I find this really very interesting...bored, trolling around the Internet I happened upon the Wiki site for the 1981 John Carpenter film ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK. If you haven't seen it--you're lame (just kidding, go rent it...it's great). Anyway, I was reading about how much trouble Carpenter had getting the movie made. One such problem was, how do you create a ruined version of N.Y.C. for less than $7 Million dollars?
Easy: go around the country and look for "the worst city in America." And where did they find a city so run-down and crappy that it could double for New York (N.Y. as a giant crumbling prison)? Why St. Louis, of course! I guess they filmed most of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK in St. Louis and East St. Louis. They convinced the city to kill the power in a few blocks every night...and bam! Instant urban decay.
Nice. Can't wait to call the place home (for good).
4 comments:
most of the train scenes were shot at union station.
Interesting, I never would have guessed St. Louis. It's been years since I've seen it (I want to see it again now though).
I thought KC had it bad: a few years ago U2 filmed a video (can't remember which one) downtown...the theme was an apocolyptic/war-torn future. I remember hearing about it on the news (they shut down a bunch of streets and there were tanks).
Why are the cities of Missouri so crappy Hollywood can use them as remnants of coastal cities?
have you been to new york? St. louis is what it would be like if it wasn't so big/cool anymore.
*note I prefer st. Louis since it fits me better.*
I've never been to New York...but that's not my point--the cities of the midwest shouldn't looked like NY or LA after the world ends(or whatever). I mean, we need to pave our streets better or something...if it looks this bad now (or did in 1980) what the hell would it look like AFTER the real end of the world?
As a note: the world hasn't really "ended" in ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK...things have just gotten messed up.
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