Cuibul salamandrelor | |
---|---|
Directed by | Mircea Drăgan |
Produced by | Mircea Mohor Dick Randall |
Written by | Ioan Grigorescu |
Starring |
Stuart Whitman Woody Strode Ray Milland Gheorghe Dinică |
Music by | Gino Peguri |
Cinematography | Gheorghe Cristea |
Edited by | Lucia Anton |
Release date
|
1977 |
Running time
|
90 minutes |
Country | Romania Italy |
Language | Romanian |
Cuibul salamandrelor, also known as Oil! and Oil - The Billion Dollar Fire, is a 1977 Romanian-Italian action film directed by Mircea Drăgan.
An International petroleum company called Consolidated Oil covertly sets fire to an oil well in the Sahara because the government of the North African nation won't comply with their demands. Due to the extent of the damage, oil prices rise sharply. The company's president Mr. Stewart (Ray Milland) assigns John Carter, aka "Salamander", (Stuart Whitman) to deflect suspicion. However, when Carter arrives on location, a company representative hinders his efforts and implies to him that the fire was started on purpose. Consolidated Oil hires a Romanian firefighting crew with little experience in oil well fires, but the Romanian specialists team up with Carter and find proof of arson. Eventually they succeed in putting out the seven fires. Consolidated Oil tries to sabotage the firefighting but their efforts fail. The international news media exposes the conspiracy and Stewart is unmasked as one of the driving forces behind the scheme. He learns that he is to be a scapegoat and is then murdered. His secretary is not only unsurprised when she is informed of his death, but she has already written his obituary. Meanwhile, the Romanian firefighters are publicly celebrated in the unnamed Arab country.
Cuibul salamandrelor has been listed as one of the ten best films with Tony Kendall.
A PAL version has been released as Fireforce (Brennendes Inferno) by a company called Elfra. It includes an English and a German-language version as well as filmographies.