Talk:Cool Hand Luke

Location in the film
Is it a fact that the movie location was in Florida and it was a Florida State Chain Gang? I lived in Northern Louisiana from 1956 to 1960, and I can tell you that my impression when I watched the film was that it was a Louisiana prison chain gang and that the prison would be somewhere in the swamps of Southern Louisiana. Spraying the dirt roads with oil was commonplace, and I witnessed prisoners chained together working on road maintenance. The accents and backgrounds of the prisoners and guards was very much Louisiana of the 1950's. Is the location in the script? JimBray1944 (talk) 00:41, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

The novel by Donn Pearce, from which the screenplay was adapted, was set in South Florida. Alangpike (talk) 20:08, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Ebert
Roger Ebert's review clearly states that the movie has been seen as anti-establishment, but that it doesn't seem relevant to him. So why is the article having Ebert endorse the "anti-establishment" angle of the movie?

By the way, the turnign point of the movie is not when Luke's put in the Box but when he talked to No-Eye as an equal (telling him that he forgot his stick).41.219.31.149 (talk) 17:54, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Not set in the 1940s
The film is set in the 1950s, after the Korean War. Luke is revealed to be a Korean War veteran who was awarded the Silver Star for his actions in that conflict.SBW — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:BDAF:5410:49CC:9E3D:1296:EC86 (talk) 13:47, 8 July 2014 (UTC)


 * That's now corrected, thanks for pointing that out. Though after looking for a while I couldn't find anything that indicated that he received a Silver Star, it is now stated that he was a Korean War veteran.-- GD uwen    Tell me!   15:40, 8 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I seem to recall that Strother Martin, upon meeting Luke for the first time (Luke and the other new arrivals to the camp are lined in front of Martin), saying something like, "says here you're a war hero. Got a Silver Star in Korea." Or something like that? Not sure about this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.135.226.12 (talk) 02:39, 9 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Maybe that info about the Silver Star was in the novel but not the movie. Also: I seem to recall that Boss Godfrey shot a snapping turtle not a snake. Luke holds the stick up and the snapping turtle, although dead, is still gripping it with his mouth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.135.226.12 (talk) 02:44, 9 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Godfrey shoots both, a snake and then a turtle. (personal opinion here) The snake thing is a sort of sign of rebellion. While the other men run out of the place, Luke fearlessly just picks it up and looks at the boss, and throws it at his feet after he shoots it. I've even read people that relate that part to the Christian imagery on the film, referring to the appearance of the devil as a snake in the Bible. Then comes the turtle part, Godfrey sees it in the slough and then shoots it. Luke picks it up for him (that happens after he was punished, now he's completely cooperative). Then comes his third scape attempt.


 * Basically, what you can take out of here (in my opinion) is that when the snake gets shot, you see Luke in full rebel mode. With the turtle he's just playing the fool, he can't go along with it (or he's pretending) and just escapes again. Now that I see it, adding the turtle part to the plot section would be really relevant, but of course without all the analysis, the reader will be able to interpret it him/herself.-- GD uwen    Tell me!   15:49, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Good info, good analysis. Thanks. SBW — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.135.190.178 (talk) 20:03, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

In the novel by Donn Pearce, Luke served in WWII, specifically in France. Alangpike (talk) 20:10, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Cool Hand Luke. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120104102551/http://www.destgulch.com/movies/luke/luke18.wav to http://www.destgulch.com/movies/luke/luke18.wav

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 20:52, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Merge from "What we've got here is failure to communicate"
The short article about the quote can easily be incorporated into this also-not-too-lengthy article. Neither are likely to be significantly expanded later, so merging them would be tidier. UpdateNerd (talk) 10:59, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, it seems like an obvious candidate for a merge, leaving a redirect. Just plain Bill (talk) 15:11, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I've accelerated processing this, since this is a GA and doesn't need the template floating at the top for this mundane matter. I think I pulled all the important info from the merged page, but anyone can feel free to check it and improve this page. Thanks, UpdateNerd (talk) 15:53, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Additional Thoughts?
Would it be appropriate to succinctly include any of the following thematic elements of communion? (a) In one scene, his fellow prisoners feed directly from his dinner plate of rice, leaving little for Luke to eat himself. (b) "Stop feeding off me." (c) In a later scene, Luke is designated to administer a shared ladle of water to relieve the thirsty prisoners.

Unrelated: His repeated attempts to escape from the prison could represent his escape from responsibilities to others. (e.g. Requested separation from his primary follower, Dragline) ....In the traffic section of this article, note that his capture was made by the policeman while stopped at a traffic light. .... For those who haven't seen the film, should "the box" further be characterized as closed, isolating, and extremely uncomfortable (subject to temperature)? ....In the final scene, how is it indicated that the prisoners are servicing an intersecting road near the church where Luke was shot?

Should the citation of the famous quotation instead be listed when initially introduced? -- From the article's 3rd paragraph: [The film has a 100% rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, and the quotation used by the prison warden (Strother Martin) in the film, which begins with "What we've got here is failure to communicate", was listed at number 11 on the American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes list."] In other words, should citation 32 or 37 become citation #6?

I suppose to substantiate my personal opinions (and yours), appropriate citations by any established film critics could be included.

Food for thought? Gprobins (talk) 17:06, 25 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Anything that adds value to the article (of course, that means content with proper citations) is more than welcomed. Since the article became a GA in 2013, there have been times when people added content like that without citations. Sometimes they were opinions, or in other occasions, essays were cited (see Policies and guidelines). Probably a good deal of those contributions do reflect the ideas the scriptwriters had in mind, but unless we can find proper sources that explicitly state it, I would stay clear of it (Again, not that the content is not interesting nor relevant, it is at times hard to verify).


 * I'm at the time revisiting some of the Good Articles I contributed to, and this one probably needs a bit of a cleanup (I remember maybe last year or so cleaning up the lead and the plot section from similar content), but I didn't verify the current state of the citations and such (broken links, adding openly sourced content, etc). I'm sure much more useful content can be added.-- GDuwen  Holler!  18:28, 27 April 2021 (UTC)