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.

MST3K did a nice job with this in their first season. It is one of the better films Joel and the Bots have roasted - not saying much since most of their little treats occupy the worst 300 films of all time here on IMDb.

The acting is variable, and you occasionally feel as if you are watching two different films which were spliced together in order to reach an hour and a half. Leslie Nielson, as ridiculous as it may seem, delivers the best dramatic performance of the lot.

Basically, a obsessive individual gets the wrong promotion at an oil refinery, mouths off at his boss and then, after getting fired, leaks oil all over the entire city and sets it ablaze. Like most of the disaster films of its time, we are introduced to 3-4 different characters who will play some role as either heroes or commentators on the events. The film climaxes as the massive fire approaches a brand-new hospital where Mr. Numan plays one of the heads of surgery.

If you get a chance to see this in its MST3K version, by all means do so. It is one of the earliest truly funny episodes of the legendary show. If you can't see this with Joel and the bots, avoid it at all costs. It burns....

"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. (**)

This movie had a good idea at a start: the city being burned the same way as Chicago in the 19th Century, London on the 18th Century or Rome, under Nero's rules in about 70 A.D. And shall we say Pompei in 79 A.D. under the wrath of the Vesuvius volcano ?

But in the 20th Century. Good idea ! But the genre has passed an earthquake, a high rise building, a cruiseship and so on... And passing again the City of Montreal as a Midwest city, with a big oil field next to it...

Bring on some big stars, some washed up, others who still has it and some second rates, then throw this scenario like The Towering Inferno with soap-like intrigue, with the center subject: the opening of a brand new hospital...

The result: a boring, too slow and predictable movie, with low-rated special effects and the worst cinematography ever for a movie. And noticing for the climatic scenes that it remained in one city street set build on an old quarry in East End Montreal. And to think of it, looking closely, all cardboard...

Sad that the genre was washed-up at the time.

Acting was so-so. Thank God Mr.Fonda did won an Academy Award two years later in a better film (On Golden Pond), but I believe he should have passed this one...

And to listen to the French Dubbing made in Paris... Wondering who dubbed this crap... Unbearable !

Maybe this film should be redone one day... But hey, aren't we tired of seeing those artificial catastrophes when real ones occurred recently ?

A movie to forget... Despite its all-star cast...

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.