Retro Television Reviews: The Master 1.3 “State of the Union”

Posted on May 26, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing The Master, which ran on NBC from January to August of 1984. The show can be found on Tubi!

This week, The Master stands up for the working man!

Episode 1.3 “State of the Union”

(Dir by Alan Myerson, originally aired on February 3rd, 1984)

“Hi, I’m Max Keller and this is how I start my morning.”

So begins yet another episode of The Master! This time, McAllister (Lee Van Cleef) is forcing Max (Timothy Van Patten) to start his day by running. McAllister says that it’s a part of Max’s ninja training but I think it’s more a case of McAllister just seeing how many stupid things he can force Max to do before Max says, “Enough!”

This week finds Max and McAllister in Clearwater, California. In order to make a little money, Max enters a dirt bike race. It turns out that Max is very well-known on the dirt bike circuit and he even runs into an old friend named Hog (Mickey Jones) at the race. Hog only shows up for a few minutes. He shakes Max’s hand, jokes about the fact that Max is traveling with a hamster and a weird old man, and then he pretty much disappears from the episode.

McAllister watches the race while stroking Max’s pet hamster.

Try to get that image out of your head.

Anyway, Max does not win the race. Instead, the race is won by Carrie Brown (Crystal Bernard). At the finish line, Carrie is nearly run over by one her competitors, Chad Webster (Cotter Smith). Chad is the son of the owner of the local cannery. It turns out that Carrie also works at the cannery. Max takes an immediate liking to Carrie and decides that he should also get a job at the cannery.

McAllister points out that Carrie is attractive. Max replies, “Does your ninja training make you immune to such things?” McAllister shrugs. It’s kind of an odd scene.

Anyway, at the cannery, Max quickly learns that there’s more to Carrie than just 80s hair and dirt bike racing. Carrie is also a union organizer! She’s carrying on her late brother’s dream of unionizing the cannery. This largely means handing out flyers and encouraging people to go to a meeting.

How bad are things at the cannery? They’re so bad that an older worker gets crushed by a palette. Fortunately, McAllister and Max show up just in time to help out. Through the use of one of his magic throwing ticks, McAllister is able to send the palette crashing into the ocean. While Max proceeds to flirt with Carrie, attentive viewers will see the worker — who is now probably crippled for life — being carried away in the background. Despite having saved the guy’s life, neither Max nor McAllister ever ask about him again.

Anyway, you know where all this is heading. Carrie wants to unionize the workers. Chad and his buddies try to intimidate the workers into not joining the union. At a meeting at the local church, Max gives a speech about how the workers have to get organized. There are plenty of fights and car chases and yet another bar brawl. That Max just can’t say out of trouble!

McAllister also joins Max on the dirt bike so that he can throw ninja stars at the bad guys. This leads to some pretty bad rear projection shots.

In the end, Chad is revealed to have murdered Carrie’s brother. The cannery votes to unionize and Max and McAllister promptly leave town because even they know better than to work at a union shop. Though it’s not specifically stated, I imagine that the cannery probably closed two months and Carrie ended up following in the lead footsteps of Jimmy Hoffa.

This episode was a bit silly, largely because neither perky Crystal Bernard nor perpetually mush-mouth Tim Van Patten were believable as firebrand labor activists. Lee Van Cleef seemed to be largely bored with the whole thing. Fortunately, next week’s episode features a guest appearance from George Lazenby so maybe that will liven things up on The Master.

We’ll find out soon!

Retro Television Reviews: The Master 1.2 “Out-of-Time Step”

Posted on May 19, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The adventures of John Peter McAllister and Max Keller continue!

That’s right, the search for McAllister’s daughter is still on and Max is still learning how to be a ninja. But, before we get to their latest adventure, it’s time to enjoy the opening credits!

Episode 1.2 “Out-of-Time Step”

(Dir by Ray Austin, originally aired on January 27th, 1984)

“Hi, I’m Max Keller and this is how I spend my mornings….” Max Keller tells us in voice over as we watch footage of Max (Timothy Van Patten) balancing on a rope that’s been tied between two trees. Yes, Max is still our narrator and John Peter McAllister (Lee Van Cleef) is still training him to become a ninja. Max is also still traveling in his van and with his hamster.

