Cool Hand Luke
Director: Stuart Rosenberg Run Time: 127 min. Format: DCP Rating: PG Release Year: 1967
Starring: George Kennedy, J. D. Cannon, Jo Van Fleet, Lou Antonio, Paul Newman, Robert Drivas, Strother Martin
Nitehawk’s COUNTRY BRUNCHIN’ goes to a Florida prison with an egg-eating rebel in COOL HAND LUKE. The screening features a live pre-show serenade by SASHA PAPERNIK’S GLASS CARNIVAL!
We all need a little non-conformity these days. Based on Donn Pearce’s 1965 novel, the film version of Cool Hand Luke stars a ruggedly handsome Paul Newman as a Luke Jackson, a prisoner who challenges the system in a Florida jail. Like is sentenced to a stretch on a southern chain gang after he’s arrested for drunkenly decapitating parking meters. Throughout his institutional tenure, he rages against authority, repeatedly escapes prison, and becomes the bad figure who the guards must make an example of to the other inmates. The screening celebrates fifty years of the film that was a “touchstone of an era.”