Cool Hand Luke

Best Actor nominee Paul Newman gives one of the best performances of his career in this prison drama about a defiant loner doing time in a Southern penal camp, where escape is futile and punishment sadistic. George Kennedy won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as the convict leader Dragline, and Strother Martin is excellent as the prison official who can’t abide a “failure to communicate.”, Paul Newman gives one of his finest performances as Luke in this superbly acted character driven story about prison life in the late 1940s and one man’s fight against authority., Paul Newman is iconic as a prisoner refusing to let his surroundings get him down. Five Oscar Nominations and a Best Supporting Actor Oscar (George Kennedy)., Best Actor nominee Paul Newman gives one of the best performances of his career in this prison drama about a defiant loner doing time in a Southern penal camp, where escape is futile and punishment sadistic., Luke is sent to a prison camp, where he gets the reputation as a hard man. The head of the gang hates him, and tries to break him by beating him up. It doesn’t work and he gains respect. His mother dies, and he escapes, but is caught, escapes again, and is caught again. Will the camp bosses ever break him?., A chain-gang prisoner in the Deep South refuses to kowtow to the bullying ways of the boss man, becoming a hero to his fellow convicts along the way., Prison drama about a defiant loner doing time in a penal camp, where escape is futile and punishment sadistic., Academy Award winner Paul Newman stars with George Kennedy in this story of a man who will not surrender to authority-even at the cost of his life., Sharp, bruising prison drama about a man who, following a drunken spree, is sentenced to two years on a chain gang in the southern United States. Despite the brutalities of the prison regime, this high-spirited individual refuses to submft to authority and becomes a hero to his fellow convicts., Powerful, hard-bitten prison drama. A man is sentenced to two years on a chain gang after a drunken spree in a Southern state. He refuses to submit to the prison’s brutal regime, and becomes a hero to his fellow prisoners., Sharp, bruising prison drama about a man who, following a drunken spree, is sentenced to two years on a chain gang in the southern United States. Despite the brutalities of the prison regime, the high-spirited individual refuses to submit to authority and becomes a hero to his fellow convicts., Best Actor nominee Paul Newman gives one of the best performances of his career in this prison drama about a defiant loner doing time in a Southern penal camp, where escape is futile and punishment sadistic. Best Actor nominee Paul Newman gives one of the best performances of his career in this prison drama about a defiant loner doing time in a Southern penal camp, where escape is futile and punishment sadistic., Paul Newman was nominated for an Oscar and George Kennedy received one for his work in this allegorical prison drama. Luke Jackson (Paul Newman) is sentenced to a stretch on a southern chain gang after he’s arrested for drunkenly decapitating parking meters. While the avowed ambition of the captain (Strother Martin) is for each prisoner to “get their mind right,” it soon becomes obvious that Luke is not about to kowtow to anybody. When challenged to a fistfight by fellow inmate Dragline (George Kennedy), Luke simply refuses to give up, even though he’s brutally beaten. Luke knows how to win at poker, even with bad cards, by using his smarts and playing it cool. Luke also figures out a way for the men to get their work done in half the usual time, giving them the afternoon off. Finally, when Luke finds out his mother has died, he plots his escape; when he’s caught, he simply escapes again. Soon, Luke becomes a symbol of hope and resilience to the other men in the prison camp — and a symbol of rebelliousness that must be stamped out to the guards and the captain. Along with stellar performances by Newman, Kennedy, and Martin, Cool Hand Luke features a superb supporting cast, including Ralph Waite, Harry Dean Stanton, Dennis Hopper, Wayne Rogers, and Joe Don Baker as members of the chain gang., Classic tough prison comedy-drama, loaded with unforgettable scenes, starring Paul Newman as a chain-gang prisoner in the Deep South who refuses to kowtow to the bullying ways of the boss man, becoming a hero (and virtually a Christ figure) to his fellow convicts along the way., A man refuses to conform to life in a rural prison.