City on Fire (1979)

Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

A lot of fun.

Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Fire! One of mankind's oldest and most devastating natural enemies already resulted – especially during the peak of disaster movies throughout the 70's decade – in a couple of very memorable movies, like the superior "The Towering Inferno", the more obscure TV-production "Fire!" and this criminally underrated and unjustly bashed "City on Fire". Okay, admittedly this isn't one of the most supreme and overwhelming entries in the disaster sub genre (shaped by all the notorious Irwin Allen productions), but all the terrific trademarks are definitely represented: perilous situations/incidents that go beyond the wildest proportions, an impressive all-star ensemble cast, irrelevant sub plots and character intrigues and – last but not least – numerous of truly astonishing special effects and spectacular action footage. Moreover, since this film was scripted by B-movie legend Jack Hill ("Spider Baby", "Death Ship", "Foxy Brown"), we're also treated to something that usually doesn't feature in standard disaster movies, namely nasty and grueling images of repulsive gore! Leslie Nielsen, still in the period before he became typecast as a slapstick actor, stars as the corrupt and power hungry mayor of a nameless large city. He arranged for a large hospital to be built in the city center, but the building is ramshackle and the equipment is outdated. Worse even, he is under pressure because he also allowed for a massive oil refinery to be constructed right in the heart of the city. When a frustrated employee of the refinery sabotages some of the installations and causes fuels to leak into the city sewers, it doesn't take long for a gigantic fire to burst out and spread itself throughout the entire metropolis. Pretty soon the new hospital is overrun with casualties, but given its location, the hospital itself is guaranteed to be destroyed by the unstoppable inferno. Never mind all the harsh and downright negative reviews around here, and the fact that "City on Fire" got parodied in MST3K, because this is one helluva entertaining motion picture! The script undeniably suffers from errors in continuity and a handful of illogical plot twists, but this is more than widely compensated by the non-stop spitfire (pun intended) of action and brutal violence. There are a lot of stunt people running around with their clothes in flames, falling from refinery pipelines or getting squished underneath collapsing buildings. At a certain point in the film, news anchor lady Ava Gardner mentions the inferno already led to more than 3000 casualties; how's that for a death toll? Nielsen gives away the best performance as Mayor Dudley, but also Barry Newman ("Vanishing Point"), Shelley Winters ("The Poseidon Adventure") and Susan Clark ("Airport 1975") are memorable. Henry Fonda has relatively little to do as the senior fire department chief, but he gets to deliver the philosophical "this-could-happen-to-any-city-anywhere-in-the-world") speech at the end.*title review inspired by the song "Fire!", courtesy of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.

This uproariously absurd Canadian disaster (semi) epic centers on an unspecified metropolis (Chicago? New York? Los Angeles?) catching aflame after a bitter oil refinery worker (grossly overplayed by Jonathan Walsh) pours fuel in the city's sewers that in turn gets set alight by two welders working in said sewer (!). Next thing you know the whole city becomes an incendiary inferno and people are getting fried left and right. Trapped inside a hospital in the middle of the blaze are dull doctor Barry Newman (whose once smokin' hot career promptly ran out of gas following his sterling portrayal of Kowalski in the car chase cult classic "Vanishing Point"), haggard-looking nurse Shelley Winters (who suffered a heart attack during "The Poseidon Adventure" and meets a similar abrupt fate here), and corner-cutting mayor Leslie Nielsen (who also got killed during "The Poseidon Adventure;" who was the casting director on this flick?). Trying to contain the fire and save countless human lives is stern, no-nonsense fire chief Henry Fonda (the President in "Meteor").Clumsily directed with an appalling lack of skill and finesse by Alvin Rakoff (who went on to fumble with the equally inept "Death Ship"), with a totally implausible script co-written by none other than Jack Hill, this admittedly awful picture still counts as a great deal of cheesy fun thanks to terrible acting from a noticeably embarrassed Hall of Shame Faded Name cast (Ava Gardner is pitiful as a boozy, bitchy TV news anchorwoman; ditto James Franciscus as a harried television station manager), poor special effects (both the miniatures and matte paintings are laughably pathetic), and hilariously horrendous dialogue (groan-inducing gems include "Try talking to a surgeon about compromise during an open heart operation" and "Don't die on me for Christ's sake"). The single most unintentionally sidesplitting scene occurs when a drooling, deranged old bag gets turned into a human torch and cuts loose with an incredible high-pitched scream as she runs down a flame-engulfed street. And remember folks: "It can happen to any city anywhere!"

Poor Henry Fonda. In the end of his career, he had to be in City on Fire. This movie had the most ridiculous dialog ever. I actually cringed when some of the characters said their lines. None of the B-plots made enough sense to follow through on. The start of the fire was absurd. There was no attempt to build up to an actual motive. The writers thought that CPR was the only action to take in an emergency and that old men using a bedpan was necessary for the audience to see. This movie was made purely to burn some gasoline for the big fire scenes and so that stunt men could be lit on fire. 1 out of 10 is generous.

Sure, CITY ON FIRE isn't THE TOWERING INFERNO, but if you love disaster movies with a budget this has tons more excitement and action than the more famous (and more boring) METEOR and AVALANCHE. It is also clearly a movie with a big budget and the effects are convincing to the point that you can actually feel the heat and the smoke coming through your tv-set!I used to love the sarcastic trio in Mystery Science Theater 3000, but there are times when I feel they may have drained the tank of Really Bad Movies and in dire need of a victim, they throw themselves over movies that -when push comes to shove- really doesn't deserve it's legacy ridiculed and destroyed in this manner. Let's face it, all though at times hysterically funny, the MST3K-gang could even make THE GODFATHER look cheesy! To bad they decided to aim their attack on CITY ON FIRE, one of the few disaster movies of the late 70's that actually had several things going for it. The MST3K-gang definitely did a good job, as the ratings on this movie NEVER were this low BEFORE they "killed it" with their ruthless remarks.And to contradict one of the other user comments in here: Leslie Nielsen actually DID do a good job as the unselfish mayor in the movie (believe it or not).What it all comes down to is this: if you liked THE SWARM and even WHEN TIME RAN OUT get ready for two entertaining hours in the company of Barry Newman, Susan Clark, Shelley Winters, Henry Fonda and Leslie "pre-comedy" Nielsen!In CITY ON FIRE, you really FEEL like you're in a metropolis going up in flames!