Escape from New York – Collector’s Edition

Summary

“Call me ‘Snake.’”

Kurt Russell is a fantastic actor. It is funny to think that he got his start as a child actor including a starring role in Disney’s film The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. From those humble roots he morphed into one of the great leading man actors. His partnership with John Carpenter helped Russell to shed his tiger beat image and become an iconic badass. The transformation began when Russell was cast to play Elvis in the TV Movie Elvis directed by Carpenter. That movie began a life-long friendship and one of the great collaborations between an actor and director. The next film they worked on together was Escape from New York which introduced the world to Snake Plissken and fostered lots of imitators.

The film begins with a narrator announcing:

“In 1988, the crime rate in the United States rises four hundred percent. The once great city of New York becomes the one maximum security prison for the entire country. A fifty-foot containment wall is erected along the New Jersey shoreline, across the Harlem River, and down along the Brooklyn shoreline. It completely surrounds Manhattan Island. All bridges and waterways are mined. The United States Police Force, like an army, is encamped around the island. There are no guards inside the prison, only prisoners and the worlds they have made. The rules are simple: once you go in, you don’t come out.”

The film begins in 1997. The President (Donald Pleasance) is aboard Air Force One. A political radical has seized the cockpit with the hopes of killing the President before he can arrive for a peace summit with the Soviet Union and NATO. In the President’s possession is a briefcase which has a very important cassette tape that contains information about nuclear fusion. This information should help broker peace between the nations. The President wears a tracking device and the briefcase is handcuffed to his arm as he enters his escape pod. As the plane collides with the New York skyline, the escape pod releases somewhere in Manhattan. From the central police base on Liberty Island, underneath the Statue of Liberty, Commissioner Hauk (Lee Van Cleef) leads a force of police to the helicopters. They fly into the city towards the tracking device’s signal. Upon their arrival, they do not find the President. They are greeted by one of the Duke’s (Isaac Hayes) henchmen. The henchman gives them less than a couple minutes to fly away or they will kill the President. Hauk and his men retreat. A prisoner with an eyepatch named Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) is escorted onto the premises of Liberty Island. Unlike other prisoners, Snake is an incredibly adept former Special Ops soldier. He was arrested for trying to rob the Federal Reserve. Hauk makes Snake an offer – save the President before he misses the peace summit and receive a pardon. Snake begrudgingly agrees. During his physical examination, under the ruse of inoculation, two capsules are place near the arteries in his neck. If Snake does not arrive back in the time allotted with the President, the capsules will dissolve and trigger tiny explosive devices in his neck. 

Escape from New York is one of the most loved science-fiction action films. It is always amazing to me that one director can wield so much influence. I think of names like Spielberg and Hitchcock, but Carpenter was very influential throughout his career. His films Halloween and Escape from New York inspired lots of imitations and the world was better for it. Without Halloween, it’s possible that we would not have had the flood of slashers in the Eighties. Without Escape from New York, we may not have had movies like Demolition Man or The Running Man. Escape from New York proved there was an audience for that type of film. The film also inspired a video game creator named Hideo Kojima who named the protagonist of his excellent Metal Gear series Solid Snake after Snake Plissken.

Watching the film today, it still has the power to impress the viewer. The practical effects in the film are impressive with only a few sequences that look out of place. The film is very cleverly shot with some excellent matte painting effects and well done miniature effects. The film benefits from location shooting in St. Louis where the film crew was allowed to block off entire blocks of neighborhoods that had fallen into disarray. As I was watching the movie, I kept asking myself where it could be filmed today. The first place that comes to mind is Detroit where the film It Follows recently used that city’s abandoned buildings to great effect. The production design for the film lends so much to it because so little of it was shot on a traditional set. Escape from New York also benefis from the excellent job of lighting performed by cinematographer Dean Cundey. As discussed in an interview on The Fog release, a new type of light had just been developed at the time that could cover large areas and cast a blue light. This gave the film its trademark look. A special effects artist working on the film named James Cameron must have also enjoyed the blue lighting that he saw utilized on the film. He eventually would use a blue lighting that the industry eventually termed “Cameron Blue.” Dean Cundey would go on to shoot The Thing and Big Trouble in Little China. He also worked with Zemeckis on his Back to the Future Trilogy and Spielberg on Hook and Jurassic Park. 