At the end of the previous episode, Max and McAllister were heading down to Atlanta to search for McAllister’s daughter. At the start of this episode, we discover that they are in San Francisco, investigating a lead that McAllister’s daughter may have danced at a club called Truffles. So, did they go to Atlanta or did they just change their mind and decide to stick around California? More to the point, did NBC say, “Hey, we’re not paying for you people to go out of state?”

Anyway, Truffles turns out to be a club that’s owned by Charlie Patterson (Charles Collins), a former film star who has fallen on hard times. (Charles Collins was a real-life dancer and when Patterson watches footage of a screen test that his character supposedly did for a Hollywood production, the footage is actually of Collins performing in a 1936 film called Dancing Pirate.) Patterson has two daughters. Kelly (Shanna Reed) is a dancer who thrills the club’s patrons every time she steps out onto the stage. The other, Jill (Lori Lethin), uses a wheelchair. Jill tells Charlie that he’s “an ex-hoofer with two daughters, one who wheels and one who does cartwheels.”

Upon arriving at Truffles, Max and McAllister discover that Charlie is being intimidated by Chinatown gangster, Johnny Chan (Brian Toshi) and Chan’s main enforcer, Mr. Lika (Soon-Tek Oh). Mr. Lika spots McAllister’s medallion and realizes that McAllister is a trained ninja. McAllister spots Mr. Lika’s ring and realizes that Mr. Lika is a member of the Yakuza. This establishes a mutual respect between the two of them, one that inevitably leads to a final battle between Soon-Tek Oh and Lee Van Cleef’s stunt double.

Of course, McAllister does more than just fight Mr. Lika. He also encourages Jill to stand up from her wheelchair and take a few steps. And when Johnny Chan has Kelly kidnapped, he and Max rescue her. (But not before Johnny shouts at her, “You’re a dancer! DANCE!”) It leads to a lot of action scenes but it doesn’t bring them any closer to McAllister’s daughter.

This episode wasn’t bad, largely because Soon-Tek Oh and Lee Van Cleef got a chance to face off. Even if all of the actual fighting was done by Van Cleef’s stunt double, it’s still undeniably fun to watch these two icons glare at each other and exchange tough guy dialogue. Plus, there was a lot of dancing! I always appreciate any show that finds room for more than one dance number, even if they are obviously lifted from Flashdance.

As I mentioned earlier, this episode ended with McAllister and Max nowhere close to finding McAllister’s daughter. But Max promised that they could keep looking. I’m sure they’ll find her. It’s not like America is that big.

Retro Television Reviews: The Master 1.1 “Max”

Posted on May 12, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

My original plan was to follow-up Half Nelson by reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares. Unfortunately, Freddy’s Nightmares has been removed from Tubi and it’s not currently streaming anywhere else. Hopefully, some other site will soon feature it or it will eventually return to Tubi and I’ll be able to review the show in the future.

While I was looking for another show to review, I came across The Master. The Master ran for 13 episodes in 1984. It featured Lee Van Cleef as John Peter McAllister, a ninja traveling across America and searching for his daughter. Helping out McAllister is Max Keller, a young drifter who owns a groovy van and who is played by Timothy Van Patten. (Van Patten, who has since become a much in-demand director, is probably best known for playing Stegman in Class of 1984.) Since The Master had a short run and everyone loves ninjas, I decided to add it to our retro television schedule!

Episode 1.1 “Max”

(Dir by Robert Clouse, originally aired on January 20th, 1984)

“My name’s Max Keller and this is how I usually leave a bar.”

So opens the first episode of The Master. The voice over is courtesy Max Keller (Timothy Van Patten), a young drifter who drives across America in a van with a pet hamster named Henry as his main companion. And the way that Max usually leaves a bar is through the front window. In this case, Max is tossed through a window by a bunch of bikers. Max responds by sabotaging all of their bikes so, when they try to chase after him as he drives off in his van, all of the bikers are thrown from their bike and onto the hard pavement of the road. I would think that this would kill most of the bikers but Max doesn’t seem to be too concerned about that. Instead, he just has a good laugh as he drives away. Oh, Max!

