Assault on Precinct 13
Short description
A newly appointed lieutenant named Ethan Bishop reports for what should be a quiet shift at a Los Angeles police station that is being shut down. Most of the equipment and records are already gone, and the building is nearly empty when events overtake it. A prison transport arrives carrying several convicted men, and a frightened civilian takes refuge there as well. A street gang bent on revenge for the killing of several of its members surrounds the station and cuts it off from the outside, forcing the officers, the secretary and the prisoners inside to set aside their differences and cooperate if they want to survive the night.
John Carpenter wrote and directed the film, his second feature in a directing career of twenty-two films, arriving between Dark Star and Halloween. Austin Stoker plays Bishop, with Darwin Joston as the prisoner Napoleon Wilson, Laurie Zimmer as Leigh, and Martin West, Tony Burton and Charles Cyphers among a credited cast of thirty-five.
The film runs ninety-one minutes and was released in October 1976. Its reputation has held up over the decades: it rates 7.3 out of 10 on IMDb, based on around sixty-one thousand votes, and 7.3 out of 10 on TMDB from a much smaller pool of roughly twelve hundred. A critics' score of 7.9 out of 10 from fifty-four reviews places it slightly above how general audiences rate it, though the two are close.
What's left behind the scenes
- After the release of 'Dark Star' (1974), a group of investors gave John Carpenter carte blanche to direct any film, provided the budget did not exceed a certain amount. Although Carpenter wanted to make a Western, he understood that he did not have enough financial resources to realize it. Therefore, he created 'Assault on Precinct 13' as a stylized modern Western, which can be considered a remake of 'Rio Bravo' (1959) to some extent.
- In the film, the siege takes place not of the thirteenth, but of the fourteenth police station.
- John Carpenter played one of the many bandits trying to break into the police station through the windows.
- The new police station address – 1977 Ellendale Place (which can be seen on a wooden sign in front of the station) – exactly matches the real address where John Carpenter lived when he first came to Los Angeles.
- The character of Darwin Joston, Napoleon Wilson, is partly based on the character of Charles Bronson in the film *Once Upon a Time in the West* (1968).
- The ratings board intended to give the film an 'X' rating if the ice cream truck scene wasn't cut. The distribution company advised John Carpenter to submit a version with the scene removed to the 'MPAA' to get an 'R' rating, but to release the uncut version in theaters. The trick worked.
- According to John Carpenter, the film's music was written under the influence of Lalo Schifrin's compositions for *Dirty Harry* (1971) and Led Zeppelin's song 'Immigrant Song'.
- The story told by Ethan Bishop (Austin Stoker) about his father sending him to the police station at the age of six with a note actually happened to Alfred Hitchcock. This can be read in François Truffaut's book *Hitchcock*.
- The shooting period lasted 20 days.
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