Les feux de l'enfer

Action and romance with John Wayne as the head of a company that specializes in putting out oil well fires. An accident leads to his co-worker and friend Jim Hutton contacting Wayne's estranged daughter Katharine Ross and ex-wife Vera Miles, who left Wayne because she couldn't handle the stress of being married to a man in such a dangerous profession. Wayne and Miles are therefore stunned when Hutton and Ross fall for each other and quickly get married, insuring that the younger couple will face the same situations.

This isn't awful, and the firefighting scenes are interesting, but the melodrama aspects are tired and dull. I always like seeing Jay C. Flippen, even if this is one of his wheelchair roles after losing a leg to diabetes complications. Ross reportedly battled with Wayne throughout filming due to their contrasting views on Vietnam.

This COULD have been an exceptional John Wayne film, as the plot was so unusual and was based loosely on the exploits of oil fire expert Red Adair. The idea of him working as a man who travels the world to put out oil fires is pretty cool! This was a very nice change of pace for The Duke and the film had some wonderful moments. However, while the script SOMETIMES offered a lot of new and interesting moments, at other times it was very clichéd and formulaic--cheapening the exploits of Adair AND making it just another mediocre late 60s/early 70s John Wayne film. Now understand that I really like John Wayne films, but I must admit that aside from THE SHOOTIST, all his films after THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE were mediocre and formulaic--so much so that they offer nothing particularly new (even TRUE GRIT which garnered Wayne an Oscar even though he'd made many better films). Even one of his films I really liked from this era, ROOSTER COGBURN, is essentially THE African QUEEN set in the old West. And what formulaic elements do these films have in common? Well, how about a way too old Duke Wayne getting in a fist fight in all these films (and he was into his 60s), macho arguments among the manly actors about who is going to do the "selfless" act (whatever that might be), an occasional over-reliance on comedy and John walking through the film as if he's in slow-motion (which, at his age, he was). No, Wayne didn't age very well in these films and his fans watched them because they loved the actor--not because they were outstanding films. That's exactly why I watched them.

After the first Gulf War, we heard a steady stream of news reports about workers putting out oil fires in Kuwait. I immediately understood what they were describing, because I had seen Hellfighters, and they were using the same techniques.

I really liked this movie. I thought Chance Buckman was the perfect role for John Wayne's character...his character seemed to match the sort of person who would be doing this for a living. Fighting the fires while getting shot at by guerrilla fighters seemed a big much, until I considered what is going on with people working on the infrastructure in Iraq...not much different.

I've heard the complaint that the special effects are not up to today's standards, but they work for me...they do not interrupt my suspension of disbelief, and they are not distracting like some of todays whiz-bang special effects.

I think this is one of John Wayne's best movies.

My ex-husband was a huge John Wayne fan and had me watch every JW movie over and over. This was my favorite. The acting and script are not the point of watching this movie. The attitudes, clothes(especially the women's), and the sets are Soooo Sixties. My favorite thing is the "window" in the office. If you look closely you can see it isn't a window at all, it is a miniature of a highway(like a miniature railroad), but it is supposed to look like the view out the "window". I'm sure that was state-of-the-art in the late 60's. Katherine Ross is fabulous and wears the best clothes. Jim Hutton is quite handsome. John Wayne acts like....John Wayne. If you're a JW fan you'll recognize most of the cast. Great fun!!!!

Sandwiched in between the critical beating John Wayne took for The Green Berets and a bunch of westerns culminating in his Oscar performance for True Grit is this little known film he did about a group of men fighting oil fires, a truly dangerous profession. The Hellfighters has the look and feel of a Wayne family effort with it being produced by Batjac and having in its cast Wayne regulars like Edward Faulkner and Bruce Cabot. I wonder where son Patrick was.

A little over 20 years after Hellfighters came out, the person that Wayne's character was based on, Red Adair came into prominence when he took on the Herculean task of putting out all those oil fires that Saddam Hussein started in Kuwait when he fled that country. Turns out the biggest assignment Adair had was way in his future in 1968.

I'm sure Red Adair must have been flattered all to heck when the biggest box office draw in cinema history was portraying a facsimile of him on the screen. Who knows though maybe Red Adair's real story and real name on the screen might be good entertainment. Might be a great subject for a film now, what with all the new computer generated special effects that could be used.

Though the film is based on Adair's exploits, it is first and foremost a John Wayne film. He's not Red Adair on the screen, it's the Duke that all of us have come to know. Wayne and his cast put together a nice action filled film with a minor subplot about his family life. Vera Miles plays his estranged wife, Katharine Ross his daughter, and Jim Hutton a protégé Wayne is grooming to take over his company.

This was Wayne's third film with Vera Miles and twice before he didn't wind up with her, either in The Searchers or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Third time the charm.

Hellfighters also is an example of Wayne's well known generosity to his fellow players. When he liked you he was the best friend you could have. Jay C. Flippen who plays an oil executive lost a leg to diabetes a year or two before. Wayne gave him that extra pay day by casting him in Hellfighters in a wheelchair. I could cite a lot of other examples of him helping people by doing that in other films.

Hellfighters is an enjoyable two hours of Wayne in modern dress, battling the elements like he did in The High and the Mighty and Island in the Sky instead of bad guys. There is one sequence where he and his crew were battling an oil fire in Venezuela with some rebels shooting at them. Since it's the Duke, you kind of expect him to pick up a rifle and blow them all away.

Though Hellfighters is a good, not a great film, I'd still like to see the real Red Adair story on screen.