K16-City on Fire

Film Year:  1979
Genre:  Disaster
Director:  Alan Rakoff
Starring:  Barry Newman, Susan Clark, Shelly Winters, Leslie Nielson, James Franciscus, Ava Gardner, Henry Fonda
MST Season:  KTMA

The Movie

How do you top a Towering Inferno?  By burning the whole fucking city to the ground.

A fairly impressive cast highlights this disaster pick which is about a city...on...fire.  A fired employee from a local oil refinery sabotages the system and causes an explosion.  Soon an entire city is engulfed in flames, leaving citizens to flee for their lives and firefighters to try and save the day.

The Mystery Science Theater episode mistakenly identifies City on Fire as a TV movie, though my half-assed, simplistic IMDB research shows that it actually played in theaters.  I'm more inclined to believe that because the production values of City on Fire aren't too shabby.  Apparently the movie didn't do that well in its theatrical run though.

All things considered, City on Fire isn't down to the normal bad movie standards of films seen on the show.  Some elements of it are actually kinda good.  By normal movie standards though City on Fire sucks.  While the scenario itself is compelling in concept, the movie plays it up to a fairly insipid level.  Most people who get killed in this movie do so because they do incredibly idiotic things just so they can set up a death scene in an over-the-top way.  It's the movie's way of tricking the viewer into thinking it's both exciting and compelling, though in reality it's just insulting your intellect.  But City on Fire is trying to portray an idea first.  It warns at the very beginning that this event could happen.  It probably could, though likely not in the way it portrays.

Smarter aspects of the film include a rather strong sense of working together to survive a seemingly impossible situation.  The main storyline climaxes in the evacuation of a hospital that is in danger, which is a great way to play on audience compassion and hope for your characters' survival.  City on Fire might have benefited had it also featured a stronger storyline centered around the firefighters, but it makes due with what limited story it has

As a disaster film, City on Fire is more interesting than Avalanche, though in general it's not much better.  If you're keen on this type of film it might be worth a look, just don't expect much.

The Episode

In some ways City on Fire is probably one of the better films featured in the KTMA season, and Joel and the Bots seem a bit interested in letting it unfold and are even a bit uncomfortable with it in spots (dead pets and child endangerment cross a line with them).  They keep their comments steady in their improvised KTma style, though that's mostly thanks to Servo who keeps the chatter flowing when the  movie is quiet enough for a joke.  Early on when a character catches on fire Servo tries to remind him to "Stop, drop, and roll!" only for him to continually run around screaming before falling over dead.  This seems to amuse all three of them, who just shrug it off "Well, he stopped and dropped!"  The riffing starts peaking during the climax, when more absurd death scenes are given to us and they even take the time to review how common fire safety is not being practiced in this movie.

Poopie!:  Josh sneezes in the theater.  Joel and Crow pretty much act as if the fact that their robot companion sneezed is perfectly normal.

The host segments feature a bit of a prank war.  The Bots pull the old shoe polish on the telescope gag on Joel, while Joel gets back at them with his "Hell in a Handbag" invention (which was later used in an Invention Exchange).  Meanwhile the Mads' Mad Scientist license is threatened with being revoked, as they may just be "Mildly Peeved Researchers."

City on Fire features a watchable movie and some good chuckle-worthy comments.  It's difficult to ask more of the KTMA era so I'm not going to.  If you like these early episodes, check it out.

Good