SPEAKER_01 0:00

They're sitting around playing cards. Yeah. And you know, uh, Luke is basically bluffing. He's got a shit hand. Yeah. And eventually they call him and he turns his cards over, and he's like, he's got nothing.

unknown 0:16

Right.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

He's like, he's got and Kennedy's like, he beats you with a handful of nothing. And then he beat you with nothing. Newman says, sometimes nothing can be a cool hand. Cool hand, Luke. You're listening to the O Brother Podcast. Real Brothers, Real Talk. Welcome to the O Brother Podcast. I'm your host, Dan Smith. Alongside me as always, my brother from the same other, Mike Smith.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

How's it going, Dan?

SPEAKER_01 0:44

It's going good. You got a haircut, but now I'm the one who needs a haircut and I need a shave, apparently.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Yeah. I missed the little the old the old Zoom filter. You got the Fred Flintstone thing going on.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

I do, yeah. Yeah, but have a do. Podcasting here, boss. Do it a podcast, boss.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Somebody outside.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

No, it's my it's a cool hand Luke reference.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Oh. What we have here, obviously, taking it off.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Take it off here, boss. Taking it off, boss. Yeah, Cool Hand Luke, Mike. So here's a here's another classic that I hadn't seen. Jockey little bits, maybe here and there. I knew the infamous, one of the most quoted lines in cinema history. Number 11. Yeah, but I hadn't seen the film. So Cool Hand Luke comes out November 1st, 1967, of course, starring the great Paul Newman as Lucas Jackson, Mike, or Cool Hand Lucas. He would come to be known here. You know what I found? Uh well, you probably know this. Uh either you knew this or maybe you, you know, and and and brushing up on the film. The director Stuart Rosenberg. Do you know he did 15 episodes of Naked City? Oh, wow. I didn't know that. Which is a series I know that you own, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Yeah, it's it's right behind Minecraft, which is kind of off to the side. But yeah, um, I love that film, The Naked City, which is on Criterion, and the TV show has so many stars in it, Dan.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

You just look at it. They weren't at the time.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

As does Cool Han Luke, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Right. You look around, you see Harry Dean Stanton and Dennis Hopper and with No Lines.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

And Paul Newman stars with uh I would say co-stars with George Kennedy, who of course won the Oscar for his performance in this film, and people might know him from he, you know, now they go on these uh the the movie companies send out DVDs or digital codes to people like us, and they say, hey, they think we have a vote for the Oscar.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

For your consideration.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

For your consideration. Well, back then there was no such thing, and this wasn't doing big box office. So George Kennedy paid five grand to a consulting firm to get his name out there and it worked.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Yeah, I wouldn't say it wasn't doing any it wasn't doing big box office. I think he was worried about other films that had come out that same year. Yes. Like Bonnie and Clyde, and there was a couple of others that were, you know, again, 1967. But but you're right, he puts his own money out there to promote himself, and yeah, it pay it pays off for sure. And it's his only Oscars, so yeah, and and as he said, it would enhance his paychecks from there forward.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Correct. So that 5,000 paid him back tenfold, probably.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Right. And a lot of people would know him from the airplane franchise, right? Naked gun. Yeah. Yeah. He was a naked gun, but he was fantastic in this, certainly deserving of that Oscar. This is based on a novel, Mike, by Don Pierce. You talk a little bit about Don Pierce.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Well, I didn't read this novel, so I'm not real familiar with it.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Well, it's semi-autobiographical.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

Oh, that's right. He wasn't he in the cast as well.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

He does have a cameo, I believe.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

On the chain gang.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

And yeah, I now now it's it's coming back that he wrote this based on his experience. I think he was on on it for two years. Spent two years in jail.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

In in in Florida. Which is where Which is where it's set. Most of it's filmed in in Stockton, California, but it was set in Northern Florida.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

