49 Fun Facts About Cool Hand Luke

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

Beheading parking meters with a pipe cutter while drunk is the 'small-town' crime that sends Luke to the camp; the meters' 'Violation' flags are the film's opening image.

Who plays Lucas 'Luke' Jackson?

Paul Newman earned his fourth Best Actor nomination as Luke, losing to Rod Steiger for In the Heat of the Night at the 1968 ceremony.

What rank does Luke's army record show he held when discharged?

Buck private is what Luke's record shows on his arrival: decorated with a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and Purple Hearts, he made sergeant but was busted back down.

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

A hand worth nothing wins the pot: Luke bluffs Dragline's crew, then shrugs that 'sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand', and Dragline christens him.

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

50 eggs in an hour is the bet, and Luke forces down the last of them before collapsing on the table in a crucifixion pose, arms spread and ankles crossed.

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

George Kennedy won the 1968 Supporting Actor Oscar for Dragline, beating John Cassavetes, Gene Hackman, Cecil Kellaway and Michael J. Pollard.

What is Dragline's real name?

Clarence Slidell is Dragline's given name, though like nearly every convict in the camp he goes only by his nickname, alongside Koko, Rabbitt and Dynamite.

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?

Morgan Woodward plays Boss Godfrey, the Walking Boss, a role without a single spoken line; he later played Punk Anderson on Dallas.

Who plays the Captain, the camp's warden?

Strother Martin plays the Captain, the camp's warden who delivers the 'failure to communicate' speech after Luke's first recapture.

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

Number 11 is where the AFI's 100 Movie Quotes list placed the Captain's line, between Taxi Driver's 'You talking to me?' at 10 and Apocalypse Now's napalm line at 12.

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

Frank Pierson, who shared the screenplay credit with Pearce, wrote the line and, worried it was too literate for the Captain, gave him a backstory of college coursework to justify it.

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

Burglary, specifically safecracking, put Donn Pearce on a Florida chain gang for two years in his early twenties, the experience behind his novel.

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

Sailor is the convict Donn Pearce plays in his cameo, a nod to the years he spent in the Merchant Marine before his own chain-gang term.

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

Stockton, in the San Joaquin Delta, is where the camp set went up in 1966, standing in for central Florida for the bulk of the shoot.

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

Tavares Road Prison, the Lake County camp where Pearce had served, was measured by the production so its California replica would match the real thing.

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

Lodi, a small San Joaquin County town, hosted the parking-meter shoot; Creedence Clearwater Revival made the town a song title in 1969.

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

Migrant worker housing is what the inspector took the set for, its barracks, mess hall and guard shack realistic enough to read as substandard farm-labour quarters.

Who composed the film's Oscar-nominated score?

Lalo Schifrin, composer of the Mission: Impossible theme, wrote the score, which lost the Oscar to Elmer Bernstein's Thoroughly Modern Millie.

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?

Jo Van Fleet, an Oscar winner for East of Eden, plays Arletta in one scene, visiting Luke from the back of a pickup truck before her death offscreen.

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

Joy Harmon plays the car-washing girl in a wordless scene that became one of the film's most famous images, second only to the egg bet.

What name does Dragline give the girl washing her car beside the road?

Lucille is the name Dragline gives the car-washing girl, insisting she knows exactly what she is doing to the men, though she never says a word on screen.

What is 'a night in the box'?

Confinement in a small wooden booth in the yard is the camp's punishment; the Captain puts Luke in it when Arletta dies, expecting him to bolt for the funeral.

Which future Easy Rider star plays the convict Babalugats?

Dennis Hopper plays Babalugats two years before Easy Rider, alongside other future names in the barracks such as Harry Dean Stanton and an uncredited Joe Don Baker.

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

Ralph Waite, John Walton Sr. on The Waltons from 1972, plays 'Alibi' Gibson, one of the chain gang's convicts.

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

Anthony Zerbe plays Dog Boy, the trusty who runs the camp's bloodhounds; Zerbe later won a 1976 Emmy for the detective series Harry O.

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

Gambler is Wayne Rogers' convict, a small part five years before M*A*S*H made him Trapper John in 1972.

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

Jack Lemmon's Jalem Productions bought the rights to Pearce's novel and developed the film, with Lemmon staying off screen; Gordon Carroll took the producer credit.

In which city did the film premiere at Loew's State Theatre on November 1, 1967?

New York City hosted the premiere at Loew's State Theatre in Times Square on November 1, 1967; the film opened nationally later that month.

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

Plastic Jesus is the song Luke picks out on a banjo in the barracks, weeping, after the telegram announcing Arletta's death.

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

A magazine with a photo of himself and two women is what Luke sends, though he later admits the picture was a fake; its taped-up creases form a cross in the final shot.

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

Rice is the punishment meal, a huge bowl Luke must finish in one sitting after his second recapture; the other convicts quietly eat from it to help him.

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

A grave-sized hole, 'Boss Kean's ditch', is dug and refilled through a night of beatings until Luke pleads for mercy, losing the other convicts' respect.

How does Luke make his final escape?

He steals a truck, a camp dump truck, while the crew is working on a road; Dragline jumps aboard, and they split up after ditching it.

Where is Luke when the police finally surround him?

A church, empty and abandoned, is where Luke talks to God before Dragline leads the police in; Boss Godfrey shoots him in the neck as he repeats the Captain's line.

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

West Virginia is where Newman went to tape local voices for Luke's accent, even though the story unfolds on a Florida road gang.

Who plays Carr, the trusty who recites the camp rules to new arrivals?

Clifton James, later Sheriff J.W. Pepper in two Bond films, plays Carr, the floorwalker who lists every infraction that earns a night in the box.

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

$5,000 of his own money went on trade-paper ads pushing the Dragline performance, and the campaign ended with the Supporting Actor Oscar in April 1968.

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

2005 was the year the National Film Registry selected the film as culturally, historically or aesthetically significant, in the same class as The French Connection and Toy Story.

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

Civil War, first released on the 1990 Nobody's Child charity album and later on Use Your Illusion II, opens with the Captain's speech sampled from the film.

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

30th is where AFI's Heroes and Villains list placed Luke Jackson among the heroes, a list Atticus Finch topped.

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

1965 saw Scribner publish Pearce's novel, which Jalem bought for the screen; Pearce was then hired to write the first draft of the script himself.

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

Conrad Hall shot it the same year as his Oscar-nominated In Cold Blood; he later won Academy Awards for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and American Beauty.

Which director, a veteran of 1950s and 60s television, made Cool Hand Luke?

Stuart Rosenberg directed after years on series such as Naked City and The Untouchables; he reunited with Newman on WUSA, Pocket Money and The Drowning Pool.

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

The Aldwych Theatre staged Emma Reeves's adaptation with Marc Warren as Luke from October 2011; it closed in November, well short of its planned run.

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

Luke Humphries, nicknamed 'Cool Hand Luke', won the 2024 PDC World Championship by beating 16-year-old Luke Littler 7-4 in the final.

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

Warner Bros. took over once Newman signed; the film was released in November 1967 by the newly merged Warner Bros.-Seven Arts.

How many Academy Award nominations did Cool Hand Luke receive?

Four nominations: Best Actor, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay and Original Score, of which only the Supporting Actor award was won.