Escape from New York was the first John Carpenter movie I ever saw. Released in 1981, I caught the film a year later, when it made its way to cable television. Needless to say, I became an instant fan, so this particular entry in the series may just be the most difficult for me to write. However, I promise that I’ll do everything in my power to fight the temptation of gushing like a fanboy, and present my views and opinions on Escape from New York as even-handedly as possible.
On second thought, screw that. Let the gushing begin!
From that first viewing 26 years ago, I’ve loved Escape from New York, and the affair continues to this day. I love the action, love the story, hell, I love pretty much everything about the movie…but I have to admit that I did have a slight problem with the casting way back when. As strange as it may sound today, Kurt Russell in an action film was not something most people were accustomed to seeing in the early 1980’s.
It’s 1997. New York’s Manhattan Island has been transformed into a heavily guarded maximum-security prison, where the worst criminals known to man are being kept in seclusion. The security around the island is air-tight, and nobody has ever escaped. But when Air Force One is hijacked and flown into the prison’s airspace, the police find they have a whole new problem on their hands. The President of the United States (Donald Pleasence), carrying nuclear secrets in a briefcase hand-cuffed to his wrist, escapes by way of a secret pod hidden within Air Force One. Unfortunately, the pod lands smack-dab in the middle of Manhattan, and the President is immediately taken hostage by the inmates. To rescue the President, authorities send in Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell), a one-eyed mercenary who has himself been sentenced to life in prison. Promised a pardon if he’s successful, Snake is given just 24 hours to rescue the President and bring him to safety. Failure to do so may cost Snake more than his freedom…it could cost him his life.
Escape from New York is an action fan’s paradise. Starting with the opening sequence, where we watch a police helicopter blast two escaping prisoners out of the water, the film never once lets up. It’s to the point now that the movie’s very title has become synonymous with excitement. With Escape from New York, John Carpenter presented not only his own fans, but action fans in general with a treat that could be savored many times over without ever losing its flavor.
Along with this, Escape from New York also gave the world a brand new action star, no matter how unlikely this casting choice may have seemed at the time. Just a handful of years prior to Escape from New York, Kurt Russell had been a fixture in Disney-produced family films, many of which I remember seeing in the early to mid 1970’s (my favorite being Superdad, which teamed Russell with Col. Hogan himself, Bob Crane). Hell, the same year that Escape from New York was released, Russell provided one of the voices for Disney’s animated classic, The Fox and the Hound. I can’t tell you how strange it was to see the guy I knew from movies like Superdad, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes and The Barefoot Executive walking around with long hair, an eye patch and a tattoo of a cobra on his stomach.
But all of my apprehensions faded pretty quickly once Snake Plissken landed that one-man glider onto the top of the World Trade Center. At that precise moment, Escape from New York ceased being a John Carpenter film. From there out, the movie belonged exclusively to Kurt Russell.
A man of few words (and when he does speak, it’s usually through clenched teeth), Snake Plissken is a former war hero, the youngest man ever decorated by the President of the United States for valor in combat. But that’s ancient history. Now, he’s a criminal, a common thug who tried to rob the Federal Reserve, and was handed down a life sentence as a result. Simultaneously functioning as hero and anti-hero, Snake Plissken is the perfect lead character for a movie like Escape from New York. He’s liked neither by the cops (Commissioner Hauk, played by veteran actor Lee van Cleef, is himself a former military man, and hates the fact that Plissken surrendered his illustrious combat record for a single criminal act) or the prison inmates (who have no intention of letting their ‘comrade’ take the President from them), which makes Snake a loner in this world. Russell plays Snake as the perennial bad-ass, a guy who doesn’t give a damn about either national security or the hierarchal ‘system’ which the inmates have established inside their walled prison. He has no time for authority, for rules, or for anyone who tries to make him submit to either. While Russell’s Plissken may not be the best conversationalist, he’s the guy you want working for you in a crisis situation…even if you’re not sure that you can really trust him. To play such a character right out of the box may have proved intimidating for another actor. Not for Kurt Russell. You’d never know that Snake Plissken was a first for him…he’s perfectly at home in the role.
John Carpenter has labeled Kurt Russell “My kind of actor”. “When he comes to work”, Carpenter continues, “he is beyond anyone. An actor who is ‘my kind of actor’ comes to the set without pretensions, and has taken the role because he likes the character, because he knows the character, because it is a part of him. ‘My kind of actor’ knows what’s going on, knows his lines, hits his marks, and there isn’t a lot of bullshit”. In fact, Carpenter was so impressed with Russell that he would make three more films with the actor, including the next one in this series, 1982’s The Thing. Look for it to surface here on Row Three in two week’s time.
