Don your eye patch: Snake Plissken rules ‘Escape From New York’ (VIDEO)

Director John Carpenter isn’t exactly known for Westerns. He’s more of a horror ( “Halloween”), sci-fi (“They Live”) and action (“Big Trouble in Little China”) kind of guy.

But Wichita Big Screen initiative founder Leif Jonker says a Western is exactly what Carpenter wanted to make, and that “Escape From New York” is the director’s “full-tilt nod to the Western shoot-em-up.”

The film is the next one being shown in the Return of the Cults 2015 retro film series, which Jonker curates. It’ll be shown at 7 and 10 p.m. Monday and Tuesday at Warren Old Town, 353 N. Mead. Tickets are $5.

The 1981 film takes place in the future – 1997, to be exact, which in ’81 certainly seemed futuristic – and New York City has been turned into a maximum security prison.

When the president of the United States crash-lands in the middle of it (we won’t ask why he was flying over it in the first place) and is taken hostage, former soldier-turned-convict Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) is sent in to rescue him.

Russell made Plissken an iconic character, but did you know that actors such as Chuck Norris, Tommy Lee Jones and Charles Bronson were also considered for the role?

Here are five other things you may not have known about the film, as reported by website Filmschoolrejects.com, which found some of these tidbits on the DVD’s commentary track, and IMDb:

▪  Various matte paintings of New York City were used in the film, and none other than a young James Cameron (“Avatar,” “Titanic”) painted them.

▪  Most of the film was shot in Los Angeles and St. Louis. The crew only shot for two days in actual New York City.

▪  An early version of the film didn’t have the prologue narration about the United States’ crime rate and New York City being established as a prison. Carpenter added that later after test screenings, and an uncredited Jamie Lee Curtis provided the narration.

▪  Snake wearing an eye patch was a spur-of-the-moment idea from Russell (another nod to a Western, perhaps? It’s very John Wayne-like).

▪  Casting Russell was a gamble. At the time, he had a squeaky-clean image after starring in mostly Disney movies as a teen. Russell says Carpenter was the only one willing to take a chance on him as an action star (they had previously worked together on the 1979 TV movie “Elvis,” which Carpenter directed).

Indie Sunday — The next film in the Tallgrass Film Association’s Indie at the Orpheum film series is “Seymour: An Introduction,” a documentary directed by Ethan Hawke.

It tells the story of Seymour Bernstein, a virtuoso pianist and veteran New Yorker who gave up a successful concert career to teach music. It will be shown at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Orpheum Theatre, 200 N. Broadway. Tickets are $10. For more information, go to www.tallgrassfilmfest.com.

Film talk — Tallgrass Filmmakers Lab presents the final installment of Sack Lunch Cinema: The Hitchcock Collection, which looks at the work of legendary director Alfred Hitchcock.

Tallgrass’ director of programming Nick Pope will introduce a film and lead a discussion afterward at the Tallgrass office, 212 N. Market, second floor, on Friday. The program begins at noon and runs until 2:30 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public, but you must RSVP by Monday to info@tallgrassfilmfest.com. Attendees should bring their own sack lunch. Coffee and dessert will be provided.

This story was originally published May 8, 2015 at 2:06 PM with the headline "Don your eye patch: Snake Plissken rules ‘Escape From New York’ (VIDEO)."