Cool Hand Luke [Blu-ray]

Paul Newman gives one of the defining performances of his career and cemented his place as a beautiful, rebel screen icon playing the stubbornly tough and independent title character in Cool Hand Luke. And before he became familiar as a sidekick in 1970s’ disaster movies (Earthquake and the Airport movies), George Kennedy won an Oscar for playing Dragline, the brutal chain-gang boss who tries to beat loner Luke’s cool out of him. It’s a classic rebel-against-the-repressive-institution story in the line of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest or The Shawshank Redemption. Certain moments have become classics–particularly the hardboiled egg-eating contest and the immortal line (drooled by Strother Martin, as a sadistic redneck prison officer): “What we have here is a failure to communicate”. And don’t forget, Luke is also the source of the oft-quoted driving ditty: “I don’t care if it rains or freezes, long as I have my plastic Jesus, right here on the dashboard of my car.” –Jim Emerson