Dream The End » Donn Pearce & Frank Pierson

Cool Hand Luke (1)

DTE Studio — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 21:08:54 +0000

LUKE
How’d you find me?

ARLETTA
Helen, she sent along your things with a note, and John here, he wrote to the police.

LUKE
Yeah. Well.
(to Godfrey)
Getting’ up here, Boss.

Godfrey just looks at him, says nothing.

LUKE
Well, Arletta, I got to stand down here.

ARLETTA
I allus hoped to see you well fixed and have me a crop of grandkids to kiss and fuss around with.

LUKE
Like to oblige you, Arletta, but right off I don’t know where to put my hands on ‘em.

ARLETTA
Sometimes I wisht people was like dogs, Luke. Comes a time, a day like, when the bitch just don’t recognize her pups no more, so she don’t have no hopes nor love to bring her pain. She just don’t give a damn. They let you smoke?

LUKE
Smokin’ it up here, Boss.

Cool Hand Luke (2)

DTE Studio — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 21:08:53 +0000

LUKE
You never wanted to live forever anyways, did you? It wasn’t such a hell of a life.

ARLETTA
Oh, I had me some high old times. Yore old man, Luke, wasn’t much for stickin’ around, but damn it he made me laugh.

LUKE
Yeah, would of been nice to of knowed him, the way you talk about him.

She’s looking at him and begins to laugh, losing control and coughing to the point it alarms John and Jackson and they have to help her. She pays no attention to the cough.

LUKE
He’d… He’d of… broke you up.

She quiets after the fit and lies back, tired.

ARLETTA
You think life is some kind of ocean voyage and you start out with bunting’ and hollering’ and high hopes, but the damn ship goes down before you ever reach the other side. Luke?

LUKE
Here, Mom.

ARLETTA
What went wrong?

LUKE
Nothin’. Ever’thing’s cool’s can be.

ARLETTA
No.

LUKE
Tried to live always just as free and aboveboard as you been, and well, they ain’t that much elbow room.

Cool Hand Luke (3)

DTE Studio — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 21:08:53 +0000

ARLETTA(recovering)
Laugh it up, kid. You’ll make out.

Donn Pearce & Frank Pierson – Bio

DTE Studio — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 21:07:47 +0000

Donn Pearce was born in Pennsylvania on September 28, 1928. He is best known for his novel and screenplay Cool Hand Luke. He was nominated for an Academy Award for this adaptation, along with Frank Pierson.

Frank Pierson was born on May 12, 1925, in New York. He wrote screenplays for Cool Hand Luke, A Star Is Born, Cat Ballou, and Dog Day Afternoon, for which he won an Oscar. He was President of The Screen Writers Guild of American from 1981-1983 and 1993-1995. He was also President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 2001-2005. He also works as a consulting producer for Mad Men.

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Donn Pearce & Frank Pierson are featured in Edition: A Tribute to Women in Film