As soon as Lalo Schifrin's acoustic guitar theme starts, you're in familiar waters in classic sixties celebration of independence from institutionalism - how much it's like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in that respect, I had never considered before. Newman is fabulous and there's strong supporting cast led by George Kennedy. It's fun also watching how Conrad Hall tries to damp down those blue skies - and indeed, Newman's baby blues are noticeably absent too. Having just worked together on Harper, it may have been Newman who requested the cinematographer (they were together for Hall's last film The Road to Perdition).
There's possibly some deliberate religious subtext to this, but the ending - Newman being shot when he's at the supposedly safe place of a church - is decidedly anti-Establishment. Written by Frank Pierson and Donn Pearce, based on the latter's 1965 novel (Kesey's was published in 1962, but Pearce's is more autobiographically about his own terms in prison, an interesting life, see here.) Rosenberg had had a mass of TV experience, including episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone - this was his first feature film. He went on to The April Fools, WUSA (Newman, Woodward), Pocket Money (Newman and Marvin), The Laughing Policeman (Matthau), The Drowning Pool.
Without those last freeze frames of Newman's great smile we would have been left on something of a downer. Sam O'Steen cut it (he'd just started working with Mike Nichols). Kennedy won Oscar; Newman, Pierce/Pearson and Schifrin nominated
"Paul Newman was standing in line after he's been caught, and we had him in backlight. When I went to shoot his close up I did it in backlight and I added fill so you could see his expression, but you couldn't really see his baby blues. The studio asked for a retake of the close up. I didn't realize why at first until the second time I did a retake and they said 'No, we want to see his baby blues, Conrad.' So I brought the light around and slammed it in to Paul's face and made the close-up totally out of character with the master shot of the scene. They got their baby blues." (I have to say I was looking out for this and didn't see it.)
ASC magazine tribute issue, May 2003.
"I wish we'd been able to shoot it in black and white. I hadn't seen I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, but I saw it about six months ago - Jesus Christ, what a film! It's ten times better than Cool Hand Luke, and it's so right in black and white."
Conrad Hall in Leonard Maltin, 'The Art of the Cinematographer' 1971.
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