Du feu dans le ciel

Current science may have just dated this film in that the comet similar to the one depicted A Fire In The Sky would cause a lot more damage than the destruction of a major American city. It is believed that one like this spread enough dust and debris to wipe out the dinosaurs.

But if you buy older theories than this film rates as one of the 70s better disaster films, better than a few that were on the big screen. Richard Crenna and Elizabeth Ashley head the cast. Crenna is the astronomer who discovers that bit of space debris heading on collision course with earth and he plots Phoenix as ground zero, Ashley is the media mogul who insists on the public's right to know. The public sadly reacts accordingly.

There are some standout performances in the supporting cast. Nicholas Coster is the poll driven governor whose first priority is how will he come out of this politically. Lloyd Bochner is a bean counting insurance executive and his usual hateful self with Marj Dusay as his wife. Andrew Duggan is the president of the USA. David Dukes is Ashley's husband and works at cross purposes with her.

My favorites are Merlin Olsen who takes his boys along with others on a survival hike without any communication. Olsen is a good and resourceful man. And Diana Douglas who is grandmother of would be rodeo cowboy Michael Biehn who hunkers down with Biehn and his girlfriend Cindy Eilbacher in their cellar to wait out the event. She's one tough old girl. By the way Eilbacher is Bochner and Dusay's daughter and Bochner is at his most hateful at a restaurant scene meeting Biehn.

Unless you don't like the science A Fire In The Sky holds up well even for today.

As a kid, I saw two movies in the late 70's about celestial bodies heading towards earth, A Fire In the Sky and Meteor. This movie was quite different from Meteor in premise alone. This was not about a collective effort to avert a disaster; it was about how to collectively get the hell out of town. Richard Crenna played Jason Voight, an astronomer who somehow knew that this desert metropolis was doomed the split second after the words were uttered from the Presidents mouth, as he explained to a group of scientist that the comet was probably heading for earth. Although this movie to me was extremely cheesy, over acted and sometime under acted, and you got to see down town Phoenix high-rises crumble one by one, I liked it. I would have to say that it is one of my GUILTY PLEASURES

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.

Considering that this movie was aired in 1978, I feel it far exceeds any expectations of a movie today for its genre. Richard Crenna (always an actor highly underrated) gave a superb performance. Story line was based upon facts we had never considered in that time period. Crenna's character was not only significant as a scientist for this movie, but also put that special "personal touch" feel as he sacrificed his own life in the end for a small group of Indians in the desert. I think this movie should be on DVD and available to all of us who remember it fondly and also for those who have never had the opportunity to see it before. It far surpassed any expectations in 1978 for a made for TV movie. I have been searching for this movie for years and highly recommend it........P.S.--Just found my copy this month (July 2005) on EBAY. Woo-hoo!!!

Most people probably won't believe this, but I was actually in this movie. I was an extra, from the 997th Aviation Company, AZ National Guard. I was the driver of a jeep for Col. Standers. I almost didn't get in the movie. I blew two takes, before the director accepted it..... :) I'm looking for a copy of the movie to share with family and friends that have never seen it. Columbia Pictures sent me a check for $25 and change after taxes. They called me for a speaking part that paid $600, but I wasn't able to make the commitment; a couple guys I knew did... and one was shot by a looter in the movie. There was another movie titled Fire In The Sky, about alien abduction in Arizona that my friends think of when I tell them about my part in the other one. I would like to do another flick someday with a small speaking part, but that probably won't happen............ :(