Meanwhile, in Japan, John Peter McAllister (Lee Van Cleef), “the man who would change my life,” (to quote Max’s voiceover) is preparing to return to America for the first time in years. McAllister moved to Japan after World War II and is the only American to have been trained in the ninja arts. (Why the ninjas would be so eager to train an American after the way World War II ended is not explained.) McAllister has just found out that he has a daughter who he has never met. (How did he find out? Again, it’s not explained.) He wants to return home so that he can find her. However, Osaka (Sho Kosugi), a former student of McAllister’s, is determined to kill him for breaking the ninja code. McAllister manages to escape Japan with only a slight wound courtesy of a throwing star. Osaka decides to follow him.

Back in America, a young woman named Holly Trumbull (a very young Demi Moore) runs out into the middle of a country highway and is nearly run over by Max. Max stops his van just in time and offers Holly a ride. It turns out that Holly is being pursued by the evil Sheriff Kyle (Bill McKinney). She explains that Sheriff Kyle tried to rape her, which is information that Max just kind of shrugs off. He manages to outrun the Sheriff and takes Holly back to the airport that is managed by her father, Mr. Trumbull (Claude Akins).

Max apparently (I say apparently because the episode’s editing is so ragged that it’s often difficult to tell how much time has passed from one scene to the next) spends a few days working at the airport and trying to date Holly. When he attempts to give Holly a kiss, she backs away from him and explains that she’s still not comfortable with being kissed after nearly being raped the town’s sheriff. “I’m sorry,” she says. Max, being a bit of a jerk, gets annoyed and says, “That makes three of us. Henry was just starting to like you.” After saying that he’s going to go somewhere to see if “my luck improves,” he goes to the local bar to unwind.

Also at the bar is John Peter McAllister! McAllister knows that his daughter came through Mr. Trumbull’s airport and he wants to show her picture to the people in the bar. For some reason, the bartender doesn’t want him to do that. When Sheriff Kyle, who is also in the bar, discovers that McAllister is carrying a samurai sword in his suitcase, the sheriff tries to arrest him. When a bar fight breaks out, Max fights alongside McAllister and they even manage to steal the sword back from the sheriff. Bonded by combat, Max and McAllister become fast friends. Before you know it, Max is agreeing to drive McAllister across the country as long as McAllister trains Max how to be a ninja.

But first, an evil developer named Mr. Christensen (Clu Gulager) is determined to run the Turnbulls off their land. After Christensen is not moved by an impassioned speech by Max and instead tries to blow up the airport, it’s time for Max and McAllister to invade Christensen’s office and fight a bunch of guards. Osaka also shows up at the office so we get a lengthy fight scene between Sho Kosugi and Lee Van Cleef’s stunt double. (McAllister dons his head-to-do ninja costume before doing any fighting, so we don’t actually see his face while he’s doing in any of his amazing ninja moves.) While Osaka and McAllister are fighting, Max defeats Christensen by throwing a ninja star at him and hitting him in the chest. I would think that would be murder but who knows. Maybe the blade narrowly missed Christensen’s heart and he was just unconscious. Or maybe Max’s just a sociopath.

Somehow, this leads to the Turnbulls getting to keep the airport. McAllister and Max drive off together, in search of America.

What a messy episode! Obviously, this episode had to get a lot done in just 48 minutes. It had to introduce Max and McAllister, it had to explain why they were traveling together, and it also had to give them an adventure. I guess I shouldn’t feel surprised that the episode felt a bit rushed but still, there were so many unanswered questions. For instance, why is Max driving across the country in a van? How did McAllister find out that he had a daughter? Why didn’t he know that he had a daughter before hand? Did McAllister’s daughter actually come through the town or not? How did Osaka track down McAllister? Where did Max learn to fight before he met McAllister? Why is McAllister so quick to agree to take Max under his wing? Why is Max so quick to drive a strange old man across the country?

As for the cast, Lee Van Cleef appears to be a bit frail in the role of McAllister. (He would died 5 years after The Master went off the air.) Timothy Van Patten comes across as being bit manic as Max. Personally, I would be worried about getting into a van with Max because he doesn’t really seem to have much impulse control. As for the guest cast, Demi Moore gives a strong performance as Holly but the character vanishes from the episode after finally giving Max a kiss. Claude Akins and Clu Gulager only get a few minutes of screentime and are both stuck with stock roles. Akin is the honest working man while Gulager is the corrupt businessman. Billl McKinny is properly hissable as the bully of a sheriff. And Sho Kosugi looks annoyed with the whole thing.

