AMARCORD
July 10, 2021 – 07:37 am
On July 10, 1981, John Carpenter’s film, which soon became a cult, was released in American cinemas. Big box office hit and a sequel
of Francesco Tortora
On July 10, 1981 “1997, Escape from New York”, directed by John Carpenter, was released in American cinemas. We are in 1997 in the middle of the Third World War. The plane of the president of the United States (played by Donald Pleasence) taken hostage by kidnappers as the head of state is reaching a maximum security summit with Russia and China. To avoid the worst, the president escapes in an escape pod, but ends up on the island of Manhattan which has been transformed into an open-air prison for years where only criminals and derelicts live. To free him, Police Commissioner Hauk (Lee Van Cleef) calls “Hyena” Plissken (Kurt Russell), a former war hero who later committed himself to crime and sentenced to life imprisonment. Hyena has only 24 hours to complete the mission before a micro-bomb explodes in his arteries that the commissioner himself had injected into his neck to keep him under control. “1997: Escape from New York” an apocalyptic film, set in a dystopian future that combines the noir genre with science fiction. Manhattan represented as a ghostly, violent and hopeless metropolitan jungle. Russell says a few lines, but perfect in the role of the anti-hero, marginalized and not very sociable. Although some of the gimmicks appear a little dated, the film is full of suspense and has a surprising ending. At the box office a great success and the film immediately became cult: it cost 6 million dollars, collected 25. In 1996 came the sequel “Escape from Los Angeles”, also directed by John Carpenter. 39 years after the original launched, here are 18 things you may not know.
10 July 2021 | 07:37
© REPRODUCTION RESERVED