I think they wanted to film in Florida, but there was some hiccup or something at the time.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Yeah. Um but but it's based on that novel, and Frank, they brought he didn't have any experience writing screenplays, so they bring in this guy, Frank uh Pearson, to actually write the screenplay. Right. And uh you know, we mentioned at the top this star-studied cast, maybe not as much at the time, but folks that would go on to become very famous. You mentioned Dennis Hopper, Harry Dean Stanton, Joe Don Baker, Mike from Walking Tall. Right. Was in this as well. Uh a small part. I think his I think it was actually uncredited. Um and then we we have to mention, of course, Strother Martin, who plays Captain, one of the great villains in cinema history, along with Morgan Woodward, Mike, who plays the man with no eyes. Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Right, which is the right. Which he stayed in character the whole time. Didn't say a word. And if if we showed a picture of that actor with the famous line, what we have here is failure to communicate. If you showed his picture to a hundred people, I don't think one of them would get the name. Strother Martin? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Well, I I think of a certain generation or Cinephile, certainly, because he And I go back a ways to the 60s. He's got a huge resume. Yeah, but he huge resume. But but I think he became his resume certainly became more prominent following Cool Han Luke. Yeah. The following ten years, he's cranking them out left and right.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Right. I I forget. I think he has 200 and something credits, movie credits.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

Yeah, I don't know. It's crazy. Quite a quite a quite a few, yeah. But yeah, that that infamous line that you talk about. So Paul Newman, just to set it up, he plays this kind of easy-going Southern guy. He's a, I guess, decorated war veteran. Even though there's an interesting note in the film, like he goes in a private and he comes out of private, which is significant as the story plays out. But he's a decorated war veteran, and then he he's out in down uh downtown somewhere, presumably well, I don't know where he would have been. I forget where he was supposed to be before he got sent to the prison in Florida. But he's he's out drinking and he's cutting the tops off of parking meters.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Right. It reminded me of a Sopranos episode. No, no, you know what it was? It wasn't the Sopranos, it was um Johnny Depp and Al Pacino. What was that film? Donnie Brasco. Donnie Brasco. Remember? Sonny Red needs you to and he stop with the banging.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

Yeah. The banging parking meters. Does remind me of a of a Sopranos uh well, something similar, yeah. And so of course he gets uh pinched and he ends up on this chain gang in Florida, uh serving a two-year sentence. And soon after that is when we're introduced to Captain, the the role of Captain, right, that character. And you know, as soon as you hear Martin's voice in that role, which I guess I'm I don't have all his other films in my in my head, but it's very uh distinctive that that accent that he's got.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

The southern twang in his voice, and like notice the difference from when he says that famous line to Cut to Newman saying the famous line towards the end of the film. There's nothing alike. You know what I mean? He could deliver a line in such a way that was so unique. Well, it wasn't meant to be.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

You know, what you're referring to, Newman is just he just quotes.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

No, I'm talking about the other one.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

I know I know, but I'm saying Newman is only quoting one bit of that whole sequence uh that Strother Martin has. And and this is again, we're we're as often we're jumping ahead here, but you know what you find out very quickly is Newman is a guy, uh he's a non-conformist in in this situation, right? He's they're not gonna, no matter what they do, they can't rather die. They can't keep him down. Yeah. And that that that theme runs throughout, and there's a lot of spiritual sort of uh God references, and I mean his name's Luke, for one, right? Lucas Jackson, but there's also a lot of imagery, a lot of uh, you know, there's one scene that stood out to me. There's this sequence that if if I had any criticism of the film at all, which I really don't, but there's a sequence of of him making a bet, because the all the guys are in this this prison house, and they're before they get in their bunks, one of the things they're doing is they're placing bets and they're right, whatever. Just trying to kill time. Killing time playing for cigarettes and sodas and things like this, and he makes a bet out of nowhere, he's laying on his bunk, and Newman says, I can eat 50 eggs. Right. And it goes in this long sequence of them prepping for him. And by now, he and Kennedy's character, Dragline, the two of them, like he's an antagonist, but they end up becoming buddies really in the film.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Give him the nickname Cool Hand Luke. Doesn't he call him Cool Hand? He does, you know what?