The first episode was not that promising but who knows! Maybe the show will improve as it goes along. We’ll find out next week!

Ride Lonesome (1959, directed by Budd Boetticher)

Posted on February 1, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

In the western Ride Lonesome, Randolph Scott plays Ben Brigade. Brigade is a bounty hunter. The only thing that really differentiates him from the outlaws that he captures is that he gets paid for what he does. When Brigade arrests a young outlaw named Billy John (James Best), he gives Billy just enough time to send word to his older brother, Frank (Lee Van Cleef). And when Brigade starts to lead Billy John back to the town of Santa Cruz, he takes his time and fails to cover his tracks, almost as if he is intentionally making time for Frank to eventually catch up to him. Along the way, Brigade meets up with three others, a woman named Carrie (Karen Steele) and two outlaws named Boone (Pernell Roberts) and Whit (James Coburn). Carrie is searching for her husband while Boone and Whit want to arrest Billy John themselves so that they can turn him in and get a pardon for their own crimes.

Ride Lonesome is one of the best of the many films that Randolph Scott made with director Budd Boetticher. Boetticher specialized in making fast-paced westerns that had deceptively simple plots. Nobody in a Boetticher western was totally good or totally bad and that’s certainly the case with Ride Lonesome, which may seem like a typical western but which is actually a character study of 6 very different people. Brigade is often only the hero by default and his actions are often as ruthless as those of the men who are tracking him. It’s only after he meets and gets to know Carrie that he starts to seriously consider that his plans could lead to innocent people getting hurt. Billy John may be a wanted killer but, underneath his bravado, he’s just someone trying to live up to his brother’s example. Meanwhile, Boone and Whit may be outlaws but they turn out to be the most morally upright characters in the film. Ride Lonesome takes a serious look at frontier justice and suggests that maybe black-and-white morality isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

Needless to say, the cast is great. Randolph Scott was one of the great western heroes and Karen Steele, Pernell Roberts, Lee Van Cleef, and James Best all turn in memorable performances. Best of all is James Coburn, making his film debut and showing that, even at the start of his career, he was already the epitome of cool. Ride Lonesome is one of the best of of the Boetticher/Scott westerns and a true classic of the genre.

Scene That I Love: Lee Van Cleef Meets Klaus Kinski in For A Few Dollars More

Posted on January 9, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1925, on this very date, Lee Van Cleef was born in Somervillve, New Jersey. In honor of what would have been Lee Van Cleef’s 97th birthday, here he is with Klaus Kinski and Clint Eastwood in For A Few Dollars More.

There’s not a lot of dialogue in this scene but when you had actors like Eastwood, Kinski, and Lee Van Cleef, you didn’t need a lot of dialogue to make an impression.

30 More Days of Noir #3: Guns, Girls, and Gangsters (dir by Edward L. Cahn)

Posted on November 3, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Guns, Girls, and Gangsters! The title of this 1958 film pretty much sums it all up.

Now, technically, I guess you could debate whether or not the criminals in this film really qualify as gangsters. When I hear the term “gangster,” I tend to think of the big Mafia chieftains, like Al Capone and the Kennedys. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen The Godfather too many times but I always associate gangsters with wealth, big mansions, elaborate weddings, and aging crooners who need someone to chop off a horse’s head in order to get a role in From Here To Eternity. However, the gangsters in this film are all basically small-time criminals. One of them does own a nightclub but it’s not a very impressive nightclub. If anything, they’re wannabe gangsters. However, Guns, Girls, and Wannabes just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Chuck Wheeler (Gerald Mohr) has a plan. He wants to rob an armored car. It’s a Vegas armored car, so of course it’s going to be full of money and since Michael Corleone killed Moe Greene three years before, there shouldn’t be too many repercussions from hijacking it. (Sorry, I’m still thinking about The Godfather.) To enlist the aid of a nightclub owner, he enlists the aid of a singer named Vi (Mamie Van Doren). Vi just happens to be the wife of Chuck’s former prison cellmate, Mike (Lee Van Cleef). Vi has been demanding a divorce for a while but Mike won’t grant it because he’s insanely jealous. He probably wouldn’t be happy to find out that Chuck and Vi are now a couple but, fortunately, he’s locked up.

