Nice effects though.

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

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 He arranged for a large hospital to be built in the city center, but the building is ramshackle and the equipment is outdated.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.

City on Fire is about an ex-employee taking it out on the whole city by sabotaging the refinery. The city winds up in flames and the doctor and his staff have a race against time to get everyone out before the fire spread to the hospital. Pretty much cheesy at best including the special effects and the flubs on some of the scenes on a limited movie budget. Barry Newman, Henry Fonda(I don't know why he took this role), Susan Clark(Webster jokes by MST3K guys), Leslie Neilsen trying to be serious as the mayor, Ava Gardner as a wasted news anchor doing the play by play on the City on Fire and Shelley Winters whom she just comes in for some of the scenes. Pretty much if someone needs to remake the movie anytime in the future please don't make it worst.

MST3K did a nice job with this in their first season. It is one of the better films Joel and the Bots have roasted - not saying much since most of their little treats occupy the worst 300 films of all time here on IMDb.The acting is variable, and you occasionally feel as if you are watching two different films which were spliced together in order to reach an hour and a half. Leslie Nielson, as ridiculous as it may seem, delivers the best dramatic performance of the lot.Basically, a obsessive individual gets the wrong promotion at an oil refinery, mouths off at his boss and then, after getting fired, leaks oil all over the entire city and sets it ablaze. Like most of the disaster films of its time, we are introduced to 3-4 different characters who will play some role as either heroes or commentators on the events. The film climaxes as the massive fire approaches a brand-new hospital where Mr. Numan plays one of the heads of surgery.If you get a chance to see this in its MST3K version, by all means do so. It is one of the earliest truly funny episodes of the legendary show. If you can't see this with Joel and the bots, avoid it at all costs. It burns....

City on Fire is one of the poorest of the 70s disaster films, but not the very worst (Meteor, Avalanche, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure are all a touch worse). It features a stellar cast that includes Ava Gardner, Henry Fonda, Barry Newman and Leslie Neilsen, but most of them seem bored by the material and just hover around in front of the fire, spouting bad dialogue and wondering aloud how much worse it will get and how many more victims it will claim. The fire is started by a disgruntled employee at a power station. Within an hour, it has spread beyond the power station to the whole city, and the film focuses in particular on the hospital, which is fast becoming an unsurvivable inferno. The scenes of patients and doctors running, drenched in water, through the burning streets are pretty exciting, but come so late in the film that many viewers will have switched off by then. Barry Newman is the best actor in it, given a rare leading role and making the most of it. The others, as I've mentioned. don't seem at all bothered. The production is certainly not cheap. It looks very real amid the fire and death, and to have assembled such a good cast obviously took considerable money. Unfortunately, the film is bad though. It takes too long to get going and doesn't try any new things compared with all the disaster movies that have been made before. I'd give this one a miss I were you, unless you're a pyromaniac or hooked on the disaster genre.