Fire! (1977)

Pretty Good

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Earl Bellamy directed this Irwin Allen produced TV movie that stars Ernest Borgnine("The Poseidon Adventure") as wealthy lumber mill owner Sam Brisbane, who tries to win back an old flame(played by Vera Miles) who owns a lodge in their mountain community. Their plans are ruined when a fire involving two prisoners(played by Neville Brand and Erik Estrada) gets out of control, threatening to destroy the area, and cost several lives... Donna Mills, Lloyd Nolan, Alex Cord, and Patty Duke costar. Made concurrently with "Flood"(1976), disaster film is an improvement, with more excitement and interesting story turns, and the expected(if quite familiar) scenes of triumph and tragedy.

In 1976 Warner Bros. produced the made-for-TV movie FLOOD! It seems like some executives thought it would be a great idea to do it all over again, but this time featuring a lot of flames and heat instead of water. Ergo, in 1977 there was FIRE! So what can I say about it? Well, it is what it is: A 70's made-for-TV disaster-flick. Once again, nothing special here. But one thing that FIRE! has going for it, is that it doesn't really has a tedious first half (which FLOOD! painfully suffered from).FIRE! doesn't waste too much time and starts with a bunch of convicts working in a wide-range forest. Two of them seem to have come up with an ingenious plan to escape (which basically means: Start a fire and then run for it!). Their plan fails and the fire is put out by fellow-convicts. When they leave, however, the the smouldering ashes start a new fire and a disaster is born.Now after having read the synopsis, I was thinking the subplot with two convicts on the run could add a nice touch to it (being hunted down by the local authorities amidst the hellish inferno of a burning forest). But sadly that didn't happen. All we get is various rescue missions (people being trapped in an isolated lodge, a missing girl, a pilot that crashes his helicopter,...). Even though one of the convicts eventually does decide to make a run for it, it still felt too much like if you were watching an episode of TV's RESCUE 911 (William Shatner anyone?). OK, we do get to see a lot of fire and some explosions but neither of them are really exciting. And the ending is pretty pathetic and abrupt. Some guy runs into the infirmary and announces: "The fire is under control. It's almost out", while a few minutes before that we could still see the forest, and even parts of the town (in the only, nicely photographed, composite shot of the whole movie) were still heavily on fire. The scene prior to his announcement even had a friggin' gasoline-truck exploding which could possibly "whipe out the whole town". That was actually a pretty dumb scene: The truck was on fire, so they decide it has to be moved because of the destructive consequences if it were to explode. So what do they do? One guy jumps into it, drives only (approximately) 100 meters with it, then jumps out and "Boom!" goes the truck. No harm done. Boy, oh boy... And then after that one guy having announced that the fire was under control, Vera Miles gets sad and has these ridiculous, cheesy flashbacks of Ernest Borgnine. Then a kid comes up to her, she hugs it and the movie ends. Boy, oh boy...Maybe I could give FIRE! one extra point because of the "It doesn't waste much time"-argument. But I won't. It's basically the same stuff FLOOD! is made of, even down to the dialogues where everybody is telling everybody "I love you" for no apparent reason. Once again, FIRE! isn't badly made or anything, and the acting is acceptable. But this flick really is for disaster-fans only. General movie-watchers shouldn't even bother watching it when it just happens to be on TV. At least that's my opinion.

"Fire!" is an okay disaster flick that was above average in quality for '70s TV flicks. The movie is dead serious but the preview is not. See how Warner Home Video sold this title by clicking on the trailers icon. It's funny!

"Fire!" came out at the peak of the disaster craze, when studio heads were actually green lighting movies like "Food of the Gods" and "Empire of the Ants". You would think they could get a little more creative with the title. This one centered on a forest fire and a group of children stranded in the middle of it all. Donna Mills is ultra 70's and very polyester. Pretty predictable stuff. This was a TV movie that came out the same time as the equally predictable TV movie "Flood!".