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Yeah, he does. What's cool about that is they're sitting around playing cards. Yeah. And Luke is basically bluffing. He's got a shit hand. Yeah. And eventually they call him and he turns his cards over, and he's like, He's got nothing.

unknown 11:11

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

He's like, he's got and Kennedy's like, he beats you with a handful of nothing. And then he beats you with nothing. Newman says, Sometimes nothing can be a cool hand. Yeah, real cool hand. And then that's when Kennedy sits down and says, Cool hand, Luke. But but and again, that could have been very sort of forced. You know how we always criticize like the speaking of the film title by a character. Yeah. But the way Kennedy does it, it it's it's very it's yeah, it was so smooth, it was just so smooth. Yeah, yeah. But there's this bit about the eggs, and he when it's all done, he's laying on this like table in the prison house. Right. And and he's got his arms stretched out, and his legs and his feet are so he's like in this crucifixion sort of pose. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of other imagery like that that I didn't even pick up on the first time through, like a lot of crosses that you see throughout, you know. Were you aware of that? Did you pick up on that, or you already knew that?

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Or what I knew it. I I think he mentions it in the commentary track, doesn't he?

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Yeah, well, which commentary track are you talking about?

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Well, I only listened to the one, which was like a film historian.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

It's an author named Eric Lacks. Yeah. Yeah, it's a great commentary. Uh now you have the the physical. I do indeed have the physical right there. Okay, it's a 4K Ultra HD, yeah. What else does that have on it besides the commentary?

SPEAKER_00 12:52

It has the commentary by historian Eric Lacks, also on Blu-ray documentary, A Born World Shaker. Yeah. The making of cool hand look. That's Luke, that's it. So it's the same as the digital in this case. Absolutely the same, yeah. And which you probably got from me because I don't have it digitally.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Probably so, yeah. Yeah. Because it came with it, you're saying, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, this guy, Morgan Woodward, who plays Boss Godfrey, so he's kind of one of the head guys of the chain gang. You know, he's one of the authorities, and everything is boss this and boss that. You know, Strother Martin's character lays out all the rules when Newman and the rest of the newbies come to the jail, and you know, he's reading all of their rap sheets and why they're there and everything. And right. But but you come to discover very quickly that it's, you know, again, that's how the rules are set. It's boss this, but you want to do anything, you've got to ask permission, right? You're taking off a shirt here, boss. Taking it off, you know, and all of that kind of thing. But um coming out. Yeah, walking out, boss. But but but Godfrey is again for a character who says nothing in the film, is gotta be one of the best cinema villains that I've ever seen on on screen.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Yeah. Yeah, he's just, and again, he says nothing.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Yeah. When's the last time you'd when's the last time you'd seen this film?

SPEAKER_00 14:26

The last time I saw it was when I picked up the the 4K, which is going back a few years, probably like four or five years. And do you rem yeah. I saw it. I had it on Blu-ray, so I saw it probably half a dozen times.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Yeah, I'm curious.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Yeah, God. Probably somewhere in the 70s. So it's been a while. Yeah. Since that first trip.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

It's been a few years. Yeah. This mic is maybe the it's certainly one of, if not the most highly rated films we've reviewed on the podcast. Now, again, yeah, for what it's worth, we always talk about the IMDB and the Rotten Tomato scores. IMDB's got a metascore of 92. Rotten Tomatoes, the critics on Rotten Tomatoes, 100%. Wow. 100%. And 95% from the audience.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Yeah. And that's 100%. I mean, that's shocking. You know, there's always usually someone that wants to throw a monkey wrench in there. But I think Newman was such a good fit for this role, and it wasn't going to be him. You know, I always like to tell you who it was going to be. And he produced it. It was Jack Lemon.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

But Jack Lemon read the role, read the book, and he said, it's got to be Newman that plays this part. And his production company still produced it. It's, I think it's called uh Jalem Productions. J-A-L-E-M. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Jack Lemon, yeah. Yeah, it it's I I mean, I can't imagine anybody else in the role. What were your impressions of it seeing it now versus maybe, you know, been a few years?

