City on Fire (1979) AVCO Embassy Pictures/Action-Drama RT: 106 minutes Rated R (language, violent images) Director: Alvin Rakoff Screenplay: Jack Hill, Dave Lewis and Celine La Freniere Music: Matthew and William McCauley Cinematography: Rene Verzier Release date: August 31, 1979 (US & Canada) Cast: Barry Newman, Susan Clark, Shelley Winters, Leslie Nielsen, James Franciscus, Ava Gardner, Henry Fonda, Jonathan Welsh, Hilary Labow, Richard Donat, Mavor Moore, Cec Linder, Bronwen Mantel, Steven Chaikelson, Janice Chaikelson. Box Office: $784,181 (US)
Rating: ***
I first heard of City on Fire on Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert’s program Sneak Previews in an episode that aired in November ’79. It was Gene’s “Dog of the Week” (remember Spot the Wonder Dog?). As a disaster movie loving sixth grader, I knew right away I wanted to see it. Unfortunately, the R rating kept it out of my reach thanks to that damnable parental R-rated movie block. I didn’t get to see it until I spotted it on the 99 cent rental shelf at West Coast Video one uneventful (and jobless) day in summer ’92. I thought “Why not?” It was just what I expected, a dopey disaster movie with big stars and cheap effects. It’s a bad movie alright; that’s what makes it so good.
In my review of The Kidnapping of the President a couple of weeks back, I told you what a Canadian tax shelter movie is. Basically, it was a way for Americans to dodge taxes by investing in low budget movies. A lot of these were made between 1975 and 1982. City on Fire, directed by Alvin Rakoff (Death Ship), came out at the tail end of the disaster movie cycle of the 70s. In ’79, audiences were losing interest. Both Beyond the Poseidon Adventure and Meteor bombed. The final nail in the coffin was When Time Ran Out (Irwin Allen’s volcano movie) the following spring. City on Fire came and went in fall ’79. As you can see in the header, it didn’t even crack the $1M mark at the box office. It was universally panned and forgotten until 1989 when it rose from the ashes of obscurity via an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. You know a bad movie has made it when it’s lampooned on MST3K.
ANYWAY, let’s talk about the plot of City on Fire. As indicated by the title, it’s about a city on fire. What city? Although it’s never named, I think it takes place in the same one as Police Academy. That one featured the Metropolitan Police; this one has the Metropolitan Fire Department. Not long after a group of young boys set an apartment building on fire by careless smoking, the entire city erupts into flames after a disgruntled ex-employee (Welsh, Nothing Personal) of the local oil refinery, in an act of revenge, opens valves that allow gasoline to flow into the sewer system. The refinery explodes and spreads fire all over the city. The action mainly centers on a newly built, poorly equipped, understaffed hospital that has to be evacuated before the oxygen supply is depleted by the fire.
Like all disaster flicks, City on Fire is a star-studded affair. Big stars play pivotal characters, all of whom have an equal shot of being done in by the fire by movie’s end. Let’s see who’s on the roster for this one. We’ll start with Old Reliable himself Henry Fonda, no stranger to the genre with roles in The Swarm and Meteor (as “The President”). Here he plays the Fire Chief who oversees the firefighting efforts from the safety of Metropolitan FD headquarters. Barry Newman (Vanishing Point) plays the arrogant head doctor who has something going with a wealthy socialite (Clark, Porky’s) involved in a scandalous affair with the city’s corrupt mayor (Nielsen, Prom Night). Shelley Winters (The Poseidon Adventure) plays the no-nonsense head nurse. Ava Gardner (The Kidnapping of the President) plays an alcoholic TV news reporter who sees the catastrophe as a way to boost her career while her assistant (Franciscus, Nightkill) tries to keep her sober. There are a few supporting characters like the pregnant woman in labor (designer Hilary Farr credited as “Hilary Labow”) and a heroic fire captain (Donat, Gas) who just happens to be the Fire Chief’s son. Let’s not forget the photographer and assistant who have incriminating photos of the socialite with the mayor. There’s also the smoking boy who started the apartment fire, his little sister who almost dies and their mother. Let’s have a round of applause for the players please.
When it comes to special effects, Rakoff spares every expense in depicting a citywide fire. He uses stock footage and scenes from existing movies. When there’s an explosion, he shakes and tilts the camera while the actors pretend to be knocked off balance. In some scenes, the fires look totally fake. I guess the makers didn’t have a lot of money to spend on effects which explains why City on Fire spends most of its time in places NOT on fire (yet).
The lousy effects are a big part of why City on Fire is so laughable. That and the terrible acting and writing. I can’t believe some of the dialogue forced on the actors by the writers, one of whom is Jack Hill, the writer of such B-movies classics as Coffy, Foxy Brown, The Swinging Cheerleaders, Switchblade Sisters, Death Ship and Sorceress. It’s typical disaster nonsense. The best line comes from Fonda who appropriately gets in the last word with this line: “All it takes is one man, could be anybody…. your neighbor, my neighbor…. one man to destroy a city.” I half-expected him to point at the screen and say “or YOU!” in the style of Reefer Madness.
With regards to the acting, the award for Campiest Performance goes to Gardner who plays her role like Faye Dunaway playing Mommie Dearest. It’s hysterical. Fonda does his thing like the pro that he is/was. Winters, as usual, hams it up. It’s hard now to take Nielsen seriously, but he was once a legit actor who specialized in bad guy roles before he became a comic icon in spoofs like Airplane and The Naked Gun. He’s suitably hateful here as the city official who deliberately cut corners with the refinery and hospital. He’s the real reason the city is on fire.
City on Fire works best as an unintentional comedy although it’s hard to laugh at the sight of burnt-up bodies or people on fire. In one scene, the photographer’s assistant catches on fire while trying to rescue the aforementioned photos. He then runs into the street where he’s promptly hit by a car. Ouch! It’s easy, however, to laugh at how ludicrous the script is. Take the psycho who started the fire. The first thing he does after sabotaging the refinery is buy a new suit with his severance pay. He then goes to the hospital where he helps victims in order to get close to the socialite who he loved from afar in high school. That’s right, he’s a pyro AND a stalker. Oh, please! BTW, the people in City on Fire seem startlingly ill-formed about what to do in a fire. None of them appear to have ever heard of “stop, drop and roll”. They run when they catch on fire. STU-PID!!!!
To sum up, City on Fire is a great bad movie. Chances are I would have loved it if my dad had taken me to see it the week it played in theaters in my neck of the woods. Of course, I was 11 and didn’t know any better. 40 years later, not a lot has changed. I still like City on Fire, but for all the wrong reasons. It is a true guilty pleasure.
