Tuesday, April 4, 2023

COOL HAND LUKE (1967) (WBHE 4K ultra HD Review)

COOL HAND LUKE (1967)

Label: WBHE
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: PG-13 
Duration: 126 Minutes 
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono (UHD), DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono (BD) with Optional English Subtitles 
Video: (HDR10) 2160p UHD Widescreen (2.35:!) , 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: Stuart Rosenberg
Cast: Paul Newman, George Kennedy, J.D. Canon, Robert Drivas, Lou Antonio, Strother Martin, Jo Van Fleet

In the prison classic Cool Hand Luke (1967) Paul Newman (Road To Perdition) stars 
Luke Jackson, a war hero who at the start of the film is arrested for disorderly conduct and destroying public property after the cops nab him walking an empty city street quite drunk and cutting off parking meters at the stem with a pipe cutter. Sentenced to two years of hard labor at a Florida prison run by a warden who goes by Captain (Strother Martin, The Brotherhood of Satan). Luke proves to be not a fan of being told what to do by the prison staff, especially the menacing prison guard Godfrey (Morgan Woodard, Battle Beyond the Stars), who always wears mirrored sunglasses, and sits watch over the work crew with a rifle. 

Inside he earns a reputation among his fellow incarcerated as someone who is cool under pressure, hence his titular nickname, and not one to easily fall into line when told do so. He earns the respect of the towering Dragline (George Kennedy, Creepshow 2) after taking him on in the weekly prison yard  boxing match, and despite being whupped by Dragline hands down he refuses to give up, even when he can barely stand up, he never stops swinging. 

Occasionally his ant-authority antics begin to rub Captain the wrong way, and after various infractions throws him in the sweat box overnight several times, but it never breaks him. However, when his dear momma Arletta (Jo Van Fleet, Satan's School for Girls) passes on it get's under the skin of Luke, and despite the Captain preemptively locking him away in the box so as he is not tempted to escape, he does just that. His escape makes him in instant hero among the convicted, he is re-captured and the Captain lays into pretty hard so as to set an example and discourage he and others from attempting escape again. He makes several more escapes, each time his punishment grows more extreme, and finally it seems to break him. The fellow inmates start to lose faith in their former hero, but Luke has more tricks up his sleeve, and eventually makes a final break-out with his bud Dragline in tow. 

Cool Hand Luke is a classic among prison film, Newman is in top physical form and the camera loves his glistening bare-chested body as he labors away in the son. He's just a cool cat and his character is charming as heck, his indomitable spirit even winning over a few of the prison guards along the way. He's capably supported by Kennedy who gives a terrific Oscar-winning supporting performance as the hulking Dragline, a felon with heart; and Strother Martin just about steals every scene he shows up in with his wicked and slightly effeminate Southern drawl, uttering perhaps the film's most iconic line, "What we have here is a failure to communicate...", made famous to my generation (Gen X if you're keeping track), after it was used on the Guns N' Roses tune "Civil War".  The film also feature turns from a lot of familiar faces including Joe Don Baker (Charley Varrick), Harry Dean Stanton (Repo Man) as a guitar strumming felon, Dennis Hopper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2), Clifton James (Experiment In Terror), and Anthony Zerbe (Omega Man).

Audio/Video: Cool Hand Luke (1967) gets a region-free 4K Ultra HD from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment in HDR10-enhanced 2160p UHD widescreen (2.35:1), and while there's no specific information about the source of this new scan it looks quite nice. There's an unobtrusive layer of fine film grain that exports pleasing depth, clarity and fine detail throughout, especially in close-ups of characters caked in mud and sweat while working outdoors under the noon day sun. Colors are a bit muted and dingy by design, enhanced slightly by some judicious HDR10 color-grading that subtley  enhances primaries and boosts contrast with deeper more layered blacks during the night scenes. Audio on the UHD comes by way of DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono with optional English subtitles. Its a solid track that is clean and offers intelligible dialogue, and the terrific Lalo Schifrin score sounds great. Unfortunately, the accompanying Blu-ray is a recycle of the 2008 release, which has only lossy Dolby Digital 1.0 mono, so the UHD's dual-mono DTS-HD track is actually a nice upgrade 

No new extras are afforded the Oscar nominated film, we get the archival Audio Commentary by Eric Lax on the UHD, which is duplicated alongside all the other archival extras on the Blu-ray, again a recycle of the 2008  disc, which are a bit light for a classic film in my opinion, a real shame The 2-disc release arrives in a black dual-hubbed keepcase with a single sided sleeve of artwork. Inside there's a redemption code for a 4K digital copy of the film. The slipcover is adorned with the WB 100 anniversary logo in the upper right hand corner, the wrap does not. 

Special Features:
- Audio Commentary by Eric Lax
- “A Natural-Born World-Shaker: Making Cool Hand Luke” (featurette) (29 min) 
- Trailer (3 min) 
- Slipcover
- Digital Copy