50 Fun Facts About Cool Hand Luke

What drunken act gets Luke arrested at the start of the film?

The word 'Violation' flashes on the meters as he works, the first of the film's many pointed traffic signs.

Who plays Lucas 'Luke' Jackson?

He asked for the part after hearing about the project, and the film cemented his standing as one of the era's top box-office stars.

Luke is a decorated veteran of which war?

The story is set in the early 1950s, so his medals are only a few years old when he lands on the chain gang.

Luke earns his nickname by winning a poker game with what kind of cards?

His reply that 'sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand' is what prompts Dragline to christen him.

How many hard-boiled eggs does Luke bet he can eat in an hour?

After the bet he lies on the table with arms outstretched and feet crossed, a deliberate crucifixion pose.

Who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for playing Dragline?

He said his salary was multiplied by ten the minute he won, and that he no longer had to play only villains.

What is Dragline's real name?

Almost every convict in the camp is known by a nickname; the cast list is a roll call of Kokos, Rabbitts and Dynamites.

Why do the inmates call Walking Boss Godfrey 'the man with no eyes'?

The glasses only come off, symbolically shattered, in the film's final confrontation.

Which actor plays the silent, rifle-carrying Walking Boss?

He described the character as a 'walking Mephistopheles' and later wore the same shades on The Dukes of Hazzard.

Who plays the Captain, the camp's warden?

He was best known for westerns before this role made him the face of small-town institutional cruelty.

Where did 'What we've got here is failure to communicate' rank on the AFI's 100 greatest movie quotes?

The line was never in the novel; the author said his real guards were '100% redneck' and would never have used such vocabulary.

Which screenwriter wrote the 'failure to communicate' line, fearing it was too fancy for the warden?

He invented a backstory in the stage directions about prison officers taking penology courses at the state university to justify the vocabulary.

Novelist Donn Pearce served his own two years on a Florida chain gang after being arrested for what?

He was a safecracker at the time; earlier he had been jailed in France for passing counterfeit dollars and escaped from a work detail.

Donn Pearce made a cameo in the film as a convict with which nickname?

The nickname suits him: he had joined the Merchant Marine as a teenager and sailed to Venice, Spain, Denmark and Bombay.

The prison-camp set was built in which California city?

The producers even brought in Spanish moss to drape the trees so the San Joaquin Delta would pass for the Deep South.

The filmmakers measured which real Florida facility, where Pearce had served, for the set?

The bloodhound chase and other exteriors were shot separately at a different Florida road prison near Jacksonville.

The opening parking-meter scene was filmed in which California town?

The same small town gave Creedence Clearwater Revival a song title two years later.

A county building inspector ordered the prison set condemned after mistaking it for what?

The barracks, mess hall, guard shack and dog kennels were apparently convincing enough to look like a code violation.

Who composed the film's Oscar-nominated score?

The same composer wrote the Mission: Impossible theme; here he mixed banjos and harmonicas with jazz-inflected brass.

An edited cue from the road-paving 'Tar Sequence' became widely familiar as what?

Its staccato melody sounds a little like a telegraph, which is part of why ABC's stations adopted it for their newscasts.

Which actress plays Luke's dying mother, Arletta, in a role Bette Davis turned down?

Critics singled out her single scene, the Los Angeles Times calling it 'a stunning piece of writing and acting'.

Who plays the blonde who torments the chain gang by washing her car?

She auditioned in a bikini without saying a word, and her half-day scene took three days to shoot.

For wide shots of the chain gang watching the car wash, who stood in for the actress?

The director wanted the cast to feel real deprivation, so the actress was kept out of sight in her hotel for two days.

What is 'a night in the box'?

The Captain locks Luke in it pre-emptively when his mother dies, expecting him to try to escape for the funeral.

Which future Easy Rider star plays the convict Babalugats?

The chain gang is stuffed with future names: Harry Dean Stanton, Wayne Rogers and an uncredited Joe Don Baker among them.

Which actor, later the father on The Waltons, plays 'Alibi' Gibson?

The Waltons debuted five years later, in 1972, and ran for nine seasons.

Who plays 'Dog Boy', the inmate who handles the bloodhounds?

The dogs in the chase scenes belonged to the Florida Department of Corrections and pursued a stuntman, not the star.

Wayne Rogers, later Trapper John on M*A*S*H, plays a convict known only as what?

M*A*S*H did not start until 1972; here he is one face among two dozen in the barracks.

Jalem Productions, the company that developed the film, belonged to which actor?

He publicly promised he would not appear in it, making it the first film his company produced without his star power.

The film premiered on November 1, 1967, at Loew's State Theatre. Where?

The premiere's proceeds went to charity, and the film went on to gross more than $16 million domestically.

Which song does Luke sing after learning that his mother has died?

The scene is one of several the screenwriter built around explicit Christian imagery, with Luke as a sacrificed saint.

During his second escape, what does Luke mail back to the prison?

He later claims the photo was faked; its repaired creases form a cross in the film's closing image.

After a long stay in the box, Luke is punished by being forced to eat a huge serving of what?

The other prisoners, who had turned on him over the faked photo, quietly help him finish it.

To break Luke, the guards make him repeatedly dig and refill what?

The ordeal ends with him begging for mercy, which costs him the respect of the other inmates.

How does Luke make his final escape?

Dragline jumps in with him, and the two split up after abandoning the vehicle.

Where is Luke when the police finally surround him?

His one-sided conversation with God there echoes the Garden of Gethsemane, and he is shot in the neck moments later.

To prepare for the role, Newman travelled to which state to record local accents?

The film's own accents are a patchwork; Luke is a Florida convict voiced from the Appalachian coalfields.

Which actor, later television's Kojak, was considered for the lead while the script was in development?

The eventual star heard about the project and asked for the role himself.

How much of his own money did the actor who played Dragline spend on Oscar-season trade ads?

It worked: he won, and later said the award multiplied his salary by ten overnight.

The Library of Congress added the film to the National Film Registry in which year?

The same year, Empire named Luke one of the 100 greatest movie characters, at number 53.

Which Guns N' Roses song opens with the 'failure to communicate' speech?

The band used the line again on 'Madagascar' in 2008.

Where did the AFI rank Luke on its 2003 list of the 100 greatest screen heroes?

Three years later the film itself made AFI's list of America's most inspiring movies, at number 71.

In what year was Donn Pearce's novel Cool Hand Luke published?

He rewrote the first draft five times over six years and could only sell it as a paperback original, for $2,500.

Who was the film's cinematographer, praised for its 'sun-centered photography'?

Life magazine complained the images were so beautiful the camp looked like a rest camp with healthy outdoor exercise.

Cool Hand Luke was the first cinema feature directed by which television veteran?

He changed the script's original ending to close on Luke's trademark smile.

What is unusual about the dialogue in Pearce's novel?

The book is narrated by a fellow convict recounting the legend of Luke, rather than following Luke directly.

Where in London did a 2011 stage version of Cool Hand Luke open, closing within two months?

It was adapted from the novel rather than the film, and The Times still picked it as Critic's Choice despite the poor run.

Which 2024 PDC world darts champion competes under a nickname taken from the film?

A Nashville Christian rock band also took its name from the film.

The production moved from Columbia to which studio when Newman signed on in 1966?

The producers had a six-picture deal at Columbia, but the star's arrival changed the deal.

How many Academy Award nominations did Cool Hand Luke receive?

Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score; only Kennedy took home a statue.