It's often amazing how little it takes for a film to be taken as an Award winner. This is now looked upon as a good example of the grueling Chain Gang genre. Obviously 'they' have not seen "I'am A Fugitive from a Chain Gang", "Sullivan's Travels, or "Strange Cargo". In this illustration the convicts have plenty of food to eat, get to have plenty of sleep, clean clothes, and even have time for silly food eating competitions like; betting who can eat 50 hard boiled eggs!. Apart from some hard road work it's more like a naughty boys club.
Luke is somehow seen to be a Christ-like character, even though he is little more than a drunken bum, who endlessly blasphemes and vandalises parking meters. These writers clearly know little about Christ. Try Richard Sale's 'Strange Cargo' for a convincing Christ like chain gang character - this limp script seems to have 'borrowed' from Sales example - and not at all very well. The sequence with the floozy washing a car is so cheesy in its contrived construction that its little more than borderline el-cheapo R stuff to pad out the run time.
Conrad Halls Technicolor cinematography, and a curious cast of support players, offer more interest than the script. Also not sure Stuart Rosenberg was the quite the right director for this one. Lalo Schifrin's score is highly reminiscent of another Newman effort just few years earlier by Elmer Bernstein for "Hud". 'Luke' ambles on for over two Hrs towards a disappointing resolution, ending up rather forgettable but seems to have pleased someone!
Luke is somehow seen to be a Christ-like character, even though he is little more than a drunken bum, who endlessly blasphemes and vandalises parking meters. These writers clearly know little about Christ. Try Richard Sale's 'Strange Cargo' for a convincing Christ like chain gang character - this limp script seems to have 'borrowed' from Sales example - and not at all very well. The sequence with the floozy washing a car is so cheesy in its contrived construction that its little more than borderline el-cheapo R stuff to pad out the run time.
Conrad Halls Technicolor cinematography, and a curious cast of support players, offer more interest than the script. Also not sure Stuart Rosenberg was the quite the right director for this one. Lalo Schifrin's score is highly reminiscent of another Newman effort just few years earlier by Elmer Bernstein for "Hud". 'Luke' ambles on for over two Hrs towards a disappointing resolution, ending up rather forgettable but seems to have pleased someone!