City on Fire (1979 film)
| City on Fire | |
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City on Fire movie poster.
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| Directed by | Alvin Rakoff |
| Produced by | Claude Héroux |
| Written by |
Jack Hill Dave Lewis Céline La Frenière |
| Starring |
Barry Newman Susan Clark Shelley Winters Leslie Nielsen James Franciscus Ava Gardner Henry Fonda |
| Music by |
Matthew McCauley William McCauley |
| Cinematography | René Verzier |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | AVCO Embassy Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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106 min. |
| Country |
Canada United States |
| Language | French/English |
| Budget | $5,300,000 (estimated) |
| Box office | $784,181(USA) |
City on Fire is a 1979 disaster film directed by Alvin Rakoff and featuring an all-star cast. The film’s plot revolves around a disgruntled employee who sets fire to an oil refinery, setting off a blaze which engulfs an entire city. People try to either fight or flee the fire as it spreads throughout the city. Some elements of the disaster depicted reflect the Texas City disaster of 1947.
The film was partially financed by the government agency Telefilm Canada and was thus filmed in Montreal, Canada, although the name of the city is not mentioned in the film. Although American stars Henry Fonda, James Franciscus, Shelley Winters, and Ava Gardner appear in the film, albeit in relatively supporting or minor roles, the majority of the rest of the cast originate from Canada. Filmed on a confined budget some of the fire sequences utilized stock footage from both existing movies and news footage. City on Fire was an unsuccessful venture for the company and had a limited run at the American box office. The film was resurrected from obscurity by Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 1989, and has since been known as an example of campy disaster B-movies.
William Dudley (Leslie Nielsen) is a corrupt mayor of a nameless Midwestern U.S. city who has allowed an oil refinery to be built right in the center of town, far from any river, lake or reservoir. On one typical hot summer day, Herman Stover (Jonathan Welsh), a dangerously disturbed employee at the works has been denied an expected promotion and in addition, finds himself fired. He then decides to take his revenge against the works by opening the valves to the storage vats and their interconnecting pipes, flooding the area and sewers with gasoline and chemicals. It doesn't take long for this act of petty vandalism to start a fire, which starts a chain reaction that causes massive explosions at the refinery, destroying it and spreading a mushroom-cloud of flame that soon engulfs the entire metropolis. The drama focuses on a newly built hospital which, like the refinery and all civic buildings that went up during the mayor's crooked administration, is shoddily built and poorly equipped where the head doctor, Frank Whitman (Barry Newman), and his staff treat thousands of casualties from the fire while the city fire chief Risley (Henry Fonda) keeps in constant contact with the fire companies fighting a losing battle against the fires, and Maggie Grayson (Ava Gardner), an alcoholic reporter, sees it as her chance to make it nationwide with her coverage of the story of the "city on fire".
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Wikipedia