Except, of course, Mike escapes from prison around the same time that Chuck and the gang manage to hijack that armored car. As you can guess, this leads to mayhem and havoc. That’s where the guns of the title come into play….

Guns, Girls, and Gangsters is an entertaining little B-noir. It’s only 70 minutes long so the film doesn’t waste any time getting to the action. (There’s also a narrator who serves to fill in any plot holes and to keep the audience entertained with his rather self-important delivery.) Gerald Mohr is a bit on the dull side as Chuck but you better believe that Lee Van Cleef is 100% menacing and oddly charismatic as the as the always angry Mike. Van Cleef brings a charge of very real danger to the film. (Perhaps he’s the gangster that the title was referring to, though I would still think of him as being more of an outlaw than a gangster.) And, of course, you’ve got Mamie Van Doren, playing yet another tough dame in dangerous circumstances. Van Doren gets to perform two musical numbers in Guns, Girls, and Gangsters and they both have a low-rent Vegas charm to them. Watching this film, it occurred to me that Van Doren may not have been a great actress but she had the perfect attitude for films like this. She played characters who did what they had to to do survive and who made no apologies for it and it’s impossible not to be on her side when she’s having to deal with creeps like Chuck or sociopaths like Mike.

Guns, Girls, and Gangsters is an entertaining B-noir. There’s enough tough talk, cynical scheming, and deadly double crosses to keep noir fans happy.

Day of Anger (1967, directed by Tonino Valerii)

Posted on April 21, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

During the dying days of the Old West, Clifton, Arizona is a prosperous frontier town. The leaders of the town are wealthy and well-connected and the saloon has a strictly enforced policy when it comes to only allowing in the right people. Frank Talby (Lee Van Cleef), the mysterious man who rides into town one day, is considered to be one of the right people. Scott (Giuliano Gemma) is not. Because he was born out of wedlock, Scott is looked down upon by the townspeople. He makes a pitiful living sweeping the streets and doing odd jobs, all while trying to save up enough money to buy himself a gun.

Talby, who has his own reasons for hating the people of Clifton, takes Scott with him into the saloon. After Scott sees Talby gun down a local roughneck, Scott begs Talby to teach him how to be a gunslinger like him. Talby reluctantly takes Scott under his wing and teaches him how to be a real outlaw. Scott also learns that the town of Clifton was founded by money that stolen during a robbery that Talby originally planned. Talby now wants his money and his revenge. Working with Scott as his enforcer, Talby takes over the town of Clifton.

At first, Scott has everything that he ever wanted. The people who once mocked him now respect him as the second-fasted shot in town. But when Scott’s former boss, Murph (Walter Rilla), reveals that Talby is not as benevolent a mentor as Scott thought he was, the student and teacher turn on each other.

Day of Anger is one of many Spaghetti westerns that featured an older gunslinger taking a younger one under his tutelage. Lee Van Cleef is so confident and sure himself that it’s easy to see why Scott would idolize him. Talby is an interesting character because, as ruthless and cold-blooded as he is, he does seem to sincerely like and care about Scott. They’re both outsiders and they’ve both been screwed over by the town of Clifton and the movie hints that the aging Talby sees the man who he once was when he looks at Scott. When Talby offers up one final lesson to Scott and tells him that once a man starts killing, he can never stop, Van Cleef says it with downbeat resignation, as if he realizes that Scott is now the one who will have to live his entire life alone, trusting no one, and always listening for the sound of a gun being cocked in the shadows. Scott finally gets his gun but now he has to decide whether it was worth losing his humanity and Gemma does a good job playing his character’s arc. Add to that an excellent score from Riz Ortolani and you’ve got a truly superior Spaghetti western.

One final note: Director Tonio Valerii would later be credited for directing another film about an aging gunfighter and his protegee, though there are rumors that the film itself was actually directed by its producer, Sergio Leone. Starring Terrence Hill and Henry Fond, the entertaining My Name is Nobody re-imagines Day of Anger as a comedy.

