ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

escape from new york (1981) movie

Genre              |   Science Fiction

Classification   |   M

Running time   |   99 minutes

Released         |   10 July 1981

cast

Kurt Russell ... Snake Plissken
Lee Van Cleef ... Hauk
Ernest Borgnine ... Cabbie
Donald Pleasence ... President
Isaac Hayes ... The Duke
Season Hubley ... Girl in Chock Full O'Nuts
Harry Dean Stanton ... Brain
Adrienne Barbeau ... Maggie
Tom Atkins ... Rehme
Charles Cyphers ... Secretary of State
​Frank Doubleday ... Romero

director

John Carpenter

writer

​John Carpenter ... (written by) and
Nick Castle ... (written by)

cinematographer

Dean Cundey ​

music

​John Carpenter
Alan Howarth

film editor

​Todd C. Ramsay ... (as Todd Ramsay)

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box office result

Worldwide             $​​​​​​​25,244,626

Australia                 $​​​​​ not available

North America       $​​​​​​​ ​​25,244,626

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movie minutiae

The line "I thought you were dead" was probably borrowed from BIG JAKE (1971). Every time John Wayne tells someone his name, the standard response is "I thought you were dead." Which would mean that parts of this film were inspired by two legendary western stars, or their films; John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, the latter, on whom Kurt Russell based his performance.

Avco Embassy approached John Carpenter after the success of HALLOWEEN (1978) and THE FOG (1980) to make a film based on a novel that they had acquired titled "The Philadelphia Experiment". When Carpenter got stuck on that project, he proposed instead his idea for ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK. Avco liked the idea and green-lit the project almost immediately.

​The additional shot of Adrienne Barbeau's corpse (shot in John Carpenter's driveway long after principal shooting was completed) was added after a then teen-aged J.J. Abrams suggested it to Carpenter. Abrams saw an early cut because his father worked for the studio that produced the film, and pointed out to Carpenter that Maggie's death was never fully established.

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related movies

ESCAPE FROM L.A. (1996)

ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981) MOVIE IMAGES

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ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981) STORY SYNOPSIS

​In 1997, a major war between the United States and the Soviet Union is concluding, and the entire island of Manhattan has been converted into a giant maximum security prison. When Air Force One is hijacked and crashes into the island, the president (Donald Pleasence) is taken hostage by a group of inmates. Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell), a former Special Forces soldier turned criminal, is recruited to retrieve the president in exchange for his own freedom.

ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 10 July 2013

​​Pop Movee Rating

As a kid growing up in Brisbane, there wasn't much science fiction to be found in the early 1980s. Fortunately for me, the local newsagent kept up with each new edition of Kerry O'Quinn's Starlog magazine. It was Issue 49 that caught my eye for a number of reasons. First was the striking pose of Roger Moore as James Bond exclaiming 'Bond is back!' There was also a reference to George Lucas and George Takei, Star Trek's Mr.Sulu. So, for a 9 year old who loved STAR WARS, STAR TREK and JAMES BOND, this issue seemed to have all the bases covered...

The other thing that stood out on Issue 49 was a photo of a guy with an eye-patch and a machine gun. Underneath it read ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK Exclusive interview with Kurt Russell'. What the interview contained I can't remember, as I sold off my Starlog magazine collection several years ago. What I can say is that ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK has stuck in my head ever since and it's one of those guilty pleasures that I indulge in every once in a while...

I've always admired John Carpenter's films, especially his late 70s and early 80s work. HALLOWEEN (1978), THE FOG (1980), THE THING (1982), BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986) and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK are all highly entertaining and, by comparison to today's films, were made with little money and a lot of film-making ingenuity.

ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, like BLADE RUNNER (1982) the following year, is set in the near future and is an action fiction that also makes some passing commentary on the the escalation of government in the United States. Set in 1997, the USA has become an authoritarian state embroiled in an ongoing war with China and the Soviet Union. New York has been turned into a maximum security prison with 50 feet walls surrounding the entire island. Any attempt by prisoners to leave is met with with lethal force.

The central character is Snake Plissken, a former soldier who has turned to crime, played by Kurt Russell. A failed bank robbery has resulted in Plissken being sentenced to life imprisonment in New York. On the night Plissken is being processed into the prison, Air Force One is hijacked and the President of the USA, played by Donald Pleasance, is forced to use an escape pod to get off the plane before the terrorists crash it.

Unfortunately for the President, his escape pod lands in the prison and a rescue mission is sent in to recover him and the retrieve a taped message that he intended to play to his Chinese and Soviet counterparts at a summit meeting. The initial rescue, led by Prison Warden Hauk, played by Lee Van Cleef, is unsuccessful. Hauk is told to get off the island by Romero, an underling of The Duke, played by Issac Hayes, who tells him that they have President and proves it by handing over his severed middle finger!

Returning from the island, Hauk, realising that time is running out, tells Snake that, if he rescues the President, he will receive a full pardon for his crimes and be a free man. To make sure he completes the mission, Hauk has Plissken injected with micro-charges that will blow a small hole in his arteries if he fails to complete the mission in time.
 