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Well, oh, you know, back in the 70s and the mid-70s, all I remember is the car car wash scene.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Yeah. So there's there's a scene uh with an actress named Joy Harmon who plays, she's credited as the girl. And it is one of the most sexually suggestive, erotic sequences you'll ever see in a movie, even now. Even now. Even now. And I I certainly didn't know that was coming. Right. And nor did the actors, for that matter. She was locked away for a couple of days before uh Rosenberg releases her to the cast.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

They he didn't release her to the cast, they watched uh a stand-in that was dressed in a Parker doing, you know, like a winter jacket, it was a little chilly, I guess. So they're not watching the main actress.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

But it was kind of confusing to me because between the commentary and the making of and some other interviews I I'd seen. Right. You hear different stories. Yeah. Like they were and from the actors themselves. Right. She was there, she wasn't there. Like, so I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

George Kennedy said there's three days worth of film somewhere. That's probably needs to be unearthed, you know.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Right, right. Yeah, so that was a bit confusing, but yeah, the scene works for sure. It works for sure. It's very uh provocative for sure. And she doesn't, you know, in her own words, she didn't see it as like this sexual kind of usage or no, she said she was very, believe it or not, young and innocent, didn't understand the innuendo or any of that. Correct. Which is hard to believe when you see the sequence.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

When you see the sequence, it you'll it'll remain in your memory if you're a guy. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

There's no question about well, I wouldn't even say that, just anybody watching the film, you remember that sequence. Uh, the other woman in the film is Joe Van Fliet, who plays Luke's mom, Arletta, and that's a really there's a great sequence between the two of them. She shows up to visit him at the jail, and she's ailing. She's in the back of a pickup truck, and you can tell that she's not well. And they have this back and forth, and she's clearly making some sort of attempt at amends or something based on what their history was together. It's another one of those interesting where he's calling her by her name, right? Arletta. Yes. You mentioned that on a recent episode where yeah, you always know there's something up when the kids are calling the parents by their first names. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

And that sequence, Dan, uh, was like eight pages of dialogue. And they only had two days to film it.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

So the fact that these actors were so locked in. And I think who points that out is the guy doing the commentary, and he said it's because of their stage, they both had stage performance. And you know, when you do stage work, you have to memorize lots of lines.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Well, and another another note is that she and Newman were only like three years apart in age. Yeah. But they're making her up in the makeup. And they were unsure. I think Rosenberg in particular was unsure about casting her in the role because they were like the same age. So they they they did some makeup and they she comes out and does the scene, and or it was the studio, maybe the studio, I think, might have been down. Well, they wanted Betty Davis to do it. Yeah, she turned it down. Yeah. And she turned it down. Somebody else did turned it down as well. I forget who it was, but but yeah, there's there's uh we're talking about Luke, and you just can't get this guy down. He's not gonna conform, very defiant, and it just can't be a good one.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

Yeah, talk about the boxing match.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Yeah, so he in in uh dragline, George Kennedy's character, Newman is being or Luke, I should say. Uh Dragline is a bit annoyed, would you say, a bit frustrated by Luke's kind of nonchalance and just the way he carries himself amongst the rest of the crew. Because Dragline, make no mistake, is the head of this gang. And he wants to fight. He wants to fight. He wants to fight, yeah. Well, that's how you settle things out in the yard. You got a beef with another guy, and they even say that. They say you go you you handle it out in the yard, which is which they do. So it's it's Newman and Kennedy out there, and I'm I'm assuming the blazing heat. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

And as someone who's boxed, which you you've boxed.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Yeah, even if you're doing it simulated, correct. I don't care. It for the time that they were probably doing it, it took them quite a while to film that. Three days of filming. Three days, yeah. You'd be just absolutely exhausted. Plus, there was some wrestling around and some other physicality and things that were involved. And um, but it's a gr it's a great sequence, but that's where I think drag line starts to really earn uh respect for Luke. Right. But it's it's kind of it's kind of a double edged sword. It's like that's that. What was great about him, and that was what was bad about him. He was very resilient and defiant and all those things, but he also didn't know when to quit, you know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Yeah. So anyway, one more mention was the sheriff.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Played by Rance Howard, which is Ron Howard's dad. Oh, that's right. And he's been in a lot of Ron's films over the years. So it was interesting to see him in a non-Ron Howard film.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

Yeah. Was he the one that was kind of being nice to Luke, talking about finding God and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Yeah, and almost apologizing, you know, when he had to do and there's a great line, I forget it, but I it when whenever I hear the line, it sticks with me. Something about if you have to apologize for doing your job, you know, something ain't right.

