Firehouse

The box cover on this page has a picture of Fred Williamson who is NOT in the movie. It's Richard Roundtree in the movie!! Where did this picture come from?? These two guys don't look alike!!

Not too bad of a 70's movie. I know the fire department scenes were fairly accurate portrayals of life in the station since I come from a family of firefighters. Tension between the guys, racial and otherwise, was and still is typical for any group of people living and working in a tight space such as a firehouse. I especially liked the stunts pulled on the rookie.

Richard Jaeckel (Hank Myers) went on to star in the TV series that was spawned off of this movie.

I remember seeing this movie when it came out in 1973. I believe it was a made for TV film, but it had better production values than the usual made for TV fare.

Just watched it again for the first time in over 30 years last night. I got it on one of those cheap DVDs you find at the dollar store.

Firehouse starts of interesting enough. With some John Carpenter horror movie synthesizer music and heartbeats pounding, we see fire starters setting an urban building ablaze. The city fire department arrives shortly thereafter. The firefighting scenes were grainy and realistic. They may have been real firefighters, but I am not sure.

From here, we are introduced to the firefighters at a particular station. Led by Captain Parr (Andrew Duggan), we meet Spike (Vince Edwards), Hank (Richard Jaeckel), and Sonny (Val Avery). Another fireman, Eddie, dies in the blaze that begins the movie. Spike is a bigot who blames the fire on blacks and the others go along with him.

Meanwhile, Shelly Forsythe (Richard Roundtree) is the first black to join the station. He is a "probbie". Shelly is reluctant to join the fire department and gets into an argument with his wife, who threatens to leave him if he doesn't join.

Racial tensions develop as soon as Shelly arrives. Spike makes it difficult for him. The captain is spineless (in once seen he gives Spike an order and Spike replies "Don't tell me what to do.") and tells Shelly just to ignore the verbal abuse.

Some of the racial issues are stereotyped and clichéd. I thought it was unrealistic that a large city would not have hired any black firemen by 1973. And I doubt if Spike's behavior was realistic. His hostility toward Shelly should have gotten him fired, but everyone called him a hero so they looked the other way.

This is from 1973, when New York City was still a hotbed of hate and racial tensions were still high. You've got the usual good-black-man-fights-white-racism storyline with nothing new added (you know as soon as the bitter racist, played by Vince Edwards, lays into Roundtree that they'll overcome their animosity and bond in some climactic fire). It's still just a TV movie with the usual cheap soundtrack, including the cliché dramatic outro-to-commercial music every fifteen minutes. Roundtree is humorless throughout, but then it's hard to offer any lightness when Vince Edwards' character is an open-all-night cafe of anger. Talk about a one-note performance: Edwards seethes from the beginning to the end. And although the fire sequences are effectively smoky (unlike the typical TV fire sequences that are all gas jets and smoke free) the opening sequence that features the death of Edwards much-loved buddy is badly bungled. Instead of rushing out of the burning building, the firemen are seen standing around inside, smoke and flames seemingly inches away from them, joking with each other---one of them coming down the burning stairs with a kitten in his hands and then stopping to share some banter with his pals, until the ceiling caves in on him. Absurd. Actually, some other odd things about this film: Duggan, the firehouse captain, seems to have almost no authority, pushed around by Edwards and even Roundtree, the new guy; and then there is the fact that both the writer and director of this film died within a month of each other in 1989; and beyond the movie itself is the DVD box that features a picture of what looks like Fred Williamson with a cigar in his mouth and a fireman's helmet on. If it IS Williamson, then where did it come from? Did Williamson ever play a fireman? Because if he didn't, then the company that put out the DVD must've taken a picture of Williamson and pasted a fireman's helmet on him. Why not take a shot of Roundtree from the film? And does this provide a weird example of racism to the effect that slapping any black actor on the cover is okay since the buyer won't notice.... because blacks all look the same, right?

Firehouse (1973)

** (out of 4)

Two black men set an apartment building on fire, which leads to the death of a white firefighter. That firefighter is replaced with a black man (Richard Roundtree), which doesn't set well in an all white firehouse. Like many other made for TV flicks, this one here really just touches the surface of many issues but never really dives deep into them. The film is mildly entertaining at just 72-minutes but God knows there are better films dealing with the race issue. Roundtree is pretty wooden in his role and it's rather strange because we're suppose to feel sympathy for him but at the start of the film he really comes off as one mean SOB.

Richard Roundtree gives an emotional performance as a dedicated black firefighter who is a fish out of water in an all-white firehouse. His character does not beat around the bush when it comes to confronting his co-workers about the race issue. If you like Richard Roundtree, you will enjoy this film.