Tuesday, April 10, 2012

In The Face Of Liberty!


One of the greatest movie posters ever is for John Carpenter's Escape from New York. It captures the action essence of the story, and it does so with the clever shorthand of inserting the decapitated noggin of the Statue of Liberty into the rundown streets of New York City turned prison farm.


Here's the original eye-popping artwork for this cover. I don't know the artist, but I'd love to find out the name.


Many years later, the movie Cloverfield paid homage to that classic poster by offering up a decapitated Lady Liberty of their own. The scene where the head of the statue comes sailing into the city is the highlight of the whole flick for me.

Here's a fun montage of movies featuring the Statue of Liberty, including the Cloverfield moment. I disagree with the movie chosen as number one, I'd have put number two in that slot, but so it goes.



The one Statue of Liberty flick which doesn't make that countdown is a fun flick titled Remo Williams The Adventure Begins which offers up Fred Ward as the modern pulp warrior The Destroyer.


This movie has an elaborate fight sequence on Lady Liberty which was undergoing renovations at the time. Joel Gray as "Chiun" steals this charming little action movie in every scene he's in. I recently caught this film on television and got my wife to watch it, and she doesn't like my kind of movies, but she found this one fun. It wasn't a hit, but it's a charmer I think.

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2 comments:

  1. The first thing I think of about the Statue of Liberty is how it was Spiderman and Johnny's meeting place of choice.

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  2. True that. I'd forgotten about those charming team-ups until you mentioned them. Thanks.

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