SPEAKER_02 22:53

Yeah, loop.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Yeah, something like that. That's not the direct quote, but that quote, I should have written it down.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Yeah, there's this thing too where talk about um going into the box, Mike.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Yeah. Uh, you know, just as a penalty, you you're sent and you're put in this dark box with uh a bucket of slop, would you call? I don't even know what it was.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Yeah, I think it was a pot to piss in, probably, and and then say maybe some gruel or something. Exactly. Yeah, I'm not even sure if it was food. It might have been one can to you know go two in and then another one to piss in. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

It could have been.

unknown 23:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

It could have been. But you're right. If you if you get out of line, you'd spend a night in the box. And the in the is it Carter, who is kind of the the head of the the bunkhouse. He's the one that lays down all the rules. He's in charge of like lights out and everything. And he says that from day one. You do this, night in the box. You do that, you spend a night in the box. Right, right. Reminded me of that reminds me of that sequence from uh Mrs. Doubtfire with Rob Williams. You box him and you ship him.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Okay, so after I box him, you ship him, dumbass. Smart ass. Yeah, it's been a smart box. He hasn't been a night in the box. But uh, but you know, this I I couldn't help thinking about some other films while I was watching it. A lot I say it, Cuckoo's Nest had to have been influenced by this. It had to be with Chief and and um Mick, not Mick Lovin, but Nicholson, you know, the main character in Cuckoo's Nest. Mike's off his game here, has no references, totally silent. McMurphy. McMurphy. He's like, do you have a small stroke over there? What's going on? Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

But and I even got him behind me right there with Cuckoo's. He's looking at me like, what are you kidding me, Mike?

SPEAKER_01 24:52

That is ridiculous. Well, look at it. He's even looking like, oh brother.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

Right. And you know, as you're asking me, all I'm thinking is Nurse Ratchet, Nurse Ratchet, Nurse Ratchet.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

Yeah, well, but that's another reason why I was thinking about it. It's because you've got Boss Godfrey, which is the nurse ratchet. Is the boss Godfrey character, right? And then you have you've got Newman who is almost like he's almost like a uh a mashup of Chief and McMurphy. Yeah. In a sense. Unless you want to say Dennis Hopper's bubble guts is Chief. No, perhaps. But he's not in it enough. But here's the thing about uh Cool Han Luke in Chief in Cuckoo's Nest, right? Is they're both pretending that you've got them beaten, you've got them broken, right? Right. Chief playing dumb to a fault. And then at the end it's revealed that they were one step ahead of you the whole time. Right. So I I thought that was a huge pile. I said this has to have been influenced by Coolhand Luke. Same thing, Mike. First blood with Stallone. Think of that. Between um Teasel, who's uh played by Brian Dennehy, yeah. And Stallone, that relationship, right again, Boss Godfrey and Luke.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

It's the same dynamic. Here's the I'm gonna drop you here, walk right there. You're in Canada or wherever the hell he was sending them to. That's right. And be on your way. And we'll forget all about this. That's right. That's right. And Rambo goes to the line, turns around, comes right back.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Comes right back, yeah. Uh and you know, some later uh Shawshank redemption, there's some Shawshank vibes in there.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Certainly, it's very different from Paul Newman up until this point. Because he's such he's such an attractive with the blue eyes, like directors are always told, make sure. And this is the studio people, get those blue eyes in there. He didn't want it to be filmed like that. He wanted to be scruffy and kind of not perfect. Kind of hard when you're Paul. It's kind of hard when you're him.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

But the acting is superb, the performance that he puts on. It's it's some in some in some space spots it's it's somewhat understated, but it's super powerful.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Like now, uh did you listen to everything and and you know the what how it was supposed to end versus how they ended it? Was that on the commentary? I think so, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Well, okay, so Mike's gonna spoil the ending here.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

Yeah, I don't want to spoil the ending by saying it's a 1967 film. Spoiler alert. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

Spoiler alert if you haven't seen it.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

In the book, and and what was supposed to happen is he's dead at the end, and they're dragging him off, you know. But no, the the studio would not let them kill Paul Newman in a movie. And Newman was like, look, I'm not coming back, I'm not doing this again. So why not go for it?

