Escape from New York

In John Carpenter’s film almost nothing of New York was filmed there. The production moved into central St. Louis, burned out by a fire in the mid 1970s, where by Carpenter’s account the streets could be used as found. The Chain of Rocks Bridge became the 69th Street Bridge, the masonic temple on Lindell Boulevard the New York Public Library. In New York itself only the short scene at the Statue of Liberty and a distant skyline shot were filmed. The most futuristic image holds no computer either. John Wash directed the wire frame Manhattan on the glider screen and Mark Stetson built the models: black surfaced plexiglass blocks, edges routed to the white plastic beneath, shot on high contrast monochrome film. Snake’s coldness is an editing decision. In the deleted opening he runs back across a train station for his partner Bill Taylor; Carpenter cut it to leave the character no redeeming side. It survives on home video. Carpenter composed and performed the score in association with Alan Howarth. A good fit if you count it a strength that Snake gets no kind moment and the city is a found ruin, not a built one. Not for viewers after the weight of Charles Bronson or Tommy Lee Jones, the studio’s choices; Kurt Russell was then a Disney comedy actor.