ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK Explained: 11 Facts You Didn’t Know

It’s also the favorite film of Kurt Russell himself, who considers his portrayal of Snake Plissken to be his acting magnum opus to this day. Escape from New York enchants with its so-called atmosphere, which often results from… budgetary constraints, but most importantly, thanks to Russell’s unforgettable performance and the brilliant soundtrack by John Carpenter, which masterfully builds and emphasizes the film’s decadent mood.

The Eye Patch Idea Was Kurt Russell’s

At the time, Kurt Russell wanted to break away from his image as a Disney family film actor (e.g., The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes) and his television roles (notably, the lead in John Carpenter’s Elvis). That’s why, in addition to Snake Plissken’s grim look, he adopted a cynical attitude — inspired by Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns and Clint Eastwood’s taciturn heroes — and probably also, in part, by one of the characters played by John Wayne himself (more on this in point 9).

James Cameron Worked For John Carpenter

Three years before his famous debut (The Terminator), James Cameron contributed to the final look of the world in Escape from New York. He was responsible for some additional sketches, such as the helicopter landing scene in Central Park.

Alternative Beginning

Audience members at the first test screenings of Escape from New York saw a prologue in which Snake Plissken and a partner commit a federal bank robbery, then get surrounded by police forces at a subway station. The partner, unwilling to part with the loot, gets a well-deserved bullet, while the obediently surrendering Snake Plissken is arrested. In this version of the film, the opening credits began right after this scene (the Escape from New York we know starts with the credits). Supposedly, the first audience didn’t like the over 7-minute-long prologue, finding it too lengthy and disrupting the film’s proper opening (the Air Force One crash). Today, we can watch the deleted prologue on YouTube, and there’s even a trace of the sequence titled “The Bank Robbery” in the expanded soundtrack version of the film, though on YouTube, the scene is accompanied by… a completely different musical theme, and don’t ask me why, because I don’t know.

New York Buildings Were A Practical Effect

The early 1980s were a time of developing computer effects. A year after Escape from New York premiered, in 1982, the spectacular (for its time) TRON hit theaters, and only three years later, in 1985, the first digitally animated character in cinema history — the famous knight from the stained glass window in Young Sherlock Holmes — was introduced. The impressive-looking digital New York in Carpenter’s film (e.g., the view from Snake’s glider) was, in reality, 100% a practical effect: a simple model of black buildings covered in white fluorescent tape, filmed directly onto the film reel. Before being taped, these buildings were used in the Air Force One crash scene (the view from the nose of the plane approaching the disaster). According to rumors, after some adjustments, the miniatures were also used on the set of Blade Runner by Ridley Scott.

Jamie Lee Curtis Was The Film’s Narrator

Despite having watched Escape from New York numerous times, I never paid attention to who voiced the unforgettable female narration in the prologue, describing the world and later playing over the loudspeakers in the police headquarters on Liberty Island. Well, it was none other than Jamie Lee Curtis, the queen of screams at the time. It’s worth noting that Jamie Lee Curtis had previously starred in Carpenter’s works, including the cult classic Halloween (1978) and the 1980 film The Fog. Escape from New York was, therefore, the third and final collaboration between the director and the actress.

The Statue Of Liberty Did Not Lose Its Head

Perhaps the most famous poster/graphic from Escape from New York features the heroes running between buildings with the giant head of the Statue of Liberty lying on the street behind them. It’s a bit disappointing, then, that in the film, the statue (visible in only one shot) remains intact and does not play any dramatic role. The severed head lying on the New York street wasn’t actually seen until almost three decades later, in the 2008 film Cloverfield. Moreover, we even get to watch as the head (severed by a monster) takes a parabolic flight and crashes onto the street.

The Film Was Not Filmed In New York

Most of the filming for John Carpenter’s cult classic took place in St. Louis, Missouri (almost all of the night street scenes), as well as in Los Angeles. St. Louis was chosen to double for Manhattan due to the city’s cooperative authorities, its architectural and aesthetic resemblance to a “large East Coast city,” and the proximity of the Chain of Rocks Bridge, which had been closed and could serve as the famous New York Queensborough (59th Street) bridge, where the film’s final showdown takes place. St. Louis was also selected because of a serious fire in 1977, which left the city center in a state of appropriate decay and destruction. Some buildings appeared abandoned and lifeless, making it ideal for the dystopian setting of a ruined New York, since nothing too “new” or “fresh-looking” could be used as a backdrop. The Union Station in St. Louis played Madison Square Garden, while the city center, after being littered with junked cars and debris, became the dilapidated streets of Manhattan in 1997.

Snake Plissken Could Have Been Charles Bronson

The studio executives pressured John Carpenter to cast an experienced actor in the role of Snake. Their preferences included Chuck Norris, Nick Nolte, Tommy Lee Jones, and Charles Bronson. Carpenter rejected these suggestions, deeming them either too old or just unsuitable for the role of Plissken; Tommy Lee Jones was 35, Chuck Norris and Nick Nolte were over 40, and Bronson was in his 60s. Youth won out, and 29-year-old Kurt Russell, unlike the aforementioned actors, was mostly known for lighter roles in Disney films like The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969) and had no experience in action films. However, Carpenter had previously directed Elvis (1979) with Russell in the lead, and their collaboration had gone so well that Carpenter pushed for Kurt Russell to star in his new film. Fortunately, producer Debra Hill stated that Russell’s youth, appearance, athleticism, and freshness in the action genre made him the perfect choice for the role.

The Line I Thought You Were Dead Was Borrowed From… John Wayne

The iconic line that several characters in Escape from New York say when they see Snake — “I thought you were dead” — was likely borrowed from the 1971 film Big Jake. Every time John Wayne said his name to someone, the standard response was, “I thought you were dead.”

Snake Plissken: The Ultimate Mass Murderer?

The film doesn’t say this directly, but it provides several clear clues leading to the conclusion suggested in this point. Early on, Bob Hauk (Lee Van Cleef) mentions that it’s not so much the president who is important to recover from New York, but the tape he carries. It contains a peace declaration (as we learn at the end of the film) directed at the governments of Russia and China. The tape includes something about nuclear fusion, and Bob Hauk tells Plissken directly that the survival of the human race depends on the success of his mission. So we can infer that the absence of the tape equals the outbreak of nuclear war between the three superpowers, which would likely result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, millions, or even billions of people — after all, Hauk mentioned humanity’s extinction. As we know, in the final scenes of the film, the president plays a cheerful tune for the representatives of Russia and China from the swapped-out tape, while Snake empties the real one and throws it away. Snake’s actions, which seem cool and defiant as the film’s ending, beautifully summarize the one-eyed cynic’s hatred for the U.S. government, but when viewed through the lens of a potential World War III, Snake doesn’t seem like such a heroic antihero anymore. And if anyone still has doubts, considering that no war might have actually broken out due to the tape swap, I refer you to the ending of Escape from L.A., where Plissken, spitefully wanting to annoy the corrupt rulers of that world, shuts off the power across the entire planet. Permanently. Just think about the consequences of such an action, where watching TV by candlelight would be the least of the problems.

There Would Be No Snake Plissken Without… Michael Myers

No studio wanted to finance Escape from New York… until John Carpenter had success with the horror film Halloween (1978). The Escape from New York script, written around 1975, had sat in a drawer for a few years, but finally, after Halloween’s success, it was turned into a film. The low-budget production (only $6 million allocated for its creation) earned a respectable $25 million at the box office and still enjoys enduring esteem among moviegoers.