SPEAKER_01 28:09

So he was all for being like the book, where well, I just don't think they wanted that to happen to a Paul Newman character. I don't think back then they weren't thinking about a cool hand Luke sequel, certainly.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

No, but they he looks cool at the end, like they're dragging him out, they didn't beat him, but they did. They wound up killing him. Well, they shot him.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

He gets shot, and and he's in the back of the patrol car or in the front of the car, whatever. And again, you get as they're driving away, you get the the infamous Newman smile, kind of a grin that lights up the screen, and then and it's something that uh after that scene ends, you cut to the prison and there's dragline out there with all the other inmates, and they're kind of eulogizing him, talking about he was a biggest world shaker and that smile, and right, you know, and they're and they're flashing back to different sequences of of Newman in the film throughout the film. But but yeah, he definitely because they even say he'll never make it to the hospital. And so what do they do? They drive in the direction of the hospital because yeah, they're not they don't intend for him to live. This is like what we should say is this is like the third time that he's escaped at this at this point in the film.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

Now, in the film, George Kennedy wins the Oscar for best supporting actor, but there's two other Oscar winners: Joe Van Fleet, who you mentioned, yeah, and Newman.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

So Newman didn't win the Oscar for this.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Not for this. Oh, you just mean Oscar winners. Yeah, I said you have three Oscar winners in the cast.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

Right, right. He was nominated though for this. Right. He was nominated for this, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

So you start there with this abundance of talent, and then you think of all these guys like the guy Wayne, something or other, that was on MASH for years, and all these other gifted actors that had long careers, but are not well known. No. But it's no surprise that the ratings are as high as they are given the quality.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Well, in the the the directing by Rosenberg is stunning. I mean, this was his first feature, I believe. I think he everything he'd done prior was in television. Correct. And this, I mean, this is a magnificent looking film. I mean, some of the shots that he gets, the very ending shot is is a shot of the chain gang out there doing their thing. And the camera, which was on, must have been on like a helicopter, I'm assuming, as it pulls away and zooms out overhead. Right. Is again the cinematography cinematography we should talk about too, but as the as the camera's rising up, you see the road again in the shape of a cross. And then there's a photograph of Newman that plays a part in the film, probably midway through the film or so, where he pretends that he got away and was living this glorious life for I don't know how long it was before they found him, the second time he escaped, or whatever it was. Right. But it was this photo of him and two women at like a casino or something, and that all the guys back at the camp are like, oh my God, this you know, he was a hero. But it was fake, and they didn't believe him. He said, I I I paid a guy to do it, which is kind of funny now. We think about AI and stuff, you know. But yeah, and and they shot as they're zooming out, Mike, with the cross with the road, the photograph is stitched back together, and it's it's in the shape of a cross, the stitch where it comes together.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

As you were describing that, one flew over the cuckoo's nest is going through my head as the inmates, you know, glorified how you know McMurphy got out, and you know, he gave it to Nurse Ratchet and this and that. Meanwhile, like only the chief knows. Like when the chief breaks out, they assume McMurphy's the one breaking out.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Yeah. Well, it well, it's what's noteworthy about that performance is in that story, is McMurphy. The first time when he comes back, he pretends he's acting like he and then he gives him the wink or whatever. And then lit further into the film, of course, they give him the lobotomy and the whole thing for real, and it's no joke. It's no joke. But yeah, there was a lot of similarities to some of those characters, and um the villains. We talked about Nurse Ratchet, I mentioned Teasel. Um, of course, in this one, it's Boss Godfrey. Uh little Bill even came into my mind, you know, Hackman from Unforgiven. Yeah. And Warden Norton from Shawshank Redemption. He was another son of a similar figure. Yeah, yeah. He was. He was. Yep. So those those latter films had to have been influenced by this. There's just no doubt in my mind.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

Yeah, no, I think absolutely this is one of the most influential films of that era. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

And well, yeah, and you're talking, you know, Vietnam and a lot of the sort of sentiment at that time, and it it was very that kind of anti-authoritarianism and things that was playing out in films. I mean, you could think about so many films in that mid to late 60s. Yeah. Were like that, even the graduate and and others. But this one, this one's fantastic. Like you said, no, no surprise why it's rated so high. Another note, Mike, the uh cinematography I mentioned we should comment on by Conrad Hall. Conrad Hall, I think, has won three or four Oscars. And one of those Oscars, Mike, he won was for the film Road to Perdition, which also starred Paul Newman. One of the last ones he did.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

One of my favorite Newman films of all time is Road to Perdition. And the ending of that film is flawless.

