Part of Weekend Classics
When petty criminal Luke Jackson (Paul Newman) is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, his intelligence, calm under pressure and inability to accept defeat soon gain him the respect of his fellow inmates on the chain gang––and the nickname Cool Hand Luke. But they also earn Luke the enmity of the warden, who cannot allow any inmate to challenge his authority. When Luke’s mother dies, he decides to escape… and he will not allow anyone to stop him.
“In COOL HAND LUKE, we get a good guy who becomes a bad guy because he doesn’t like us. Luke is the first Newman character to understand himself well enough to tell us to shove off. He’s through risking his neck to make us happy.” —Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (Dec 3, 1967) “One of those movies you remember Great Moments from: the egg-eating contest, warden Strother Martin complaining “what we got here is a failure to communicate”, George Kennedy winning an Academy Award as the toughest con who plays St. Peter to Newman’s Jesus, the Evil Guard in Mirror Sunglasses, the card game that gets out of hand.” —Kim Newman, Empire Magazine