The Octagon (1980, directed by Eric Karson)

Posted on March 26, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

A ninja named Seikura (Tadashi Yamashita) is running a training camp where he shows mercenaries and terrorists how they can use martial arts to assassinate their enemies and disrupt the political system. Someone has to stop him.

This looks like a job for CHUCK NORRIS!

In this one, Chuck plays Scott James, a retired karate champion who, though a massive series of apparently unrelated coincidences, is drawn into the fight against Seikura’s terrorists. (Speaking of coincidences, Seikura just happens to be Scott’s half-brother.) One of the fun things about The Octagon is that there’s no real rhyme-or-reason as to how Scott gets involved. He just keeps running into people who want him to fight terrorists. His former mentor (played by Lee Van Cleef) tries to recruit him. Immediately after turning him down, Scott just happens to run into a woman (Karen Carlson) who is having car trouble and the woman tries to recruit him. Scott’s old friend, A.J. (Art Hindle) tries to recruit him. Even a dancer (Kim Lankford) who goes out on a date with Scott is more interested in talking about the terrorists than anything else. Even when the terrorists decide to go after Scott, it’s mostly just because he keeps talking to their enemies.

Scott does eventually get involved. He goes undercover, which means that he gives everyone a fake last name while asking them if they know where he can sign up for the terrorist training camp. (But he doesn’t shave his mustache or anything else so he’s still obviously Chuck Norris.) Eventually, Aura (Carol Bagdasarian) defects from the terrorists over to Scott’s side and the two of them launch an assault on the terrorist camp. While this is all going on, Scott has doubts about whether or not he can really defeat his half-brother and we hear them in voice over. It’s an interesting attempt to show what’s going on in an action hero’s head but, because Chuck was such an inexpressive actor early in his career, the contrast between his worries and his stone face creates a strange effect.

It doesn’t matter, though, that Chuck wasn’t an expressive actor or that the film’s plot is needlessly convoluted. The fight scenes are frequent and they all rock and that’s what really matters. Chuck throws a lot of punches and kicks in this film and, as opposed to some of his other early films, the director of The Octagon made sure that we could see every single one of them. Whether he’s fighting in a small hotel room and fighting off a dozen enemies in the terrorist camp, Chuck’s exciting to watch. Also exciting to watch is Carol Bagdasarian, who makes her role more than the typical action movie love interest. At times, she seems like she might even be a deadlier opponent than Chuck himself!

Finally, Lee Van Cleef! In this one, he drives a truck with a “Have You Hugged Your Gun Today?” bumper sticker. No film featuring Lee Van Cleef can be that bad. In fact, most, like The Octagon, are pretty damn entertaining.

Escape From New York (dir. by John Carpenter)

Posted on March 22, 2020 by Leonard Wilson

escape-from-new-york-movie-poster-1981-1020189511 Before you start, note that Escape From New York was recently showcased in Jeff’s 4 Shots from 4 Films post to celebrate Kurt Russell’s birthday. For another take on the film, check out Jeff’s review. Please check that out, and then double back here, if you want.

When I was little, my Aunt would sometimes take my older brother and I with her into Manhattan. In a little movie theatre near 82nd Street, she’d get us a set of tickets for a film, help us get seated with snacks and then either stay for the movie or leave to perform housekeeping duties for someone nearby if she had work and we weren’t allowed to hang out on site. John Carpenter’s Escape From New York wasn’t a film she stayed for (she loved Raiders of the Lost Ark), but it was okay. I was introduced to Snake Plissken, who ended up being cooler than Han Solo to my six year old eyes. Instead of being the hero, here was a criminal being asked to a mission. It showed me that even the bad guys could be heroes, now and then (or better yet, not every hero is cookie cutter clean). The film became an instant favorite for me. As I also do with Jaws and The Fog, I try not to let a year go by without watching Escape From New York at least once. It was my first Carpenter film.

The cultural impact of Escape From New York is pretty grand, in my opinion. It had a major influence on Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear video games and also spawned a few comics with Plissken, complete with Jack Burton crossovers with Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China.

