Daily Dialogue — December 27, 2017

“In the meantime, I got this plan. It’s called ‘Save Ass’. And the way it works is this — I slip outta one of these windows and I run like a bastard!”

— Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), written by John Carpenter

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: New Year.

Trivia: Following the release of his first feature, Dark Star (1974), John Carpenter was approached by a group of investors who gave him carte blanche to make whatever kind of picture he wanted, albeit with a very limited budget. Although Carpenter wanted to make a Western, he knew he wouldn’t have the resources to make a period piece. He wrote this film as a highly stylized, modern-day western, essentially remaking Rio Bravo (1959), which was directed by Carpenter’s hero, Howard Hawks. Carpenter acknowledges this debt to Hawks and “Rio Bravo” by using the pseudonym of John T. Chance for his film editor’s credit, which was the name of John Wayne’s character in “Rio Bravo”.

Dialogue On Dialogue: The central conceit of the story — “A police sergeant and an unlikely band of criminals defend a closing LA precinct office on New Years Eve against an army of gang members” — sets up Wells’ line. But, of course, he sticks around for the ‘festivities’.