Goofs

During the fight scene with Dragline, Luke is knocked down into the dirt many times and is covered with black soil by the end. When the long shot shows Dragline walking away towards the barracks Luke has suddenly lost most of the black soil that was covering his sweat-soaked body.

When Luke is cutting chains from ankles, he throws the axe off to his left. When one of the trackers arrives, the axe head is resting on the stump with the axe handle off to the right.

When Carr gives his famous "Night in the box" speech, just after he tells Luke he hopes he won't be any trouble, he drops the spoons with a clattering sound. In that instant, the camera cuts from a close-up to a long shot, and the cigar stump clenched in his mouth is suddenly now in his left hand.

When Luke goes to sprinkle the chili powder, curry powder and pepper flakes to throw the dogs "off the scent" the lids are still on the cans in the shot immediately before he does so.

After Luke cuts his chains with the axe, he ties the chains to his ankles with a strip off his trousers. He ties his left ankle but not his right, yet as he gets up and runs away both are tied on.

On Luke's first night Carr says, "There is no smoking in the prone position in bed. To smoke you must have both legs over the side of your bunk. Any man caught smoking in the prone position in bed spends a night in the box."

A man in the prone position lies on his belly, and people don't smoke like that. The term for lying on one's back is "Supine."

When Luke begins to rip off his straps, a crew member can be heard to say something resembling, "Raise it up a little."

When boss Godfrey shoots the bird from the sky, the wire pulling it down can be seen.

The time period was more likely 1958 because Luke sang, "Plastic Jesus", a folk song which was written in 1957.

The Korean War took place from June 5, 1950 to July 27, 1953. The time period of the movie "Cool Hand Luke" therefore could not have been in the late 1940's, approximately c1949 as indicated in IMDb Anachronisms.

At one point in the movie a "white on red" stop sign is shown. In the film's late-1940s time period, stop signs were "black on yellow."

Dollar bills seen during egg eating contest is Sixties-era money, not that of decades-earlier period in which movie takes place.

Luke sings "Plastic Jesus," a folk song that wasn't written until 1957, well after the time period of the movie (approximately 1949).