A Fire in the Sky

Spawned from the disaster move craze of the 70's, with all the production and artistic values one would expect from a network dramatic production. So horrible I can never take my eyes off the screen.

Having grown up in Phoenix, the destruction scenes -- including a hilarious shot of the Hyatt rotating restaurant spinning off like a Frisbee -- are my particular favorite.

Before such films as METEOR, NIGHT OF THE COMET, Armageddon, or DEEP IMPACT (though after films like DELUGE or WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE), there was the 1978 made-for-TV sci-fi/disaster movie A FIRE IN THE SKY, which depicted a collision between our planet and an interstellar visitor, specifically a meteor, an asteroid, or a comet.

In the case of A FIRE IN THE SKY, it's a comet that is not only pinpointed at Earth, but at one specific target: Phoenix, Arizona. And there's only one sharp-eyed astronomer (Richard Crenna) who believes and realizes that fact, while everyone else refuses to believe, or wants to cover it up. Of course, this latter plot line is a common one among most disaster films, whether for the big screen or the small screen: a sort of post-Watergate "Enemy Of The People" situation, one far different from the situations seen in METEOR or DEEP IMPACT, where joint operations to stop these potentially cataclysmic deep-space visitors are put into effect.

At the same time, however, A FIRE IN THE SKY, for all the flaws it shares with a lot of other disaster films made for the small screen, including some ripe overacting and dialogue that is a little bit too unintentionally humorous at times (even though the screenplay is based on a story by Paul Gallico, whose 1969 novel "The Poseidon Adventure" provided the basis for the classic 1972 disaster film of the same name), is boosted by some really effective matte work and special visual effects that one would not have ordinarily found in a made-for-TV film of the late 1970s. And it may as well be said that the director, Jerry Jameson, was known for being a specialist in this genre, with films like 1974's HURRICANE and TERROR ON THE 40TH FLOOR, as well as (for the big screen) 1977's AIRPORT '77.

Crenna, always a very underrated actor (he may be most remembered for being Sylvester Stallone's commanding officer in the "Rambo" films, though he also starred with Steve McQueen in Robert Wise's 1966 classic THE SAND PEBBLES), gives a fairly good performance even with the sometimes dodgy dialogue; and the cast includes Elizabeth Ashley, Merlin Olsen, Lloyd Bochner, Kip Niven, and John Larch (who played the mayor of San Francisco in the original DIRTY HARRY back in 1971). The scenes of destruction and the cometary impact on Phoenix, while they may not match what was seen in DEEP IMPACT, are sufficiently spectacular to overcome the bumps and grinds of the screenplay, which merits my giving A FIRE IN THE SKY a solid rating of seven out of 10.

What are the odds of a comet traveling millions of miles through space making a direct hit on Phoenix Arizona? Merlin Olson saves the day by hiding out in a sleeping bag!

I first watched this movie when I was about 8 or 9 years old. I learned to never leave home without a sleeping bag.

Campy and a bit sleepy. Classic 70's doomsday appeal.

Overall good acting and a healthy number of Hollywood stars.

Special effects were decent for a made for TV movie and to some extent holds up today.

I highly recommend this movie, good 70's film.

This is perhaps my all-time favorite trash-TV movie. I have a theory that all of us secretly cherish at least one utterly indefensible object of art or entertainment - something we know is simply awful, but which we love nonetheless. Maybe it's pro wrestling, maybe it's "The Dukes of Hazzard." For me, it's this TV movie.

I'm something of an amateur astronomy buff, so that may explain part of my attraction to this movie. However, virtually every moment, every plot device, every line of dialogue, every scene and every revelation of character in "A Fire in the Sky" is so stultifyingly formulaic that you wonder if the people who wrote it even graduated from grade school. It's no exaggeration to say that, twenty minutes into the movie, you can accurately predict the final outcomes of each of the several subplots. The characters are not the least bit real; they are complete and absolutely transparent stereotypes. And adding an element of incongruity to the movie is the fact that the actors attack their roles with surprising vigor. Richard Crenna and Elizabeth Ashley, in particular, seem to think they're in "King Lear," not this hokey, connect-the-dots, pre-fab drama.

The result is a production that is not in on its own joke. It doesn't seem to know how bad it really is. It's a professional product that seems to have been offered seriously. And yet it's awful. The result is that it achieves a kind of exquisite stupidity. We're not laughing with it; we're laughing at it. And as such, for me, at least, it transcends its own badness and becomes highly entertaining.

What can I say? There's no good reason anyone should like something this dumb. And yet I do.

Hilarious attempt at a small-screen version of a big-screen disaster film, complete with ersatz astronomy, the impassioned pleas of the ignored and scoffed-at scientist, and mandatory death and scale-model destruction scenes. The hysterical nurse who rushes from the subterranean shelter only to be ripped from life by the wake of the comet impact scene is a definite must.

Look for the definitive sequence of astronomical photographic plates that feature a parade 'o planets with the coment growing ominously bigger and closer in each shot.

Crenna's ending smokin'-peyote-with-the-Pima-Indians as we watch the comet streak toward its mark is also "to die for."

Scale modelers, arise against abuse by bad made-for-TV movies! Let's give it three meteors out of ten.