Paul Newman: Luck is an Art - COOL HAND LUKE

Paul Newman: Luck is an Art

Programmer's Pick

"That traditional object of sorrow and compassion in American folk song and lore, the chain-gang prisoner, is given as strong a presentation as ever he has had on the screen material."—Bosley Crowther, The New York Times

When petty criminal Luke Jackson (Paul Newman) is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden (Strother Martin) or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline (George Kennedy), who ends up admiring the new guy's unbreakable will. Luke's bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison's dreaded solitary confinement cell, "the box," make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison bosses.

Nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Actor for Newman. George Kennedy won Best Supporting Actor for his role as Dragline. This film is the first and most critically acclaimed of the multiple collaborations between Director Stuart Rosenberg and Newman. The scene where Newman performs “Plastic Jesus” on the banjo was not in the original script and came about when they heard co-star Harry Dean Stanton playing the song around a bonfire the night before. Newman insisted upon learning the banjo and the song for the scene.

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