks with dirty pants on. Any man with dirty pants on sitting on the bunks spends a night in the box. Any man don't bring back his empty pop bottle spends a night in the box. Any man loud talking spends a night in the box. You got questions, you come to me. I'm Carr, the floor walker. I'm responsible for order in here. Any man don't keep order spends a night in...

Luke: ...the box.

Carr: I hope you ain't going to be a hard case.

And the box looms large in this film. It is not just a tool of punishment, it is an instrument for breaking ones spirit. For The Captain, punishment alone doesn't bring satisfaction, but breaking down the will does. This is never more evident then in his treatment of Luke.



It is clear from the beginning that Luke's main desire is to serve his two years and then get the hell out. And while he may bend and work around the rules, he never shows any intention of doing anything that will get him more time. During a visit from his mother Arletta (Jo Van Fleet), Luke tells her:

Luke: "I tried to live always free and above board like you but I can't seem to find no elbow room".

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.

When push comes to shove and Luke is boxed into a corner, he has no choice but to push back. At one point after the death of Arletta, Luke is put into the box for several days, not because he has done anything wrong, but so that he won't think about escaping to attend the funeral, something that we already know Luke had never intended to do.

It is ironic that it is the injustice of the punishment that causes Luke to finally formulate an escape plan. As he tells one guard when he is going into the box, "calling it your job don't make it right, Boss."



Of course there are the other inmates. Some of them wear chains, some of them do not. It is a something that director Stuart Rosenberg, emphasizes early and throughout the film. We understand quickly that sooner or later you conform. You either walk the line the way the bosses tell you to, or they will find the means to get you to walk the line. As the Captain reiterates, "for your own good, you'll learn the rules"





What we discover about their crimes is minuscule. One is jailed for manslaughter after hitting a pedestrian with his car, another is a paper hanger, another new inmate is charged with breaking, entering and assault. The nature of their crimes is unimportant to us. It enables us to view these prisoners as men, and while we don't feel any genuine sympathy for them, feeling disgusted by their crimes would have been a distraction from the true purpose of Pearce's story, and Luke as the focal point.

Because of his individuality, it doesn't take Luke long before he unexpectedly becomes a hero to the other inmates. It is not a role he chooses, or even wants and goes a long way in explaining his demotion from Sergeant to private. But the other men see in Luke the spirit that they have had driven out of them over days of endless road work and nights of never ending drudgery in the steaming Southern heat. It unexpectedly imposes the burden on Luke of having to live up to the expectations of others. He never truly understands the nature of this hero worship, and would be just as happy if he didn't have to deal with it. He is still trying to find his way in the world, and if there is any real purpose for his existence or any way that he can find to fit into or be the way society craves him to be.

Another principal character is Dragline(George Kennedy). It is he who finally establishes the fact that


Cool Hand Luke is a man who can not be beaten. Dragline's admiration for Luke seems to extend from the fact that he (Dragline) has learned the rules on how to get by, but yet regrets having lost some of his own individuality in the process. When he beats Luke to a bloody pulp in a boxing match and Luke refuses to fold, its almost as if Dragline has adopted Luke as a son more than anything else. He is the rest of the inmates in microcosm. I can't remember a role that George Kennedy has ever been better in, and he deservedly won the best supporting actor award for his work here.

Cool Hand Luke is not without it's humorous moments especially in the early going. It is these moments that help move the film from the early stages to the darker later stages where after a while just like Luke, we can foresee the inevitable climax. And they are hilarious whether it's the road encounter with Lucille or Luke boasting and then trying to eat fifty eggs in an hour.





In translating his novel to the screen Donn Pearce along with Frank Pierson, has managed to bring the heart and soul of his novel to the big screen. Lalo Shifrin's memorable score emphasizes often the repeated drudgery of working on the chain gang, the playfulness of the egg eating frenzy, and is used to especially great effect during the escape sequences. Director Stuart Rosenberg made more good films after Cool Hand Luke, but in my opinion never achieved the same degree of perfection that he does here.








As Cool Hand Luke, Paul Newman gives one of the most memorable performances in a long and distinguished career. It is not an easy task portraying a man who travels the road from being a sincere individualist, to a man who may be beaten and defeated, yet in the end is still unwilling to accept that fate.






Although Rod Steiger won the best actor award that year, one could argue that Newman's role was in many ways more difficult, as it required substantially different subtle ranges in character but it is the flashy performances like the one Steiger gave in In The Heat of the Night that usually are rewarded. I certainly do not mean to take anything away from Steiger's performance as Gillespie, as that film is also another of my favorites.

As for the failure of Cool Hand Luke to achieve at least a Best Picture Nomination, I'm at a loss to explain that extraordinary malfunction, especially when the likes of the totally crappy Doctor Doolittle and Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, far lesser efforts than this were nominated.

Toward the end of the film Luke is in a church and just as he did earlier during a rainstorm, he stops to talk to the man upstairs:

Anybody here? Hey, Old Man. You home tonight? Can You spare a minute. It's about time we had a little talk. I know I'm a pretty evil fellow... killed people in the war and got drunk... and chewed up municipal property and the like. I know I got no call to ask for much... but even so, You've got to admit You ain't dealt me no cards in a long time. It's beginning to look like You got things fixed so I can't never win out. Inside, outside, all of them... rules and regulations and bosses. You made me like I am. Now just where am I supposed to fit in? Old Man, I gotta tell You. I started out pretty strong and fast. But it's beginning to get to me. When does it end? What do You got in mind for me? What do I do now? Right. All right.

And moments later, when the guards and the captain show up, we instinctively know what they will never understand. It is the same thing that Dragline came to understand about Luke.

You can beat a man down until he finally capitulates, but you can never take away his soul.

Cool Hand Luke is a remarkable film, and it is one of my all time favorites. And when it comes to giving out grades to my favorites I have no choice but to give a really cool A+.

Cool Hand Luke is available from Warner Home Video on DVD and is also available through the Watch Now feature of Netflix. Please note that the version on Netflix is pan and scanned, and not wide screen.