Carpenter directs with such confidence that it does not even matter that the central premise of the film is not remotely possible. Carpenter knew that the premise of New York as a prison was too much fun for audiences to resist. He had written his first draft of the script after watching the Watergate scandal unfold. That draft was then helped by writer Nick Castle. Nick had helped portray Mike Myers in Halloween. He doctored the dialogue injecting humor where possible. The resulting film was as anti-authoritarian as Carpenter and Castle intended. The numerous lines directed squarely at those in power still sound great today. The film also benefits from arguably the best score by John Carpenter. Working with Allan Howarth, they crafted the awesome synth-based score for the film. It was so well regarded that it sold thousands of copies when it was released on vinyl and numerous other formats.

The obvious star of the film is Kurt Russell. In the special features, Russell confides that Snake Plissken is his favorite role from his entire career. The film built Russell into an action film star and helped him to become one of the best loved actors of his generation. The collaboration between Russell and Carpenter yielded many of my favorite films. They seemed to fully understand what the other was intending and amplify one another in positive ways. There was never a better interpreter of Carpenter’s work than Kurt Russell. 

Escape from New York may be most closely associated with the excellent lead performance by Kurt Russell, but the film is actually a strong ensemble piece. It features great supporting roles from an all star line up of character actors: Ernest Borgnine, Harry Dean Stanton, Ernest Borgnine, Lee Van Cleef, Adrienne Barbeau, Donald Pleasance, and Isaac Hayes. Every one of them makes their role work by playing their roles straight and with total confidence. 

Escape from New York is a fantastic movie. Highly recommended.

Video

Even though this release happened in 2016, the 2K scan used by Shout!Factory in conjunction with Studio Canal for the Blu-ray still holds up very well. I watched the film on my UHD television and it pops thanks to the clever use of color and lighting by cinematographer Dean Cundey. There are some softer moments and grain is present, but fans should be really pleased with how the film looks. Until we get a new 4K scan of the film, this is the best it is going to look.

Audio

Shout!Factory has provided a DTS-HD MA 5.1 track and a lossless 2.0 track for fans to enjoy. My personal preference would be the 5.1 track which adds a little bit of extra immersion, but both tracks have solid clarity and do justice to the excellent score by Carpenter and Allan Howarth. Either way, the film sounds great.

Supplements:

Disc One:

• New Audio Commentary with Actress Adrienne Barbeau and Director of Photographer Dean Cundey
• Audio Commentary with Director John Carpenter and Actor Kurt Russell
• Audio Commentary with Producer Debra Hill and Production Designer Joe Alves

Disc Two:

• Big Challenges in Little Manhattan: The Visual Effects of Escape from New York – Dennis Skotak, Director of Photography of Special VFX, and Robert Skotak, Unit Supervisor and Matte Artist, discuss the techniques used on the film including the miniatures used for the flying sequences, the matte paintings, and much more. This is a great piece that also makes mention of the work done by James Cameron. Well worth your time.
• Scoring the Escape: A Discussion with Composer Alan Howarth – this is a first in depth interview with the composer about his working relationship with Carpenter and the various incarnations of the soundtrack.
• On Set with John Carpenter: The Images of Escape from New York – Still Photographer Kim Gottlieb-Walker discusses working on the production stills for the film and how the business has changed.
• I Am Taylor: An Interview with Actor Joe Unger – this interview is with actor Joe Unger who has a role in the deleted scene that is featured on the disc.
• My Night on Set: An Interview with Filmmaker David DeCoteau – Decoteau discusses working on the film for one night.
• Deleted Scene: The Original Opening Bank Robbery Sequence – features optional commentary by John Carpenter and Kurt Russell.
• Return to Escape from New York Featurette – this vintage EPK features some excellent interviews with cast and crew. Fans of the film should not skip this feature so that they can hear Kurt Russell discuss his love of the film.
• Theatrical Trailers
• Photo Galleries: Movie Stills and Behind the Scenes Photos 
• Photo Galleries: Posters and Lobby Cards

Overall scores

Video – 4.5/5

Audio – 4.5/5

Supplements – 4.5/5

Overall – 5/5

Escape from New York is one of the best films by John Carpenter and one of the greatest science-fiction action films. It spawned an incredible amount of imitators, but Snake Plissken still remains one of the ultimate badass protagonists. Kurt Russell still considers it his best role with good reason. The film still holds up. The supplements included on the Blu-ray are solid and the video transfer still holds up pretty well. Everyone should have a copy of this film in their library. Until Shout!Factory gives the film a new 4K release, this is the best it is going to get.