Strother Martin was born on 26 March 1919. He had health problems and died at only 61. But he was in a ton of movies — especially considering his short life.
Martin was a character actor. He actually had a broad range. But he also had a distinct style of speech that causes a lot of people to dismiss him as playing the same character over and over.
But I highlight him today for a different reason. He delivers the iconic line in Cool Hand Luke. And it drives me crazy! I don’t think I have ever heard someone quote the line correctly. It is always, “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.” But it’s not what he says! He says, “What we’ve got here is [pause] failure to communicate.”
The way he says it, you can easily hear an “a” in that pause. But I suspect that the real issue is that the last thing Luke says in the film is a mocking, “What we got here is a failure to communicate.”
The thing is, when quoting the line, no one says it like Paul Newman. Everyone means to quote Stroher Martin. They just get it wrong.
I’ve been a writer and editor most of my adult life. So I can be pedantic. But the difference between these two constructions is important. Martin delivers the line right after beating Newman for mocking him. Including the article makes the sentence apply to that specific interaction.
Without the article, the sentence refers to everything. The Captain is talking about the totality of the Luke character. But he doesn’t actually mean “communicate”; he means “obey.” And that is Luke’s pickle. Given his character, he must die — either spiritually by complying or physically, as we see in the film.
Regardless, it’s a great film. I love the epilogue where Dragline (George Kennedy) begins the process of mythology for Luke. Although, to be honest, I found this far more appealing when I was younger than I do today. Now, I tend to focus on the cruelty that Luke suffers.
Strother Martin taken from still in Cool Hand Luke under Fair Use.