Cool Hand Luke (Blu-ray)

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10. It isn't long before Luke gains the respect and following of his fellow prisoners (who become his disciples), mostly by doing the seemingly impossible--the miracles of the New Testament brought to life in the modern day. Besides the fistfight and the poker game, Luke leads the men in tarring and graveling a road in record time. "Where'd the road go?" asks Dragline. "That's it. That's the end of it," says Luke.

Next, Luke claims "I can eat fifty eggs." "Nobody can eat fifty eggs," says Dragline. "Nobody ever eat fifty eggs," says Luke. And he does. When he's finished, the camera photographs him from above, lying on a table half naked, arms outstretched, belly swollen, his head surmounted by a halo of egg shells. Anybody who doesn't get the point by this time has never read the Bible or seen a religious depiction of Christ on the cross. To drive the point home, we later get a scene of the "Last Supper."

"Ain't you scared? Ain't you scared of dying?" Dragline asks Luke. "Dying?" he responds. "Boy, he can have this little life any time he wants to."

11. When Luke tries to escape and the guards bring him back, they put into a solitary-detention box. They give him only a white gown (resembling a white robe) to wear. "Sorry, Luke," says the guard, "I'm just doing my job. You gotta appreciate that." "Nah," says Luke, "calling it your job don't make it right, Boss."

12. Luke dies when the implacable prison guards hunt him down one final time and kill him. It happens in a church, with Luke again talking to his God. "Hey, Old Man. You home tonight? Can you spare a minute. It's about time we had a little talk."

13. A moment after Luke dies, a car rolls over the dark glasses of the "Man with No Eyes." In death, Luke has defeated the ultimate authority; he has gone out his own way, leaving his martyrdom behind, an inspirational tale to live on forever.

14. After Luke's death, we see Dragline spreading Luke's story to the other prisoners, perpetuating the legend, the myth. Then we see a shot of a photograph of Luke with a pair of prostitutes on either side of him, the photo having earlier been torn up. Now, we see the photograph restored (Luke resurrected), superimposed over the group of prisoners as they talk at a crossroads, shot from above. It's Luke's picture against a cross, the two sinners on either side of him, his disciples in the background.

15. And do you think it's a coincidence that when Luke's mother dies, Newman sings "I don't care if it rains or freezes, 'long as I got my plastic Jesus, ridin' on the dashboard of my car," and Harry Dean Stanton does a heartfelt rendition of "Just a Closer Walk With Thee"?

I really love this picture.

Trivia note: Although the story's setting is in the rural South, the studio filmed most of it in California's Central Valley around Lodi, Stockton, and the San Joaquin River. For Hollywood, Central California was closer to home and, thus, cheaper to film there.

Video:
Warner video engineers went back to original film elements to remaster and restore the movie. Even if this Blu-ray, BD25, VC-1 transfer is still not among the best I've seen, compared to WB's old standard-def DVD edition, it is a night-and-day improvement. Colors and clarity are preeminent here, with hues that are rich and vibrant and a screen that is free of noise, dirt, scratches, lines, or age. There is quite a bit of location shooting in the film, yet these scenes display only an expected modicum of film grain. Conrad Hall's 2.40:1-ratio Panavision photography shows up well, but razor-sharp definition may never have been a hallmark of the master print. The fact is, the high-def image remains more than a little soft and fuzzy. Fortunately, the deep, vivid colors make up a lot of ground lost to the object delineation.

Audio:
On the plus side, the newly mastered 1.0 monaural audio is warm and natural and probably sounds better today than it did when WB first made the film. On the minus side, Warners use only an ordinary Dolby Digital track to reproduce it. Perhaps on a single-layer BD25 they didn't have room for anything more, or perhaps they figured there wasn't much to reproduce and Dolby Digital was good enough. Nevertheless, audiophiles and videophiles would no doubt argue that nothing but a lossless audio track is ever good enough. I'll leave that issue for other people to debate. My only minor concern about the new audio is that the level seemed a little lower than I'm used to and lower than on WB's old standard-def disc. Perhaps there is a wider dynamic range involved, I didn't check; if so, it still sounds somewhat limited. The main thing is that dialogue is rendered smoothly and realistically, and Lalo Schifrin's simple, folksy, jazzy musical score never sounded better.

Extras:
There are really only two bonus items on the disc, but they are among the more worthwhile extras you'll find on any disc because they're direct, concise, enlightening, and entertaining. The first is an audio commentary by Newman biographer Eric Lax, whom I found both informed and informative. The second is a 2008 documentary, "A Natural-Born World Shaker: The Making of Cool Hand Luke," twenty-eight minutes with the director, the writer, the composer, and many of the film's stars.

Things finish up with thirty-seven scene selections; a widescreen theatrical trailer; English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, and Portuguese spoken languages; English, French, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, and Swedish subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired.

Parting Thoughts:
With "Cool Hand Luke" you get your money's worth. You get engaging characters, an involving plot, exciting action, touching relationships, first-rate acting, an intriguing parable, and a slate of thoughtful ideas. If you can't appreciate some or any of these points, perhaps you can take comfort from Strother Martin's character, the prison warden, who tells us "What we've got here is failure to communicate." But I figure most viewers will have little failure understanding the movie and its motives. They communicate brilliantly.

Warner Bros. are simultaneously releasing the movie on this Blu-ray disc and in a new standard-def Deluxe Edition.

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