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Life & Arts

'Cool Hand Luke' a rebel film at its best

Newman's 1967 movie captures cinema's view on conformity

by GERONIMO RODRIGUEZ
The Daily Cougar

Rebellious characters were sprouting out of films like crazy back in the 1950s and '60s. A motorcycle-bound Marlon Brando started this shift with 1953's The Wild One, James Dean kept it going with 1955's Rebel Without a Cause and Peter Fonda helped cap it off with 1969's Easy Rider. For most, Paul Newman's epic film Cool Hand Luke got lost in this deck of wild cards.

The 1967 film was all about the title character Luke Jackson's refusal to conform, even if it meant getting beat down by a fellow prisoner or falling on bad terms with the unit's captain. 

Like most rebels, Newman's Luke isn't all that bad of a guy; he just doesn't have it in him to follow rules. Throughout the film, Luke toys with the small-minded guards and inmates, shoving aside any thought of him being rehabilitated and conforming to any rules.

After Luke gets tossed on the chain gang for cutting the heads off parking meters, he quickly learns from Strother Martin's Captain the rules of the unit. The captain's memorable speech seems to only fuel Luke's desire to rebel from the boss men and find ways to get under their hard skin. After one of Luke's little stunts has the captain spouting out the famous line, "What we got here is a failure to communicate," you get the feeling that Luke is just gonna rot away in the box or die trying to escape from what looks like a big chicken coop.

Aside from helping create a beast of a rebel in Luke, director Stuart Rosenberg takes Donn Pearce's novel of the same title and warms the heart with a couple of touching scenes. 

In one powerful scene, after learning that the woman he knew as his mother died, Luke sits on his bunk and starts singing the words to Ed Rush and George Cromarty's "Plastic Jesus." This reveals perhaps the most about Luke, considering the most he shows throughout the film is what George Kennedy's Dragline calls a devilish grin.

The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Actor (Newman), but the film only garnered the best supporting actor award for Kennedy's performance as Luke's confidante and fellow escapee. Rod Steiger took home the Oscar for best actor that year for his role in In the Heat of the Night.

But never mind the awards and quotes from the film that kids these days shout out without knowing where they come from; this film follows the formula for a film about a rebel and still manages to stay genuine. Perhaps it's Newman's swagger before he's about to eat 50 boiled eggs, or maybe it's the way Luke refuses to change despite Luke Askew's character breathing down his neck, but Newman built a rebellious character that certainly is among the ranks of James Dean's Jim Stark or Marlon Brando's Johnny Strabler.

For those who haven't seen Cool Hand Luke, trust me when I say your first time will be like watching a rebel film at its best.

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