Escape from New York with Kurt Russell: DVD Cover
  • Cover Image

Escape from New York Director: John Carpenter Cast: Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence

DVD - 2 Disc Set - Wide Screen Learn more

BUY THIS ITEM

  • $29.99 Online price
    $26.99 Member price
    Join Now
    • skip to cart
  • Add To List uiAction=GetAllLists&page=List&pageType=list&ean=027616899514&productCode=DV&maxCount=100&threshold=3

GET FREE SHIPPING ON ORDERS OF $25 OR MORE

DELIVERY & GIFT DETAILS:

Usually ships within 24 hours

Delivery Time and Shipping Rates

Eligible for gift wrap & gift message.

Enter a zip code

  • DVD Release Date: 12/16/2003
  • Original Release: 1981
  • Rating: Rated R
  • Sales Rank: 16,152

Viewer Rating: (10 ratings)

See All Detailed Ratings

More Formats 
DVD - Wide Screen / Full Frame / Stereo / Dolby 5.1$14.99
Blu-ray$31.99
 
  • Overview
  • Editorial Reviews
  • Scenes
  • Customer Reviews
  • Cast & Crew
  • Full Product Details

Scenes

Features

Disc 1: Brand new high-definition transfer of the film; new 5.1 surround audio; feature-length audio commentary with director John Carpenter and star Kurt Russell; additional feature-length commentary with producer Debra Hill and production designer Joe Alves.
Disc 2: Deleted opening sequence -- the never-before-seen 10-minute bank robbery scene, including commentary by Carpenter and Russell; "Return to Escape from New York" documentary including interviews with Carpenter, Hill, Alves, writer Nick Castle, director of photography Dean Cundy, actors Russell, Adrienne Barbeau, Isaac Hayes, and Harry Dean Stanton; "The Making of 'John Carpenter's Snake Plissken Chronicles' Comic," including footage shot exclusively for the DVD; special printing of the first issue of 'John Carpenterıs Snake Plisskin Chronicles;' photo gallery; trailers; embossed cover art.

Full Product Details

Scene Index

Side #1 --
1. Main Title [:11]
2. Manhattan Island Prison [2:47]
3. 1997-Now [:59]
4. Snake Plissken [:14]
5. Small Jet in Trouble [2:52]
6. President in the Pod [1:46]
7. "You Touch Me, He Dies" [1:54]
8. "Call Me Snake" [2:54]
9. Prepared and Betrayed [:28]
10. Going In [2:33]
11. A Friendly Face [3:24]
12. The Wrong Guy [3:23]
13. Call of the Sewer Rats [:37]
14. Caught After Dark [7:45]
15. New York Cabbie [2:11]
16. Maggie and Brain [1:37]
17. The Duke's Engines [1:41]
18. Broadway [2:48]
19. 3rd Car From the End [3:20]
20. Meet the Duke [:39]
21. Target Practice [2:02]
22. Escape Route [5:19]
23. The Ransom Note [3:40]
24. Gladiator [2:06]
25. No Dead President [3:23]
26. Round Two [:53]
27. On and Off the Tower [2:27]
28. The Bridge by Car... [4:23]
29. ...And on Foot [:49]
30. Last Ditch [:49]
31. A Grateful Nation [2:04]
32. End Credits [1:38]

Scene Index

Editorial Reviews

Escape from New York was indifferently received by critics upon opening in 1981, but genre fans enthusiastically embraced the futuristic action thriller and made it a cult favorite. Director John Carpenter (Halloween) set the film in 1997, by which time -- according to the script -- Manhattan had become a maximum-security prison inhabited by violent criminals who roamed the streets in packs like wild dogs. Onetime war hero and convicted felon "Snake" Plissken (Kurt Russell) is offered a pardon, provided he can rescue the U.S. president (Donald Pleasance), whose plane has just crash-landed in the city. A suitably bleak Manhattan -- courtesy of production designer Joe Alves -- becomes Snake's personal battleground in a series of elaborate, violent set pieces distinguished by clever staging, bold stunt work, and staccato editing. Escape is also the pre-Chef highlight of the Isaac Hayes thespian ouvre, as well as a fine showcase for the considerable talents of Ernest Borgnine. Often imitated but never matched -- Carpenter's own "sequel," Escape from L.A, also fell short -- Escape from New York still merits the acclaim it won from sci-fi aficionados in '81. Ed Hulse, Barnes & Noble

More reviews and recommendations

Customer Reviews

Escape from New York is Dark and Bleakby Anonymous

Reader Rating:
See Detailed Ratings

September 02, 2008: I liked Escape from New York and I wish I had had a hand in making the film. The cast is good and the dark, dangerous mood of New York was well portrayed. The bleak and dangerous theme of Escape has fortunately Not come to pass. However, the World Trade Center, used in the beginning and the end of the story, appears--today-- more haunted in that we know what happened to The Towers in 2001. There was no Snake Plisskin to stop the terrorist pilots in real life. But, as bad as our prisons are, we do not have a Devil's Island in New York or anywhere else. Obviously, the world's richest piece of real estate would never be used as a maximum security no-man's-land, regardless of the crime rate, which seems to have declined in recent years. And the movie does not deal in any depth with the criminal society inside Manhattan, except that it's a dirty,dangerous and very dark place to live. Would not disease and epidemics break out on Manhattan, where there would be little in the way of medical care? Also, the subways could not hold the &quot Crazies&quot in that the N. Y. underground would be flooded due to neglect. Also, with women, as well as men, on the island, there would be children born, many to die at birth, and the trecherous nature and mindset of John Carpenter's future American society would attract protests from both Americans and from many people around the world. These ideas probably could not have been included in Escape from New York due to time of the film. We do not sympathise with the US government and certainly not with Donald Pleasance as president and Lee Van Cleef as head of security for the island prison. Kurt Russell playing Snake Plisskin has our sympathies, in an anti-heroic way. Plisskin almost alone survives the twenty-four hour ordeal in rescuing the president from capture in the Big Apple. We like Plisskin's destroying the cassette tape so vital to world peace in the final scene. And we are relieved that our world has not become so bad as the one we see in Escape From New York. We hope our lives never will be....God help us....

A reviewerby Anonymous

Reader Rating:
See Detailed Ratings

July 08, 2008: heard a lot about this and finally saw it. and i was like oh so that's where the name snake came from from metal gear solid. another great john carpenter film where this is about a guy with an eye patch who heads into a crazy manhattan like prison to rescue the president with some help along the way. and of course it got kurt russell who was just awesome as well as all the other actors.


More Customer Reviews