Cool Hand Luke is a 1967 American prison drama film directed by
Stuart RosenbergStuart Rosenberg was an American film and television director whose notable works included the movies Cool Hand Luke , Voyage of the Damned , The Amityville Horror , and The Pope of Greenwich Village .-Early life and career:Born in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, Rosenberg studied Irish...
and starring
Paul NewmanPaul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast...
. The screenplay was adapted by
Donn PearceDonn Pearce is an American author best known for the novel and screen play Cool Hand Luke.Born Donald Mills Pearce in a suburb of Philadelphia, Pearce left home at 15. He attempted to join the United States Merchant Marine at 16, but was turned away due to his age. He lied about his age,...
and Frank Pierson from Pearce's 1965
novel of the same nameCool Hand Luke is a novel by Donn Pearce published in 1965. It was adapted into a film of the same name. The story is told in first-person narrative and is unusual in that although there is dialogue, all words are indented paragraphs and are not encased in quotes as in normal English-language...
. The film features George Kennedy,
Strother MartinStrother Martin was an American actor in numerous films and television programs. Martin is perhaps best known as the prison "captain" in the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke, where he uttered the line, "What we've got here is...failure to communicate."-Early life:Strother Martin Jr. was born in Kokomo,...
, J.D. Cannon and
Morgan WoodwardMorgan Woodward is an American actor.He is probably best known for his recurring role in Dallas as Marvin "Punk" Anderson...
.
Newman stars in the title role as Luke, a prisoner in a Florida
prisonA prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
camp who refuses to submit to the system. In 2005, the United States Library of Congress deemed
Cool Hand Luke to be "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the
National Film RegistryThe National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
.
Lucas Jackson (
Paul NewmanPaul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast...
) is arrested for cutting the heads off a town's
parking meterA parking meter is a device used to collect money in exchange for the right to park a vehicle in a particular place for a limited amount of time. Parking meters can be used by municipalities as a tool for enforcing their integrated on-street parking policy, usually related to their traffic and...
s one drunken night in the late 1940s.