Cool Hand Luke

Lalo Schifrin | Format: Vinyl

Product Details

• Vinyl
• Label: Warner Brothers Records
• ASIN: B0029XCR6Q
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not what I was expecting..., May 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Cool Hand Luke (Audio CD)

Yes, the music is from the movie Cool Hand Luke. But, no, it is not the sound track from Cool Hand Luke. This is the "elevator music" version of the sound track. You'll find no lyrics here -- and the lyrics were what I was after.

40 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not what I was looking for., May 4, 1999

By 

B. Culver (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Cool Hand Luke (Audio CD)

If you are looking for the actual songs from the film, this isn't it. This is the actual music, which makes a big difference for this film.

I wanted to hear Paul Newman singing "plastic jesus", but this is a recording studio orchestra covering the song.

If you want the song the road crew sings to Luke while he re-digs the Boss's hole the 3rd time, it isn't on here either.

Also, if you are looking for quotes from the film like "what we have here..." it isn't on this disk.

The music on the disk is good and certainly brings back the film, but again - it wasn't what I was looking for in the soundtrack.

For your reference, here is the text off of the back of the cd (pressed in Japan with a pretty cool cover):

"'What we have here is a failure to communicate' says Paul Newman [wrong!], in the character of LUKE, when his confrontations with The Establishment reach the inevitable impasse. But what we have here in these grooves, is a triumph of communication - the kind of communication which results when a story as compelling as 'Cool Hand Luke' is matched with the music of a sensitive composer. Lalo Schifrin has given paramount value to communication in his life and career: verbally, he is fluent in four languages and handy in a few others; musically, he represents an incredible versatility - sort of a musical Renaissance Man. His range of activity is prodigious, beginning, in his native Argentina, as a classical wunderkind of the piano, and developing into an impressive jazz pianist with Dizzy Gillespie. As a composer, some of his lessons were learned while arranging for Dizzy and for Count Basie, complementing the solid academic background acquired as a student of the Paris Conservatory. THese lessons were resoundingly applied in such varied television successes as 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' and 'Mission: Impossible;' in the sixteen motion picture scores of which two still to be released are 'The Fox' and 'The President's Analyst;' in the NARAS Award-winning 'Jazz Suite on the Mass Texts;' in 'The Ritual of Sound,' conducted in Carnegie Hall by Gunther Schuller; in ballet, opera, and concerti. Nowhere are the results of his training and talent more evident than in his uniquely appropriate use of the instruments and the rythmic and harmonic patterns of rural America in the score of 'Cool Hand Luke.' The folk blues sound of the banjo and harmonica are cannily juxtaposed with staccato burts of violence as in 'Tar Sequence' and 'The Chase,' and with the sensuous siren-song of 'Lucille.' Add the humor of 'Egg-Eating Contest' to the righteousness of 'Just a Closer Walk' and 'Arletta Blues,' and you'll have the picture of Lalo Schifrin, Musical Renaissance Man, unforgettably in mind."

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An all-time classic, February 19, 2000

By 

Richard E. Upton (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cool Hand Luke (Audio CD)

This is one of the finest film scores ever. I am amazed at the reviewers who are disappointed in not finding the "songs"; what is on this disc is one of Lalo Schifrin's most creative scores, and is FAR from "elevator music". The main title theme is beautiful and memorable (and later became "Down Here On the Ground," recorded by Wes Montgomery and others) and the incidental music adds immeasurably to the emotional impact of the film. I love this entire score, and truly wish it were available domestically at a better price (although I am grateful to amazon.com for making the import available). Incidentally, in his review on this page, Burt Culver is incorrect of his "correction" in the liner notes; Paul Newman does indeed say the famous "What we've got here..." line; it is, in fact, his last line, as he makes fun of the Strother Martin character.