SPEAKER_01 34:33

Yeah, he won for that. He also did uh Conrad Hall did American Beauty, Mike. He did Scrooged. I thought you might find that interesting.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

Yeah, did the cinematography on Scrooge, and he did the cinematography on a civil action, which was a story with Travolta based on our hometown. It's kind of an interesting note. Correct. And the score, this is another film where the score is its own character, um, Lalo Schifrin, who the funny thing that I learned about this from the commentary was the one of the sequences in the film, when they're out in the chain gang, Schiffrin comes up with this really unique-sounding score that ends up becoming used as the theme song for like the ABC Nightly News and a lot of other newscasts. Like that it-dit that, you know, this kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

And they thought that he stole it from the news that it was the other way around. Correct.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

Like, why'd you use that uh theme from the mu from the news? Yeah. He also did the uh Mission Impossible theme, Mike, and uh Dirty Harry. He did the the score for Dirty Harry as well. Yeah. So some having hitters in every department you've got here, you know. But yeah, I I thought it was fantastic. It's it's a it's an impactful movie, you know, with a message. And again, aesthetically, it's beautiful. The score is great, the acting is superb. So it's no wonder it's 100% from the critics on Rotten Tomatoes, at least.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

And it's one of like uh Warner Brothers has this top 100 films that they're all disseminating on 4K.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

And the Library of Congress, you know, it's on that.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

So it's got like every stamp of approval you can imagine.

SPEAKER_01 36:23

It does, yeah. Yeah, I I loved it. I thought it was great. It made me want to uh dive into some other Paul Newman films. Uh, I did, I watched, I went and I watched Josh Hank Redemption after too.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

And I watched that not long ago, and you were like, why are you watching that?

SPEAKER_01 36:39

I hadn't seen it in so long, and this kind of just it kept going through my mind, and sure enough, I mean, obviously, prison at that time, they got the same kind of blue prison outfits and so similarities in that way. But yeah, um uh Roger Deacons was the cinematographer on Shawshank Redemption, and we just talked about him because he was the DP on The Man Who Wasn't There. Right, right. Six Degrees of Roger Deacons. Yeah. Anything else to say about Cool Hand Luke? I mean, this one speaks for itself. If you haven't if you haven't seen it, like I hadn't seen it, right? Show you've gotta see it. And any Guns N' Roses fans out there would know that famous sequence because it's it's in a Strother Martin's monologue. There is in the Guns N' Roses song Civil War. And it's really intense. It's really intense, but uh not having the the full context, you know. Now I can say, okay, now anytime I hear that, I'm gonna see that scene in my head. You know, right, right. It's great, it's great. All right, Mike. I think that's gonna do it for Cool Hand Luke. Anything, uh any any parting words here before we I'm just happy.

SPEAKER_00 37:51

I didn't realize this was your first viewing. Yeah. And I suspect you'll go back to it maybe a couple of years, keep it on the shelf.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

Yeah, it's it's it's a great one for sure. It's a classic. Very, very good. Well, there you go, folks. And you can pick it up, I think, too, on digital for cheap. I don't know what it's what the 4K goes for, that you've got that Ultra HD or whatever, but yeah, back when I got this, I think it was like 11 bucks. Yeah, it's probably pretty cheap. Now, I highly recommend people pick it up if you if you're a physical collector for sure. Yeah. All right, it's gonna do it for this episode of the Oprah the podcast. I've been your host, Dan Smith. Longs on me as always, my brother from the same mother, Mike Smith, and we will see you next time. Bye, everyone. End in the podcast here, boss. Out, boss.