A Fire in the Sky

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............ :(

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.

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.

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.

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!!!