Cool Hand Luke

film by Rosenberg [1967]

Written by Lee Pfeiffer

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Article History

Cool Hand Luke, American film drama, released in 1967, featuring Paul Newman in one of his most highly regarded performances, as a convict who refuses to kowtow to his sadistic jailers. Newman’s antihero role was especially popular amid the anti-establishment currents of the 1960s.

Sentenced to a chain gang in the South for committing a petty crime, banjo-playing nonconformist Luke Jackson (played by Newman) repeatedly defies the authority of the prison warden (Strother Martin) and befuddles the guards with a series of daring escapes. In the process, he provides inspiration and vicarious thrills for his fellow inmates. The mounting tension between Luke and his jailers, however, leads to tragedy.

As the wisecracking rebel Luke, Newman created one of the screen’s most memorable characters. He gets support from a fine cast of character actors, including George Kennedy, in an Oscar-winning role as one of the inmates who feeds off Luke’s defiance, and Martin, whose dismissal of Luke’s rebellion and resulting punishment as a “failure to communicate” is the film’s signature line of dialogue. One of the movie’s most popular scenes is an egg-eating challenge. Lalo Schifrin’s score also received high praise.