Carpenter brought in most of the same crew he worked with in his previous movies. The film was the third collaboration between Carpenter and Debra Hill, who previously worked with him in 1978’s Halloween and 1980’s The Fog. Though Hill didn’t write this one, she was still the producer, along with Larry Franco. There’s also a bit of speculation on whether Hill performed the opening vocals describing New York or Jamie Lee Curtis handled that. Cinematographer Dean Cundey (who worked on most of Carpenter’s early films) returned to help give the movie it’s gritty look, which is helpful considering how much of it takes place either at night or in darkened rooms. Another interesting part of the production is James Cameron, who was the Director of Photography when it came to the effects and matte work. One of the best effects shots in the film has Plissken gliding over Manhattan, which was designed by Effects member John C. Wash. The shot on his plane’s dashboard of the city was made from miniature mock up with reflective tape that made it appear as if it were digital, which was pretty cool given that they weren’t on an Industrial Light and Magic budget. There’s a fantastic article on We Are The Mutants and on the Escape From New York/LA Fan Page that focus on Wash’s technical contributions to the film.

For Carpenter’s career, Escape From New York marked the start of a great working relationship with Alan Howarth. Howarth, who also worked on the sound in the film, assisted Carpenter with the soundtrack. I’ve always felt this brought a new level to Carpenter’s music overall. You can easily hear the difference when Howarth was involved. Where Carpenter excelled at general synth sound, Howarth’s touch added some bass and depth. Together, they’d work on Christine, Big Trouble in Little China, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Prince of Darkness and They Live together. On his own, Howarth was also responsible for both Halloween 2, 4 and 5.

For the writing, Carpenter worked with Nick Castle, who played Michael Myers for him in the original Halloween. Escape From New York’s story is simple. In 1988, the crime rate for the United States rises 400 percent. As a result, someone had the notion to turn Manhattan into a prison for an entire country, setting up walls around the borough and mines in the waterways. When Airforce One crashes in the borough nearly a decade later, the recently arrested war hero / fugitive Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) is given a mission. Go in, rescue the President and/or the tape he’s carrying in 22 hours, and Plissken receives a pardon for all his crimes. To ensure that he follows through, he’s injected with nano-explosives that will kill him when the deadline hits. What seems like a simple mission becomes a little complicated when Snake discovers the President was captured by The Duke of New York, played by Issac Hayes (I’m Gonna Git You Sucka). Given that I’ve commuted to Manhattan more times than I can count, the film holds a special place in my heart. The concept of the entire borough being a prison was mind blowing as a kid. The concept still holds up for me as an adult.

For a film about New York, there were only two days of filming actually spent on location there, according to Carpenter’s commentary. Most of that was used for the opening shot at the Statue of Liberty. The bulk of the film was made in Los Angeles, Atlanta and St. Louis. At the time, there was a major fire in St. Louis. The damage made for a great backdrop for both the crash site and the city at night. The film does take some liberties with locations, though. For example, as far as I know, we don’t have a 69th Street Bridge in Manhattan, but as a kid, it didn’t matter much. From an action standpoint, it might not feel as intense as other films. Even when compared to other films in 1981 – like Raiders of the Lost Ark (released a month earlier) – Escape From New York doesn’t have a whole lot, though I still enjoy what it does provide.

Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) has 22 hours to save the President in John Carpenter’s Escape from New York.

Casting seemed to come easy for the film. Hill, Castle and Carpenter reached out to some friends. Kurt Russell and Carpenter worked together on Elvis, that was easy enough. Russell’s work with Carpenter would continue on in The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China and Escape from L.A. From Halloween, Donald Pleasance was brought on to play the President, along with Charles Cyphers and Nancy Stephens as one pissed off flight attendant. From The Fog, we have Tom Atkins as Nick and Adrienne Barbeau as Maggie, who happened to be married to Carpenter at the time. According to Carpenter on the film’s commentary track, the sequence for Maggie’s exit needed to be reshot and extended. The scene with her body on the ground was filmed in Carpenter’s garage and added to the film.

