Review: Cool Hand Luke

Paul Newman stars as Luke, a WWII veteran who ends up with a two year stint on a chain gang after a moment of drunken stupidity and boredom saw him decapitate a couple of parking meters. If you think two years prison is harsh, just wait until you meet the head prison ‘Boss’ (Strother Martin), who doesn’t take kindly to troublemakers, and ‘ol Luke marches to the beat of his own drum, so you know there’s gonna be issues between the two. Meanwhile, he also has a tough time getting on the good side of his fellow prisoners, who are headed by the hulking hillbilly Dragline (George Kennedy), leading to a boxing match between the two. But ultimately it’s the prison staff (Morgan Woodward, Luke Askew, Charles Tyner, and Clifton James) who don’t take kindly to Luke’s stubborn, almost arrogant refusal to play by their rules (which sees the anti-hero somewhat idolised by the other prisoners), and will do their absolute best to break him. Luke’s fellow prisoners are played by the likes of J.D. Cannon, Wayne Rogers, Harry Dean Stanton, Dennis Hopper, Joe Don Baker, and Ralph Waite. Jo Van Fleet appears briefly as Luke’s ailing, estranged mother, and Anthony Zerbe plays a sour prison trustee (In his film debut, along with Waite).

 

Like his rival Steve McQueen, Paul Newman didn’t always play the most likeable of screen characters. In fact, sometimes he rubbed me in such the wrong way that I found it hard to really get into the films (“The Hustler” and “The Verdict” spring to mind, he was just a sour jerk in those, so I’m not as high on them as other people seem to be). But as was the case with the excellent “Hud”, this 1967 prison film from Stuart Rosenberg (“The Laughing Policeman”, the underrated “Voyage of the Damned”) provides Newman with such a truly fascinating character that, likeable or not, when combined with Newman’s excellent performance, a great supporting cast, and an entertaining story, it’s hard to resist. All the stars, so to speak, were aligned and the film has become an enduringly popular classic, despite some really harrowing material.

 

Newman’s stubborn, defiant, anti-authority Luke is one of the great actor’s best-ever performances. I’ve seen Newman give the occasional poor performance over the years (“The Outrage” in particular was embarrassing), but he was a rare ‘method’ actor who didn’t seem like he really was one. You never did see the wheels turning like you did with Marlon Brando, for instance. Unlike a lot of ‘method’ performances, Newman makes you forget about the ‘acting’ and just see the character, and it’s an occasionally quite harrowing, Oscar-nominated performance, as the prison ‘bosses’ try their best to break Cool Hand Luke.

 

Of the supporting cast, there’s lots of familiar names and faces, but the ones who make the biggest impact are George Kennedy, Strother Martin, and more briefly Jo Van Fleet. Kennedy won Oscar for his work here as tough, but likeable Dragline, the put-upon leader of the prisoners. He’s pitch-perfect as the big tough bear of a human being, who turns out not to be such a bad guy after all. Strother Martin became somewhat of a pop culture icon, or at least the most often quoted person in the film as the incredibly harsh prison boss. It is he who delivers the immortal line known by filmgoers and Guns ‘n’ Roses fans alike; ‘What we've got here is…failure to communicate’. He was never better or better-served than in this film, the rather nasal-voiced character actor usually played scummy, sewer rat henchmen in westerns, but here displayed quite an authority, menace, and intimidating presence as a man so damn cold-hearted that he’ll lock a guy up in the hole just because he feels the prisoner might run off to a loved one’s funeral. Damn. Jo Van Fleet only has one scene, but it’s an absolutely show-stopping cameo as Luke’s ailing mother. It’s an unforgettable and really sad scene because you know mother and son will never see each other again.

 

In small roles, Clifton James, Luke Askew, and Morgan Woodward deserve to be singled out as the three ‘bosses’. Character actor James could play his role in his sleep, as perhaps the most ineffectual of the bosses (That’s no criticism of the actor, merely a description of the character). Pitch-perfect casting right there. Meanwhile, as good as the always rock-solid Askew is as one of the meaner ‘bosses’, Woodward deserves credit for saying a lot whilst saying nothing and wearing sunglasses the whole damn time. Scary dude. Look out too for a young Dennis Hopper, and Harry Dean Stanton, who sings a couple of songs (quite well too) like ‘Ain’t No Grave’ (a familiar song for fans of Johnny Cash and/or professional wrestling) and ‘Midnight Special’. Hopper is seemingly not even acting here, he’s off his nut on some kind of hallucinogens for real. You’ll also likely feel sorry for poor Ralph Waite’s character, who clearly just doesn’t have the intestinal fortitude for hard prison life.

 

The film’s best-remembered scene is the egg-eating contest, which is a rare light moment in the film. It’s the damndest thing. I hate even the smell of eggs, so eating them must surely be worse, let alone 50 in one hour. This Cool Hand Luke isn’t just stubborn and determined, he’s unbreakable. The scene does conclude with one of the few dud moments in the film, though, with Newman’s post-contest Jesus Christ pose striking a rare wrong note. The only other flaw I can see here is that none of these prisoners seem remotely dangerous. However, you don’t really think about that until maybe the tenth time you’ve watched the film.

 

The other element worth pointing out is one of the best music scores in the career of composer Lalo Schifrin (“Bullitt”, “Enter the Dragon”, “The Cincinnati Kid”, “Coogan’s Bluff”). In fact it might even be his best (it earned him an Oscar nomination), and anyone paying close attention to the scene where the prisoners speed up their prison work, will hear the familiar strains of the Channel 9 news theme (Apparently it was also used for an American news program too). It’s a subtle, but absolutely unforgettable score.

 

Excellently performed, sometimes harrowing, sometimes irreverent, always fascinating, they just don’t make prison movies like this one anymore. One of the best of its type, and an absolute must for Paul Newman fans, who might feel he deserved the Oscar that year more than Rod Steiger, winner for “In the Heat of the Night” (No knock on Steiger, it was one of his best-ever performances). The screenplay is by novelist Donn Pearce, and Frank R. Pierson (“Dog Day Afternoon”, “The Happening”), from a novel by the former, who spent two years in prison himself.

 

Rating: A