Trivia / Escape from New York

• Actor-Inspired Element: According to the DVD commentary, a large number of actors in the film got in on this:
  • Snake Plissken's eyepatch was suggested by Kurt Russell. Also, it's possible he channeled Clint Eastwood somewhat in his performance because he was acting opposite Lee Van Cleef.
  • The Duke's eye twitching was suggested by Isaac Hayes, which was done whenever Snake was in the character's presence.
  • According to Carpenter, Donald Pleasence created his own internal backstory for the President, suggesting that the character was the result of a world where Margaret Thatcher had become a world leader and the U.S. reverted back to being a colony. The humiliating blonde wig the President wears during his torture was also an element suggested by Pleasence.
• All-Star Cast: In addition to being a Star-Making Role for Kurt Russell, the movie features five of the most famous and recognizable character actors of all time: Lee Van Cleef, Donald Pleasence, Ernest Borgnine, Harry Dean Stanton, and Isaac Hayes.
• Billing Displacement: Season Hubley (the "girl in Chock Full O'Nuts"} is credited sixth in the end titles, above Harry Dean Stanton (Brain) and Adrienne Barbeau (Maggie), who both have more important roles in the film. In comparison, Hubley's character only appears in a single scene.
• California Doubling: Filmed in East St. Louis and St. Louis to keep the budget low. Entire areas were in such a state of neglect — urban fires had severely damaged them only a few years earlier — to the point where sets didn't even have to be built. Four years later, the scene of the Batter Up! Blood Sport was renovated into a hoity-toity shopping area — visual Mood Dissonance.
• Colbert Bump: The amount of people who discovered this movie due to being Referenced by... the Metal Gear franchise probably rivals the amount who saw it in theatres.
• Completely Different Title:
  • Austria and Germany: The Rattlesnake
  • France: New York 1997
  • Italy: 1997: Flee New York
• Contractual Obligation Project: The second in a two-picture deal Avco Embassy had with John Carpenter, the first being The Fog.
• Creator-Chosen Casting:
  • Maggie was written with Adrienne Barbeau in mind.
  • Cabbie was also written for Ernest Borgnine.
• Creator Couple:
  • The girl in the Chock Full O' Nuts is played by Kurt Russell's then-wife, Season Hubley.
  • Adrienne Barbeau was married to John Carpenter at the time.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: Kurt Russell has called this his favourite film and role that he's ever done.
• Dark Horse Casting: John Carpenter wanted a less established actor as Snake, worried that he would lose control of a more seasoned one like who the studio was suggesting (see below).
• Deleted Role: Joe Unger is listed in the end credits as playing the character of Taylor, although his scene (the bank robbery/escape prologue) was deleted.
• Deleted Scene: Several scenes were planned but ultimately cut from release:
  • The film was intended to open with a bank robbery detailing how Snake got captured. The sequence was cut after test screenings, as it was judged that it ran too long and was better explained by the sequence where Hauk details Snake's life of crime later in the film.
  • In the finished film, Snake's trip down through the World Trade Center isn't seen. There was originally planned to be a sequence where Snake would encounter a group of Native American prisoners living on the ground floor of the building who were roasting an animal. When he eavesdrops on them, one of the tribe members sneaks up behind and tries to strangle him, forcing him to flee. The sequence also would have set up why they sabotaged the glider later on in the film.
  • The car chase around the city just before the 69th Street Bridge sequence was intended to be longer, with Snake causing several of the cars driven by The Duke's entourage to smash into each other. This explains why Duke is the only one to follow them over the bridge at the end of the film.
  • The final shot of the film was supposed to have Snake lighting up the cassette with the secret to nuclear fusion with his cigarette, holding the burning pile of tape in his hands for a moment before dropping it. This was changed in the final product to have Snake tearing out the tape as he walks off.
• Enforced Method Acting: In some of the shots during the fight scene, Snake's expressions of terror are real. Ox Baker, having never done a film before, got a little too into his role, and poor Kurt Russell really did end up fearing for his life.
• Fake American: Brit Donald Pleasence plays the President of the USA. He struggled to do the accent, so he came up with a backstory to suggest why a British man would be the American president - the USA had rejoined the British Empire and therefore the president didn't need to be a national. John Carpenter found the idea interesting but opted to just ignore the accent, finding it unnecessary to include.
