{"id":3458,"date":"2024-08-28T17:54:42","date_gmt":"2024-08-28T17:54:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=3458"},"modified":"2024-10-14T13:22:26","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T17:22:26","slug":"city-on-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/28\/city-on-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"City on Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"City on Fire<\/strong> (1979)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 AVCO Embassy Pictures\/Action-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 106 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, violent images)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Alvin Rakoff\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jack Hill, Dave Lewis and Celine La Freniere\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Matthew and William McCauley\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Rene Verzier\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 31, 1979 (US & Canada)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $784,181 (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0I first heard of City on Fire<\/strong> on Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert\u2019s program Sneak Previews in an episode that aired in November \u201979. It was Gene\u2019s \u201cDog of the Week\u201d (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\u2019t 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 \u201992. I thought \u201cWhy not?\u201d It was just what I expected, a dopey disaster movie with big stars and cheap effects. It\u2019s a bad movie alright; that\u2019s what makes it so good.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In 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<\/strong>, directed by Alvin Rakoff (Death Ship), came out at the tail end of the disaster movie cycle of the 70s. In \u201979, 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\u2019s volcano movie) the following spring. City on Fire<\/strong> came and went in fall \u201979. As you can see in the header, it didn\u2019t 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\u2019s lampooned on MST3K.<\/p>\n

\u00a0ANYWAY, let\u2019s talk about the plot of City on Fire<\/strong>. As indicated by the title, it\u2019s about a city on fire. What city? Although it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Like all disaster flicks, City on Fire<\/strong> 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\u2019s end. Let\u2019s see who\u2019s on the roster for this one. We\u2019ll start with Old Reliable himself Henry Fonda, no stranger to the genre with roles in The Swarm and Meteor (as \u201cThe President\u201d). 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\u2019s) involved in a scandalous affair with the city\u2019s 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 \u201cHilary Labow\u201d) and a heroic fire captain (Donat, Gas) who just happens to be the Fire Chief\u2019s son. Let\u2019s not forget the photographer and assistant who have incriminating photos of the socialite with the mayor. There\u2019s also the smoking boy who started the apartment fire, his little sister who almost dies and their mother. Let\u2019s have a round of applause for the players please.<\/p>\n

\u00a0When 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\u2019s 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\u2019t have a lot of money to spend on effects which explains why City on Fire<\/strong> spends most of its time in places NOT on fire (yet).<\/p>\n

\u00a0The lousy effects are a big part of why City on Fire<\/strong> is so laughable. That and the terrible acting and writing. I can\u2019t 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\u2019s typical disaster nonsense. The best line comes from Fonda who appropriately gets in the last word with this line: \u201cAll it takes is one man, could be anybody…. your neighbor, my neighbor…. one man to destroy a city.\u201d I half-expected him to point at the screen and say \u201cor YOU!\u201d in the style of Reefer Madness.<\/p>\n

\u00a0With regards to the acting, the award for Campiest Performance goes to Gardner who plays her role like Faye Dunaway playing Mommie Dearest. It\u2019s hysterical. Fonda does his thing like the pro that he is\/was. Winters, as usual, hams it up. It\u2019s 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\u2019s suitably hateful here as the city official who deliberately cut corners with the refinery and hospital. He\u2019s the real reason the city is on fire.<\/p>\n

\u00a0City on Fire<\/strong> works best as an unintentional comedy although it\u2019s hard to laugh at the sight of burnt-up bodies or people on fire. In one scene, the photographer\u2019s assistant catches on fire while trying to rescue the aforementioned photos. He then runs into the street where he\u2019s promptly hit by a car. Ouch! It\u2019s 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\u2019s right, he\u2019s a pyro AND a stalker. Oh, please! BTW, the people in City on Fire<\/strong> seem startlingly ill-formed about what to do in a fire. None of them appear to have ever heard of \u201cstop, drop and roll\u201d. They run when they catch on fire. STU-PID!!!!<\/p>\n

\u00a0To sum up, City on Fire<\/strong> 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\u2019t know any better. 40 years later, not a lot has changed. I still like City on Fire<\/strong>, but for all the wrong reasons. It is a true guilty pleasure.\"\"<\/p>\n

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City on Fire (1979)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 AVCO Embassy Pictures\/Action-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 106 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, violent images)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Alvin Rakoff\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jack Hill, Dave Lewis and Celine La Freniere\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Matthew and William McCauley\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Rene Verzier\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 31, 1979 (US & Canada)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Barry Newman, Susan Clark, Shelley Winters, Leslie Nielsen, James Franciscus, Ava […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/City-on-Fire-PIC.jpg?fit=1364%2C768&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3458"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6041,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3458\/revisions\/6041"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}