Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

altair42002 Most of this film is just another '70's disaster movie with a bunch of over the hill famous actors trying for one last time to revive their careers. The refinery explosion was incredible and very realistic, but the rest of the fire scenes are clearly process shots. The version I just watched is the MST3K episode from the KTMA season. The guys seemed to have a little trouble making jokes during the fire scenes, probably because of all the dead people and burning bodies. There is one scene though, in the hospital, where the doctor is walking down a hall full of burn victims and he lifts up the sheet covering one guy on a stretcher, and servo says "Oh, yuck thats gross", possibly the funniest line in the whole movie. If your looking for this episode on DVD try mst3kvideos.com

T Although I am a die-hard disaster movie fan I could find little if any redeeming characteristics in this turkey. The acting was dull, and most of the once-were stars seem at best indifferent. One exception is Leslie Nielsen, who turns in a funny if unintentional performance.The plot and special effects all center around the approaching fire storm which threatens a "major" city hospital, all the while followed Ava Gardner in her campiest role since Earthquake as a reporter deeply in the sauce. The special effects are in of themselves Subaru and the director seems to have a grasp of physics that is as limited as his proclivity for having nurses, the average man on the street, the kid next door and even Spot run around on fire. Unfortunately for both the director and the viewer, the images of screaming alphas does little to advance the story.To sum it up in two words: Stay away!

mstomaso 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....

Jonathon Dabell 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.