Cool Hand Luke - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

The movie is mentioned in conversation in Serendipity when actor John Cusack tells Kate Beckinsale that it is his all-time favorite movie. Also, in the first episode of Cheers, the regulars are arguing over the sweatiest movie ever made, mentioning Ben-Hur. Diane shows her exasperation over the subject when her fiance, Sumner Sloane, enters the bar. Upon learning of the subject, Sumner immediately says "Cool Hand Luke". Norm replies "Good one!"

Behind the Scenes of "Cool Hand Luke"

"Donn Pearce served most of his sentence at the Tavares Road Prison #5758 (later #58) in Tavares, Lake County. I recall that when the book, 'Cool Hand Luke' hit the library in Tavares that there was a local minor commotion. That was around 1964-65. According to legend around the Lake County area, the role of the officer on the road gang in the movie with the mirrored sunglasses was supposed to be our State Road Department (now DOT) foreman, a man by the name of Miley, a fellow I knew very well. He had only one arm.

"What's left of the Tavares Road Prison is still where it was when Pearce was serving time, on SR19 just south of Tavares. The old office is still there, as well as the gasoline storage building and the equipment sheds. Alas, the inmate dormitory, the Bachelor's Officer's quarters, the "box", the guardstands and the grocery warehouse are all gone.

"The movie producers sent down a crew to Tavares to take pictures, make measurements, etc., before going back to the left coast and replicating the movie set prison there. Fred Hale was the Captain at #58 during that period and he and I discussed it at a meeting in Ft Lauderdale in the middle or late 1960s. When the pictures were taken and measurements made, the road prison was still being operated. The movie set was very close to the original. I went by the site of #58 a few years ago and the desk that I used in 1962 was STILL THERE, and a list of telephone numbers in my handwriting was still on the slide out."

Warden Clark Moody