Plastic Jesus, Sung by Paul Newman in 'Cool Hand Luke'; Thomas Csorba

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Last edited Fri Dec 23, 2022, 03:20 PM - Edit history (2)

- Thomas Csorba version.

- Luke (Paul `Newman) learns in prison that his mother has just died. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Hand_Luke

- Cool Hand Luke is a 1967 American prison drama film directed by Stuart Rosenberg, starring Paul Newman & featuring George Kennedy in an Oscar-winning performance. Newman stars in the title role as Luke, a prisoner in a F! 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 it an anti-establishment film shot during emerging popular opposition to the Vietnam War. Filming took place within CA's San Joaquin River Delta region; the set, imitating a prison farm in the Deep South, was based on photographs & measurements made by a film crew the sent to a Road Prison in Gainesville, FL. The film uses Christian imagery.

Upon its release, Cool Hand Luke received favorable reviews & was a box-office success. It cemented Newman's status as one of the era's top actors, & was called the "touchstone of an era". He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, Kennedy won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Pearce & Pierson were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, & Lalo Schifrin was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score. In 2005, the US Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, considering it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

The film has a 100% rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, & the prison warden's (Strother Martin) line in the film, which begins with "What we've got here is failure to communicate", was listed at no. 11 on the American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes list.

In early 1950s FL, decorated WWII veteran Lucas "Luke" Jackson is arrested for cutting parking meters off their poles one drunken night. He is sentenced to 2 years on a chain gang in a prison camp run by a stern warden known as the Captain, along with Walking Boss Godfrey, a taciturn rifleman nicknamed "the man with no eyes" because he always wears mirrored sunglasses. Carr, the floorwalker, tells the new prisoners the rules. Even minor violations are punished by "a night in the box", a small wooden booth in the prison yard with limited air & very little room to move. Luke refuses to observe the established pecking order among the prisoners & quickly runs afoul of the prisoners' leader, Dragline (Kennedy). When the 2 have a boxing match, the prisoners & guards watch with interest. Luke is severely outmatched by his larger opponent but refuses to acquiesce.

Eventually, Dragline refuses to continue the fight, but Luke's tenacity earns the prisoners' respect & draws the guards' attention. He later wins a poker game by bluffing with a hand worth nothing. Luke says, "sometimes, nothing can be a real cool hand", prompting Dragline to nickname him "Cool Hand Luke". After a visit from his sick mother, Arletta, Luke becomes more optimistic about his situation. He continually confronts the Captain & the guards, & his sense of humor & independence prove both contagious & inspiring to the other prisoners. Luke's struggle for supremacy peaks when he leads a work crew in a seemingly impossible but successful effort to complete a road-paving job in less than a day. The other prisoners start to idolize him after he makes & wins a spur-of-the-moment bet that he can eat 50 hard-boiled eggs in an hour...https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Hand_Luke

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1. Cool Hand Luke (1967), Official Trailer. Paul Newman, George Kennedy.