Once Snake is in New York he goes from one encounter to another, meeting an array of characters along the way; enlisting their help to get him closer to the President. This part of the film relies upon a number of coincidences to move the plot forward and it's at this point the viewer has to make a decision to suspend disbelief and go with the unfolding events.
 
Ernest Borgnine's Cabbie enters the story and becomes central to moving the story forward until close to the end of the film. Cabbie saves Snake from an encounter with the zombie-like Crazies who have taken over part of the city. He then takes Snake to see Harry Dean Stanton's Brain, who he claims will know the location of the President because Brain works for The Duke.

The biggest challenge in this part of the story is to believe that Snake and Brain character have been partners-in-crime at some point in the past. Without the Brain character, the story goes nowhere, but the pairing of Snake and Brain is as an unlikely one as any...

Snake "asks" Harry Dean Statnton's Brain for some help ...
 
The action moves quickly once Snake, Brain and Brain's girlfriend Maggie, played by Adrienne Barbeau, encounter The Duke and rescue the President. Their first rescue attempt ends up with the three of them being caught by The Duke's men, and Snake having the fight in gladiator-style tournament where the loser pays for his life. As The Duke watches on, Brain and Maggie manage to rescue the President again but leave Snake to fend for himself. Cabbie happens to be in the right place at the right time and gives Snake a ride as the two of them set off after Brain, Maggie and the President.

After a shoot-out on top of the World Trade Centre, Snake battles his way out of the building and heads to the 69th Street Bridge, with the President, Brain, Maggie and Cabbie all close behind with The Duke in pursuit. The finale on the bridge see the demise of Cabbie, Brain, Maggie and The Duke. One of the interesting story points is that Snake does not kill The Duke. That is left to the President, who uses an automatic rifle from atop the prison wall to take retribution for what The Duke has made him endure earlier in the film.
 
Once outside the prison, the President's attitude to what has happened seems glib and uncaring. This doesn't sit well with Snake, so instead of handing over the taped message for the summit meeting, he hands over a tape of Bandstand Boogie that had Cabbie had been playing in his taxi. After exchanging words with Hauk, Snake walks away a free man shredding the real tape in disgust and leaving the fate of the world in the balance.

John Carpenter has stated that ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK was a reaction to what had happened with Richard Nixon and the Watergate Scandal. It's not allegorical, as this is not a thinly-veiled political film, but the theme of future government influence over the citizenry is a part of the back story. The film suggests that certain types of government emerge under certain types of conditions. In this example, escalating crime and world war have allowed an authoritarian government to emerge in the United States, allowing authorities to enforce the law with lethal brutality.
 
There's also the story point of the taped message for the summit. Richard Nixon's Presidential tapes were responsible for his resignation, so the emphasis on the tape throughout the film is a reminder to the audience of recent history for all the wrong reasons. Snake's unravelling of the tape at the end of the film demonstrates that, in his opinion, a lot is wrong with world he lives in and something has to change.

Snake's own back story suggests that Carpenter intended the film to raise the viewer's awareness of some social issues confronting the US at the time. Plissken is a decorated war hero, but at the start of the movie, he's being sent into prison for robbing a bank. Plissken is written as a mercenary, but there's a message in his back story relating to the treatment of war veterans. In 1981, Vietnam War veterans were still fighting for legitimacy, as public opinion was against what had happened and the war itself had only been over for 6 years. Carpenter's message to the audience is that the country (at that time) needed to look after the men who fight for their country.

Kurt Russell embodies Plissken with minimalist-macho and does great justice to the term 'anit-hero'. Lee Van Cleef as Hauk is great. Van Cleef had experienced all the ups-and-downs an actor could have, but his work for Sergio Leone alongside Clint Eastwood had cemented his reputation for playing tough characters well. Ernest Borgnine, Harry Dean Stanton and Donald Pleasance all bring authenticity to their characters which, at the time, must have been difficult because the outrageous nature of the material. If there's one misstep, it's the casting of singer Isaac Hayes in the role of The Duke. The man has a distinctive voice but he doesn't have the physical presence of a real villain. Adrienne Barbeau is a breath of fresh air, as the tough but sympathetic girlfriend of Harry Dean Stanton's Brain. 

As a work of speculative near-future fiction, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK doesn't even come close to accurately predicting what was happening in 1997. It's an entertaining film; there's no doubt. It does have some social messages woven into its story; but nothing that's too 'on-the-nose'. Despite it being more of an action film set in the future, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK does make the point that there will always be people who want to change for the better. Snake Plissken, for all his anti-hero machismo, turns out to be one of those people and, as much of the great science fiction that has come before and after it, it's Plissken's actions that make ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK a film worthy of ongoing assessment.

ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981) USEFUL LINKS

Escape from New York - Wikipedia
​Escape from New York (1981) - IMDb
​Escape from New York (1981) - Rotten Tomatoes​

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