Ernest Borgnine’s (The Poseidon Adventure) Cabbie was a favorite character of mine. Like most cabbies, he knew the city well. He even prepared for some of its challenges with molotov cocktails. Harry Dean Stanton (Alien, Christine) played Brain, the smartest individual in the room and the supplier for gas for the Duke. If you look close, you’ll also catch Assault on Precinct 13’s Frank Doubleday as Romero, which his crazy looking teeth. To round it all out, Lee Van Cleef (The Good, The Bad & The Ugly) plays Hauk, who puts Snake on his mission. And of course, it wouldn’t be a Carpenter film without a George ‘Buck’ Flower cameo. Buck was kind of Carpenter’s lucky charm in the way Dick Miller was for Joe Dante’s films. Good Ol’ Buck plays an inmate who sings Hail to the Chief.

Overall, Escape From New York is a classic Carpenter film that’s worth the watch. Whether you do so while wearing an eyepatch or not, that’s on you. We all have our preferences.

Escape From New York (1981, directed by John Carpenter)

Posted on January 16, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

What’s your favorite John Carpenter film?

Halloween is an obvious choice. It’s probably the film that John Carpenter is best-known for. The Thing and Assault on Precinct 13 are two other popular choices. Libertarians and anarchists have embraced They Live as a sacred text. In The Mouth of Madness is one of the few films to capture the feel of a classic H.P. Lovecraft story. Christine is one of the best of the Stephen King adaptations. My techphobic father recently purchased a Blu-ray player just so he could watch Big Trouble In Little China whenever he felt like it.

For me, though, my favorite will always be Escape From New York.

Everything about this movie, from the premise to the execution to the darkly funny ending, is pure brilliance. For those who have been living off the grid for the last 40 years, Escape From New York takes place in what was, at the time of the film’s initial release, the near future. Due to a 400% increase in crime, Manhattan has been turned into a floating prison. A wall has been built around the island. The bridges are covered in mines. All of the residents are prisoners who have been sentenced to a life term and the Chock Full O’Nuts is now literally full of nuts.

There’s a new resident of New York City. He’s the President (Donald Pleasence!) and he was supposed to soon deliver a classified cassette tape to the Soviets. Instead, with the world on the verge of war, Air Force One has crashed in Manhattan and the Duke of New York (Isaac Hayes!!) is holding him hostage. Bob Hauk (Lee Van Cleef!!!) recruits notorious criminal Snake Plisskin (Kurt Russell!!!!) to sneak into the prison and retrieve the cassette and save the President, by any means necessary. If Snake succeeds, he’ll get a pardon. If Snake fails, he’ll die due to the microexplosives that have been injected into his system.

How unbelievably cool is Kurt Russell as Snake Plisskin? Before fanfic was even known by that name, people were writing stories about Snake Plisskin’s past and how he lost his eye. Delivering his lines in a Clint Eastwood-style rasp, Kurt Russell gives one of the best action hero performances of all time. (Snake was the role that transformed Russell from being a clean-cut former Disney child star to being a cult film icon.) Everything that Snake says is quotable and, even with tiny explosives circulating through his blood, Snake never loses his cool. Sometimes, it doesn’t seem like Snake cares whether he lives or dies and that’s what makes Snake such a strong hero. He’s wiling to take the risks that no one else would. If he saves the President and the world, cool. If he doesn’t, neither was probably worth saving anyways. At the end of the film, Snake reveals that there are things that he does care about. If you don’t appreciate the people who sacrificed their lives for you, don’t expect Snake to do you any favors.

Snake gets some help from a rogue’s gallery of familiar faces, all of whom have their own reasons for trying to save the President from the Duke. Harry Dean Stanton is Brain while Adrienne Barbeau is Maggie. Brain is the smartest man in Manhattan and Maggie’s good with a gun and it’s too bad that we never got a prequel about how they met. My favorite of Escape from New York‘s supporting cast is Ernest Borgnine as Cabbie, who is the perfect New York taxi driver and whose taste in music plays off in an unexpectedly satisfying way.

Escape From New York is John Carpenter at his best, an exciting race against time full of memorable characters and thrilling action. Whenever I go to New York and I cross over a bridge into Manhattan, I think about Snake, Cabbie, and the gang driving through a minefield. Everyone who meets Snake says “I thought you were dead,” but we know better. Snake Plisskin will never die and neither will my love for Escape From New York.