Ciudad en llamas

Hey movie buffs, How are you all doing? I here to discuss the movie "City on Fire" (1979). Overall, I thought it was a decent disaster movies. For a movie that was made back in the late 1970's, it was pretty good. I know that there are a few movie buffs out there that will think that I am crazy (Hence the 918,a police code where I live for Crazy Person). But the only problems that I found was that the movie was set in Canada and yet they if you look carefully you could see the American flag and how does an oil/chemical works factory that starts on fire burn the entire city. I would sure like to know that. If anybody knows please let me know, please. But other than that, what more can you ask in a disaster movie: great actors/actoresses, crazy plot, for you disaster movie buffs Shelly Winters:). Keep watching movies and long live Hollywood and misc. production companies.

I'm a disaster movie fan and completist so I've been tracking this down for years, I wish I could say it was worth it. It's good for a laugh or two at the improbable idiocy of the plot but that's about the end of its worth.

Closing in on the bottom of the barrel this flick makes no sense, picking up and dropping plot points at random intervals. The villain of this thing is so sketchily drawn you have only the vaguest idea of what his motive is. That is the largest failing of the film there is no clear focus to anything.

None of the characters are compelling enough to invest in and the special effects are laughable. Not a single one is clearly drawn enough for the viewer to know who they are so you can root for them. Full of one time stars this uses them ill. Shelley Winters at least tries to give a performance but Ava Gardner and Henry Fonda, both looking the worse for wear, obviously did it strictly for the loot and are phoning it in, Henry being the worst offender.

If you're a disaster movie junkie this is a must see but for anyone else its a Grade Z mess.

"City on Fire" was made in 1979, when the disaster genre was already past its prime - and a dispirited, tired affair it is. Most of the actors (except for the amusingly unbalanced villain) sleepwalk through their roles, possibly knowing that the film had no chance of reviving the genre. At least there are some pretty realistic effects, though the movie never makes clear how exactly the fire spread over the entire city. (**)

One of the last of the 70's disaster movie made after T.V. had saturated the genre. The only reason I saw this when it played in a theater was because it was double-billed with "Phantasm" which I HAD to see. The only thing I really remember about this movie was the one scene where some woman has to give mouth to mouth to some old guy who is spitting up a vile looking substance. That frightened me away from CPR forever. I think you will be rooting for the fire before the movie ends.

Not the lemon it's often branded, "City on Fire" is an entertaining Canadian disaster movie with a capable cast, some good sets and special effects, and better than average dialogue. Two separate fires converge to create an inferno of biblical proportions, with various notables becoming victims. The plot focuses on a disgruntled oil refinery employee (Welsh) who triggers one of the blazes, while in another part of the city, pre-pubescent kids discover that cigarettes really do kill. Local surgeon's (dependable Barry Newman) disenchantment with bureaucracy, goes on temporary hiatus as he tries to save his hospital, that lies in the path of destruction. His valiant efforts hampered by the mayor's (Nielsen) ill advised attempts to achieve martyrdom, spurred on by the lure of the polls.

Sad Ava Gardner plays an alcoholic has-been news anchor, a timely reflection of her status as a faded Hollywood star at the time, while James Franciscus is wasted in a frivolous supporting role as her line producer. Many recognisable local faces fill out the peripheral roles (Donat, Linder, James), and heavyweights Winters and Fonda provide nice human touches to their dedicated civil servant types. Overall, there's plenty of coverage and a nice symmetry between the righteous and the wrongdoers. Unlike "Towering Inferno" the varnish has been stripped by the flames, and there's no holding back on special effects - as such, expect to see a few gory burns victims.

Not overlong, perhaps not unrealistic (so the tag-line warns anyway), and certainly not as clichéd as most disaster movies, "City on Fire" is an involving film with some impressive credentials and doesn't warrant the unfavourable response it often garners. It's not as sophisticated or indeed convoluted as "Backdraft", but is perhaps an improvement on the Irwin Allen production line that had a mortgage on this genre throughout the 70's. So give this so-called lemon a try and I think you'll find the juice is worth the squeeze.