Kurt Russell Hit His Escape From New York Co-Star With A Real Baseball Bat With Nails

On the DVD special features for John Carpenter's "Escape from New York," the director and lead actor, Kurt Russell, tell an amusing story about mild testicular trauma. There is a scene about halfway through the film, you see, where the post-apocalyptic badass Snake Plissken (Russell) is being forced by the evil Duke of New York (Isaac Hayes) to fight a monstrous wrestler named Slag (real-life wrestler Ox Baker) in a gladiatorial arena. Both Snake and Slag are armed with nail-encrusted baseball bats and trash can lids that serve as shields. Carpenter recalls filming the fight, and noted that Baker, used to actual wrestling matches, was thwacking at Russell a little too hard. It was all Russell could do to block Baker's aggressive blows. 

Evidently, Russell, tired of actually fighting for his life, called Baker aside in between takes and told him to pull his thwacks a little better. To emphasize his point, Russell reached forward and flicked Baker directly on a very sensitive part of his anatomy. Baker got the hint and stopped hitting Russell quite so hard. 

The deathblow in the "Escape from New York" wrestling match was pretty brutal. Snake was able to work his way behind the Slag and swing his bat directly into the back of his skull. Because the bat was encrusted with nails, the bat stuck deep into the Slag and remained in place when Snake took his hands away. To achieve this effect, a block of wood was strapped to Ox Baker's head, and Russell was instructed to swing a nailed bat directly at the block. It would hurt Baker, but it would certainly not kill him. Well, provided Russell did it right. Yes, he actually bonked Ox Baker in the head. Luckily, it all went according to plan.

Baker might have been worried about the stunt, as Russell had already given him a warning. Russell, however, wasn't going to play around at that point and actually hit the block of wood as assigned. Russell has commented multiple times (at fan conventions and the like) on how difficult the entire experience was. The wrestling ring was built in the St. Louis Union Station, and it took three days to shoot. The day of the thwacking was "a nightmare." Russell said that he was really just fighting for his life, and that a trash can lid hit him in the face at least five times. The actor was grateful he wasn't more seriously injured. 

Some of the shots of the wrestling match floated around the ring, a result of Carpenter's fondness for the Panaglide, which was Panavision's version of the Steadicam. Those are the branded names for a specialized type of body-strapped camera rigs worn by a camera operator. The rigs allowed operators to keep the giant film cameras steady as they walked around a scene and shoot from every angle. In 1981, when "Escape from New York" was being filmed, those kinds of shots were novel; Steadicams weren't in common usage until "Bound for Glory" in 1976. Carpenter loved using the Panaglide on "Halloween" in 1978, and he made his shots more ambitious for "Escape from New York." 

The camera was locked down, however, for the wood block shot. It was required that Ox Baker stay perfectly still as Russell drove the nail into his head, and it made sense — both for safety and for visual clarity — to keep the image static. 

Ox Baker passed away in 2014 at the age of 80, but "Escape from New York" was certainly a career highlight,