Published: September 27, 2008 09:51 pm            

Jimmy Espy: Cool Hand Paul

Paul Newman was my favorite living actor.

Until Saturday.

Now he’s gone and there’s nobody on the scene even close.

Newman died of cancer at 83.

I could throw a lot of adjectives and dependent clauses at you, trying way to hard to impress with the depth of my feelings and the expanse of my vocabulary, instead I’ll try to keep it a little leaner and to the point — like Newman did in “Hud.”

Remember that one?

Hud Bannon is the no-good son of a ramrod-straight Texas rancher, carved from granite by a fine old actor named Melvyn Douglas. Patricia Neal is there, outstanding as always, as wise and alluring Alma Brown.

Newman’s Hud is a real son of a gun — being charitable in my choice of nouns. The greatness in the part is Newman’s refusal to beg the audience to like his charming but viperous creation. There’s a tale they tell in Texas of a woman who cared for an injured rattlesnake only to have it bite her, fatally, as soon as it regained its strength. “Don’t cry silly woman, said the snake with a grin, you knew I was a snake when you took me in.”

Newman’s Hud was that snake.

Need a laugh? How about a hundred of ‘em?

Pick up “Slapshot.”

Newman morphs into Reg Dunlop — an aging, mediocre hockey player who connives, plots and cahoots the way most of us breath air. Faced with the unwelcome end of his career,

Reg cooks up a devious ploy designed to buy him a little more time in the only profession he knows. He succeeds ... almost ... before being tangled in the web of his own machinations.

Against all odds, you’ll pull for Newman’s Reg.

I could go on and on about a lot of really good Paul Newman movies. It’s amazing how many fine films he appeared in.

“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”

“The Verdict.”

“The Hustler” and its decades late-in-coming sequel, “The Color of Money.”

“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” where Newman’s Butch is goaded by Robert Redford’s Sundance to jump off a cliff into a raging river.

Butch: Then you jump first.

Sundance: No, I said.

Butch: What’s the matter with you?

Sundance: I can’t swim.

Butch: Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill you.

There are a lot of other good Newman films.

Then there’s the one.

Or, properly stated, The One.

“Cool Hand Luke” came out in 1967.

I saw it for the first time on the Academy Award Theater on Ted Turner’s Channel 17 in the 1970s. I saw it a lot and not just because the Turner folks seemed to show it twice a month and not just because of that car washing scene. You older boys know the one I’m talking about.

“Cool Hand Luke” was great in a lot of ways. The cast was a treasure trove of fine character actors. Who can forget Strother Martin’s pained “failure to communicate”? The words seemed true and the rural Deep South setting felt right, not always the case when Hollywood’s creative types dip below the Mason-Dixon.

But most of all there was Newman’s Luke, a decent country boy who just couldn’t stay out of trouble and once caught in the gears of what masqueraded as “justice,” doomed to be chewed up and tossed away like a tattered corn husk.

One great scene follows another. “A failure to communicate.” The egg-eating contest. Luke’s first escape. The fight with George Kennedy’s brutish Dragline.

Great stuff.

Paul Newman wasn’t just an actor and he definitely wasn’t poor old Luke, trapped in the jaws of the great machine. Newman lived a fine and textured life.

His artistry made mine richer, too.

God bless.



Jimmy Espy is executive editor of The Daily Citizen

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.