• Inspiration for the Work: John Carpenter originally wrote the screenplay in 1976, in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal. Carpenter said, "The whole feeling of the nation was one of real cynicism about the President. I wrote the screenplay and no studio wanted to make it "because, according to Carpenter, "it was too dark, too violent, too scary, and too weird." He had been inspired by Death Wish (1974), which was very popular at the time. He did not agree with the film's philosophy but liked how it conveyed "the sense of New York as a kind of jungle, and I wanted to make a science fiction film along these lines".
• Method Acting: Kurt Russell tried to remain in character between takes.
• On-Set Injury: Ox Baker struck Kurt Russell very heavily with some of his blows during the boxing ring fight scene. Russell had finally had enough and asked Baker to take it easy, tapping him in the groin to let him know he was serious. Baker then calmed down.
• Playing Against Type: Before Escape from New York and The Thing (1982), Kurt Russell was best known for doing Disney comedies and other lightweight fare. The studio was surprised when Carpenter picked him, instead of someone like Charles Bronson or Tommy Lee Jones.
• Production Posse: The film was co-written by Nick Castle, who had played Michael Myers in Halloween (1978), produced by his regular producer Debra Hill, and starring Donald Pleasance, Charles Cyphers, Nancy Stephens and an uncredited voiceover by Jamie Lee Curtis - all from Halloween too. Tom Atkins and Adrienne Barbeau had starred in The Fog. This was also cinematographer Dean Cundey's fourth collaboration with him.
• Reality Subtext: Donald Pleasance had been a prisoner of war in the past, and drew from those experiences when filming the scenes of the president being imprisoned.
• Saved from Development Hell: John Carpenter originally wrote the script between 1974 and 1976 as a reaction to the Watergate scandal. No studio wanted to make it because it was deemed too dark and too violent. That changed after the success of Halloween
• Star-Making Role: This film put Kurt Russell on the map as an action star.
• Stunt Double: Dick Warlock was Kurt Russell's stunt double on the film.
• Technology Marches On: A monitor displays a 3D wireframe model of NYC as Snake lands his glider in the city. The filmmakers wanted to use an actual computer model, but since technology wasn't there yet at the budget they had, they compromised by building a physical miniature New York, outlining it with reflective tape, and filming the result. This was the budget option.
• Tom Hanks Syndrome: Together with The Thing (1982), this was the movie that turned Kurt Russell from "clean-cut Disney kid" to "rugged roughneck badass". He was eager to break out of his family-friendly typecasting, and with this film, he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.
• Throw It In!:
  • Several of Lee Van Cleef's closeups are out of focus, because they could only afford him for one day of shooting, and it would have been too expensive to get him back.
  • The idea of putting a wig on at one point in the film was improvised by Donald Pleasence on the set.
  • Maggie's death scene (where she Dies Wide Open) was something added just before release, after the film had already been completed and screened for the studio. Test screenings indicated that Maggie's fate was left ambiguous (it wasn't clear if the Duke hit her during her Last Stand or if she jumped out of the way), so Carpenter shot extra footage by filming Barbeau lying on the ground in a death pose in the driveway in front of the house they owned.
• Uncredited Role: The voice of the female narrator in the opening sequence is left uncredited. Some websites and magazines claim that Jamie Lee Curtis performed uncredited voice work for the intro (and, in tandem with this rumor, for the uncredited "Operator" in Halloween III: Season of the Witch, another John Carpenter-produced film), but this has never been definitively proven. Other crew members (including Carpenter himself, who officially denied the suggestion years earlier) state that the narrator is an uncredited "Kathleen Blanchard", who is officially credited in the sequel, Escape from L.A., and does exist (though she is not known to have any public presence, fueling rumors that the name is a pseudonym for Curtis).
• What Could Have Been:
  • The studio was not initially keen to hire Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken due to his past work as a Disney kid and tried to counter-pitch director John Carpenter on either Tommy Lee Jones or Charles Bronson (an idea Carpenter shot down on the grounds that Bronson was too old). Other candidates for the role of Snake included Clint Eastwood, Chuck Norris, Nick Nolte, Jeff Bridges and Kris Kristofferson; Nolte and Bridges declined because they just weren't interested and the latter was declined by the studio due to the failure of Heaven's Gate. But Carpenter fought for Russell and he eventually won.
  • The role of Brain was written with Warren Oates in mind, but he was seriously ill at the time, so he suggested Harry Dean Stanton for the role.
  • Co-writer Nick Castle wrote the role of Cabbie for Mickey Rooney.
  • John Carpenter had originally considered a scene where Hauk reveals that the explosive charges in Snake's neck were a hoax intended to coerce Snake into rescuing the President, but decided not to use it. Carpenter did, however, use this plot device in the sequel Escape from L.A..

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