{"id":42464,"date":"2026-08-22T07:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T11:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=42464"},"modified":"2026-08-21T12:41:46","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T16:41:46","slug":"escape-from-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=42464","title":{"rendered":"“Escape From New York” (1981) directed by John Carpenter, starring Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence, Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanton & Adrienne Barbeau \/ Z-View"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Escape from New York <\/i>(1981)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director: John Carpenter<\/strong><\/p>\n

Screenplay: \u00a0John Carpenter, Nick Castle<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stars:\u00a0 Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence, Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau, Season Hubley, Tom Atkins, Charles Cyphers, Douglas “Ox”<\/em> Baker, Jamie Lee Curtis<\/strong> (voice) and Frank Doubleday<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tagline: 1997. New York City is now a maximum security prison. Breaking out is impossible. Breaking in is insane.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Plot…<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In the future New York City has been turned into a maximum security prison.\u00a0 Forty-foot walls with armed sentries make sure anyone imprisoned there never gets out.\u00a0 Inside there are no guards.\u00a0 Gangs created by the worst of the worst rule.\u00a0 Marauding cannibals live in the tunnels underground.\u00a0 New York is hell on earth.<\/p>\n

The United States, Russia and China are on the verge of war.\u00a0 US President John Harker is scheduled to speak at a peace conference in a little over 24 hours.\u00a0 Harker has in his posession a tape that explains a secret process for nuclear fusion.\u00a0 This would create an endless energy source for all nations — if peace can be achieved.<\/p>\n

When an attack on the President’s life brings down Air Force One, the President survives in an escape pod… that lands behind the New York City prison walls.<\/p>\n

A rescue squad is sent in only to be met with the news the President is alive but the prisoner of The Duke of New York, leader of the prison’s biggest gang.\u00a0 The squad is given 30 seconds to leave or the President will be killed.<\/p>\n

They leave.<\/p>\n

Deterrmined to save the President, and retrieve the cassette he carries, a plan is developed.\u00a0 Snake Plissken, a former Special Forces soldier, recently arrested will be offered immunity for his crimes, if he successfully rescues the President in time for the Peace conference.\u00a0 Plissken reluctantly agrees.<\/p>\n

Worried that Plissken won’t follow through, he is injected with an explosive micro-capsule that will explode in 23 hours.\u00a0 If he returns with the President before time has expired, the capsule will be neutralized.<\/p>\n

Plissken is on his way in.\u00a0 The clock is ticking.<\/p>\n

Thoughts (beware of spoilers)\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jamie Lee Curtis provides the opening narration as well as the computer’s voice in the first prison scene.<\/p>\n

Kurt Russell has said that Escape from New York<\/em> is his favorite of all his film and that Snake Plissken is the favorite of the characters he’s played.\u00a0 It was also Russell’s idea to give Snake an eyepatch. Also once Lee Van Cleef was signed, it was Russell’s idea to imitate Clint Eastwood’s delivery.<\/p>\n

Although most consider Snake Plissken to be Kurt Russell’s signature role, studio execs were not sold on him.\u00a0 At the time Russell was still best known as a Disney star.\u00a0 Execs wanted someone like Charles Bronson, Chuck Norris, Nick Nolte or Tommy Lee Jones.<\/p>\n

Snake was written with Kurt Russell in mind.\u00a0Same for Adrienne Barbeau as Maggie and Ernest Borgnine as Cabbie.<\/p>\n

James Cameron created the matte-painted buildings.<\/p>\n

Season Hubley and Kurt Russell share a scene and were also married at the time.\u00a0 John Carpenter and Adrienne Barbeau were also married when the film was made.<\/p>\n

Warren Oates was originally signed to play Brain.\u00a0 Oates became ill and suggested Harry Dean Stanton for the role.\u00a0 Stanton was perfect.\u00a0 Sadly Oates died later that year.<\/p>\n

Frank Doubleday, who plays Romero, is only in a couple of scenes, but is so memorable.<\/p>\n

I saw Escape from New York the weekend it was released (and many, many times over the years).\u00a0 It remains a favorite.<\/p>\n

Escape from New York <\/i>(1981)<\/strong> rates 5 of 5 stars.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Escape from New York (1981) Director: John Carpenter Screenplay: \u00a0John Carpenter, Nick Castle Stars:\u00a0 Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17,54,65,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebs","category-movies","category-trivia","category-z-view"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42464"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42528,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42464\/revisions\/42528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}