Failure To Communicate Poem by gershon hepner

What we’ve got here is a failure to
communicate,
they said to Paul in “Cool Hand Luke.” Adieu
the loony gate
that they will close on me to separate
us. No
holds will be barred, the word for which I’ll wait,
“Hello! ”
We’ll play it once again, I’m very sure,
like Sam,
for, frankly, it will be a better cure
than damn.

Inspired by an article on famous quotes from movies by Donald Lieberson (“Famous quotes: They put the words in actors' mouths, ” LA Times, January 2,2010) :

'What we've got here is failure to communicate.'

- 'Cool Hand Luke' Warner Bros.' marketing team knew what they had. This classic line, drawled by Florida prison camp warden Strother Martin to rebellious convict Paul Newman, was featured in the film's theatrical trailer five times. But screenwriter Frank Pierson wasn't so sure. He created the line, which was not in the book on which the film was based. 'I couldn't tell you where that line came from, ' he said in a phone interview. 'I can still visualize where I was [when I wrote it]. I was typing on my old Underwood in my house overlooking the sea in Malibu. In the scene, Luke has been recaptured and the warden wants to teach him a lesson. This whole thing has to do with getting Luke's mind right. And suddenly it materialized on the page in front of me..'But then I thought it sounded like something a highly educated person would say and that everybody involved with the movie would ask how this Southern redneck could say something that has a certain smell of academia. But nobody ever questioned [the line]. Strother Martin got it right away and said it perfectly.' The line has been referenced in everything from 'Rugrats' to a recent episode of 'Californication.' It came to crystallize 1960s discontent and the generation gap. 'I can't tell you how many people have told me that this was a part of their [upbringing], ' Pierson said, laughing. 'When they crashed the family car, their dad would look at them sadly and say, 'What we've got here....' '

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