Script To Screen: “Cool Hand Luke”

A key scene from the 1967 movie Cool Hand Luke, screenplay by Donn Pearce and Frank Pierson, novel by Donn Pearce.

IMDb plot summary: A man refuses to conform to life in a rural prison.

Here is the fifty eggs scene in the script:

Here is the movie version of the scene:

Several differences, most notably the camera work: close-ups, lots of movement. But the growing tension as the clock ticks down combined with Luke’s struggles is present in both the script and the movie.

One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a Go Into The Story series where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.

For more articles in the Script To Screen series, go here.