Escape from New York Was an Escape

 

On Saturday night, I went to the Brattle Theatre to take in a screening the 1981 John Carpenter film Escape from New York starring Kurt Russell.

While I am old enough to remember its initial release, I had never seen it until tonight. Russell led the stellar cast which included Donald Pleasence, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Harry Dean Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau (who was married to Carpenter at the time) and Isaac Hayes. There were also cameos from Russell's then wife Season Hubley and professional wrestler Ox Baker. 

Escape from New York is set in 1997 where Manhattan is an inmate run prison. Snake Plissken (Russell) is about to be sent to the prison when Air Force One is hijacked and crashes in Manhattan with the President (Pleasence) taken into captivity. The police commissioner (Van Cleef) makes a deal with Plissken to get the President out of New York. Along the way, he is helped by the Cabbie (Borgnine) who takes him to The Brain (Stanton) and his girlfriend Maggie (Barbeau) but must overcome The Duke (Hayes).

Despite its dark overtones Escape from New York was 100 minutes of pure escapism. At the conclusion of the film, I overheard several audience members how much fun they found Escape from New York and enjoyed the experience of watching it in a theatre. 

I am someone who likes watching a movie until all the credits have rolled. While watching the closing credits, I noticed that one of the assistants was Matt Franco. It made me think of Matt Franco who played in MLB with the Chicago Cubs, New York Mets and Atlanta Braves during the 1990s and early 2000s before finishing his professional career in Japan. Well, it turns out that Matt Franco is Kurt Russell's nephew. Franco's father Larry (married to Russell's sister Jill) was a co-producer of Escape from New York.

In retrospect, this factoid shouldn't come entirely as a surprise. Kurt Russell has a strong connection to baseball himself playing in the minor leagues in the California Angels organization in the early 1970s and later with the independent Portland Mavericks which were owned by his father actor Bing Russell. 

I, too, enjoyed Escape from New York as it was another opportunity to escape from the house on a Saturday night.