| Cool Hand Luke | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster by Bill Gold | |
| Directed by | Stuart Rosenberg |
| Screenplay by | |
| Based on | Cool Hand Luke by Donn Pearce |
| Produced by | Gordon Carroll |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Conrad Hall |
| Edited by | Sam O'Steen |
| Music by | Lalo Schifrin |
Production company | Jalem Productions |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros.-Seven Arts |
Release date |
|
Running time | 126 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $3.2 million[1] |
| Box office | $16.2 million[2] |
Cool Hand Luke is a 1967 American prison drama film directed by Stuart Rosenberg,[3] 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. Set in the early 1950s, it is based on Donn Pearce's 1965 novel Cool Hand Luke.
Roger Ebert called Cool Hand Luke an anti-establishment film shot during emerging popular opposition to the Vietnam War. Filming took place within California's San Joaquin River Delta region; the set, imitating a prison farm in the Deep South, was based on photographs and measurements made by a crew the filmmakers sent to a Road Prison in Gainesville, Florida.
Upon its release, Cool Hand Luke received favorable reviews and was a box-office success. It cemented Newman's status as one of the era's top actors, and was called the "touchstone of an era". Newman was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, Kennedy won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Pearce and Pierson were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and Lalo Schifrin was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score. In 2005, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, considering it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4][5] The film has a 100% rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, and the prison warden's (Strother Martin) line in the film beginning with "What we've got here is failure to communicate" was listed at number 11 on the American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes list.
- ^ Hannan, Brian (2016). Coming Back to a Theater Near You: A History of Hollywood Reissues, 1914–2014. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., pg. 178, ISBN 978-1-4766-2389-4.
- ^ "Cool Hand Luke – Box Office Data, DVD and Blu-ray Sales, Movie News, Cast and Crew Information". The Numbers. Archived from the original on September 28, 2013. Retrieved January 5, 2012.
- ^ "Cool Hand Luke". Turner Classic Movies. Archived from the original on February 25, 2016. Retrieved February 29, 2016.
- ^ "Librarian of Congress Adds 25 Films to National Film Registry". Library of Congress. Archived from the original on November 26, 2020. Retrieved September 21, 2020.
- ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved September 21, 2020.