The 1967 film "Cool Hand Luke" is based on the novel of the same title by Donn Pearce. Sometime in the early 1950's Lucas Jackson is arrested in Florida for vandalizing parking meters and is sent to a Florida road maintenance prison which is run somewhat like a "chain gang." The inmates live in dormitories and are allowed to have money and when not working on roads they like to gamble on cards or basically anything they can find to bet on. Luke is soon given the nickname "Cool Hand Luke" after saying that in a poker game "sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand." Several times coins and small denomination bills are seen on tables and at one point a man is using a spoon on a quarter-size foreign coin to pound it into a ring.

Luke is drunk.

Luke has been cutting off the the tops of parking meters. The police stop by and ask him why but he doesn't give a real explanation. He is arrest, convicted of vandalism, and sent to a prison road repair gang.

One day while out cutting weeds along a road, the men watch a young woman wash a car.

The girl knows the men are watching her and sponges the car lovingly. The men are allowed to keep real money and spend their evenings gambling.

By now Luke, known as "Cool Hand Luke", has become popular with the inmates and has become a friend of Dragline, the big man of the dormitory.

Various coins and bills are shown on the table.

The bills are Federal Reserve one dollar bills, first issued in November 1963 to replace the previous silver certificates. The Federal Reserve bills have shields around the number one's in the corners rather then the ovals which the silver certificates have.

Luke announces that he can eat 50 eggs and Dragline sets up a contest which the men can bet on. Luke gets to the final egg.

Dragline puts the final egg into Luke's mouth. Luke swallows the egg and wins the contest. Dragline handles the money payments and collections.

Luke doesn't like rules of which the prison has many, and the worst offence is escaping. He escapes once but doesn't get very far before being recaptured. The captain of the guards has Luke fitted with leg chains and kicks him down a hill.

The captain tells Luke: "What we've got here is failure to communicate." Luke manages to escape again and this time is gone for some time. He mails a magazine to Dragline with a photograph of himself.

The magazine is the November 1965 issue of Outdoor Life with an article titled "The Illusion That Kills" and "A Thing Called Early Blur" about hunting accidents where one hunter shoots another hunter.

Sometimes there is not much to do in the evening.

One man is "spooning" a coin which means to use a spoon to hammer the edges of a coin with the goal of making a ring.

A US silver quarter is nearby with a date ending in "46", that is, 1946. The coin being spooned is a quarter-size foreign coin with an image of England's King George VI. The coin is a silver coin and is probably an English shilling or a Canadian quarter.

Luke is recaptured again, beaten by the guards, locked in a small building, and returned to the dormitory and to the road gang. One of the guards shoots a large snapping turtle which Luke is sent to pick up.

The turtle is dead but still biting onto a stick. The guard tells Luke to take the turtle to a truck. Unfortunately the truck key is also in the truck and Luke drives off. Dragline impulsively jumps into the truck escaping along with Luke.

The men part company but later both men are captured.

A guard shoots Luke and Dragline beats up the guard before being pulled off. The guards leave with Luke to supposedly take him to a hospital but Dragline believes that Luke will not survive the trip.

Back at the prison, Dragline tells the other inmates stories about the legendary "Cool Hand Luke."

Paul Newman as Luke or Lucas Jackson
George Kennedy as Dragline
Strother Martin as the Captain
Morgan Woodward as Godfrey or the Walking Boss
Joy Harmon as Lucille (Car washing girl)
Lou Antonio as Koko (Ring maker)
Director: Stuart Rosenberg
Writers: Frank R. Pierson, Donn Pearce (novel)