Early working titles for the film includedLucky StrikeandThe Northern Story.The film, inspired in part by the gruesome Donner Party story, was shot (over a period of 15 months from spring 1924-summer 1925) both on a Hollywood studio back lot and in Truckee, California/Nevada, and premiered in New York at the Strand Theatre in mid-August, 1925.Bates"" teenaged daughter Liza (Barbara Merrill, Bette Davis"" own daughter from her third marriage) was curled up on the sofa watchingSadie McKee (1933)on elevision - an excerpt of a kissing scene between ""Blanche Hudson"" (Joan Crawford as working girl Sadie McKee Brennan) and Gene Raymond (as boyfriend Tommy Wallace).BackgroundCool Hand Luke(1967) is the moving character study of a non-conformist, anti-hero loner who bullheadedly resists authority and the Establishment." He phones Senator Foley""s (and the new Senator Smith""s) secretary Saunders (Jean Arthur) [she is rarely called by her first name Clarissa] and tells her that Smith has disappeared.