Cool Hand Luke is a novel by Donn Pearce published in 1965. It was adapted into the 1967 Oscar-winning film Cool Hand Luke. The story is told in a first-person narrative from the perspective of a convict in a central Florida prison. He works on a chain gang maintaining the berms of highways. He recounts the story of a "legendary" fellow inmate whose nickname is Cool Hand Luke. The novel is based on Pearce's personal experiences while incarcerated with a Florida prison road gang.
Adaptations (1)
Cool Hand Luke was adapted into a 1967 film.
Cool Hand Luke1967 · film · 127 min · dir. Stuart Rosenberg · IMDb ↗When petty criminal Luke Jackson is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline, who ends up admiring the new guy's unbreakable will. Luke's bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison's dreaded solitary confinement cell, "the box," make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.
