2 hrs & 7 min, color,
1967
The time setting is the late
1940s in the Deep South. Luke is a World
War II veteran who has not been able to regain his sense of self-worth since
his discharge. He has taken excessively
to drink and teeters on the edge of despair.
He is not a violent person, but he gets some kind of retributive kick
out of decapitating parking meters while under the influence, and this
violation of public property lands him on a prison farm to serve two miserable
years. When he arrives he gives no
indication that he is anything but a very passive, peaceful individual. From all appearances he is, in contrast to
the men with whom he is placed, the quiet type.
But this apparently cool
individual turns out to be a clever wielder of passive aggressive behavior and
over time comes to exert a powerful influence upon his fellow prisoners that is
measurable only in the most intangible of terms. His quietly insinuating ways anger those
around him on the farm at first, until he is forced to put on boxing gloves and
contend with a big bruiser of a man named Dragline (a terrific George Kennedy)
and gets beaten up (well, almost) while his jailers look on and do nothing to
break up the match. But strangely the
treatment does not make him into a fighter – at least not with fists or
physical force. You have to observe the
emanating chemistry itself over the film’s expanse to fathom how this happens,
how he progresses from a quiet cool to become “a world shaker” respected by his
fellow prisoners, especially Dragline, who ironically becomes his greatest
friend and admirer.
It is when Luke begins
opening his mouth and dropping little hints as to why he has become a bum that
the character comes to life. He
describes his downward odyssey by his observation that as a civilian he
“couldn’t find elbow room”. He also
starts to evidence some yearning after divinity. While slaving on the road at the start of a
rain storm he surprises everyone by crying out for God to speak loud enough for
him to know that heaven is listening, that he, Luke, is not forgotten. But even this loud prayerful plea is not
uttered in some humble, breast beating manner.
It sounds rather showy. It
becomes clear that there is a gaming trait in his personality that slowly
activates his spirit. Just for the fun
of it he sets a fast pace while tarring a road; his fellows get hooked and
hasten to keep up with him. The job gets
finished far ahead of schedule to the amazement of the bosses standing by.
The most conspicuous
expression of this gaming trait is his claim that in the space of an hour he
can eat fifty eggs. His bunk fellows take
him up on the claim and get him to prove it, everyone betting money on the
outcome. The demonstration comprises the
funniest sequence in the entire movie; it allows us to take a huge breath
before more dramatic collisions with the bosses come about. And those collisions do come about; a
lighthearted comedy this is not.
The overseers are not by any
means paper tigers. They turn out to be
not only strict but lethal when the defiance of their authority is carried
beyond a certain point, either actively or passively. You just may come away from the viewing
feeling as if the wrong men are in prison behind that barbed wire. The management turns out to be more criminal
than the assumed criminals they manage.
These incarcerated men are not the hardened type of criminal, not the
psychopaths or the demented gorillas.
The severe conditions to which they are subjected seem way out of
proportion to the lesser crimes that they have committed, those only punishable
by time in a local jail facility.
We
have all heard some version of the phrase “failure to communicate”, and in this
script the words fall from the lips of the head overseer played by Strother
Martin, a physically stumpy little actor who appeared in dozens of movies from
the 1950s through the 1970s. Usually he
filled the shoes of a villain or of some halfwit or mentally deranged
troublemaker, but here he is in charge of the operation of the farm and he
projects the image of someone who is laughably unsuited for his job, but
dangerous just the same. He uses the
words to refer to Luke’s snide resistance to his policies, after he slaps Luke
to the ground. “What we have here is a
failure to communicate.” At a climactic
point later on Luke uses the statement to poke fun at the whole establishment
and pays a bitter price for doing so.
When
certain infractions of the rules occur, they have something called The Box,
which requires the prisoner to spend the night standing on his feet in a very
small shed, with only the option of curling up into a ball to come to a
stooping position on the tiny bare floor.
The film is full of sweat, grime, summer heat and putrid
conditions. (How much the state of
things has changed over the past seventy years I am not certain. We see nothing but Caucasians among these
characters; I am sure that today all penal facilities have been integrated, at
least officially.)
I
would like to believe that in the twenty-first century Luke would be treated
for PTSD, something that at that time had not even become a featured topic for
discussion among medics, let alone among the public at large. But despite his seeming impairment and low
self-esteem, naivete does not exist inside this man. He knows what the world at large is like,
having helped fight a savage war and done his share of the killing. He nurses a subtle disrespect for the abuse
of authority and entertains no illusions about the impotence behind his
captors’ bullheadedness.
But
not all the movie is concerned with life among the inhabitants of the pokey. There are very emotionally penetrating moments
as well. One is the scene in which
Luke’s mother (Jo Van Fleet) comes to visit.
She is physically a pitiful wreck, but a very tenderhearted and friendly
tease, who seems to know that it is too late to expect great things of her
son. In this one and only appearance of
hers death is heavy in the air. She
arrives at the gate laid out on the back of a wagon, completely incapable of bodily
movement, except to pump constantly on a cigarette. Ms. Fleet is absolute perfection in this
small but crucial role.
The
conversation between them is remarkable, not only for what is said but for what
is not said and not needing to be said.
She knows that he is a failure, but she smiles and lovingly reminds him
of the dreams for him they have shared in the past. Strangely he calls her by her first name,
Arletta. “You did your best,
Arletta!” It is touching that he takes
pains not to lay any kind of guilt trip on her and sets her conscience at
ease. Their encounter is quite sad but
far more loving than just civil. We know
they are saying goodbye, that she will soon pass on from this world, which she
does.
News
of her death later on brings Luke to a moment of deep tearful pathos, with him
singing a song by himself with simple string accompaniment that links him with
his childhood past. Newman was never
been better than in this movie and in this solitary moment he excels par
excellence, reaching deep into our souls.
The mother’s death also becomes a spur to raise his gaming imagination
to a new high. It sends him running from
the farm and gets him in deep, deep trouble.
But
faced with the threat of annihilation he transcends his cosmic despair and
finds spiritual resilience he never knew he had.
The fine directing comes from Stuart Rosenberg and
the outstanding original screenplay is the labor of Donn Pearce and Frank R.
Pierson. Because of these three men
Luke’s saga is by turns disquietingly funny, heartbreaking, tender, wistful,
fiercely confrontational and oddly inspiring. This is one of my 100 favorites which I
itemized on this blog just a few years back.
I not only love it; I treasure it.
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