City on Fire

City on Fire (1979)

What Happened to Them Could Happen to You... In Any City Anywhere!

An ex-employee of a city oil refinery creates an explosion at the facility which starts a chain-reaction of fires that engulf the entire city.

Date of release
1979-07-11
TMDB
5.1 / 10 (41)
Runtime
1h 46m
Genres
Action
Director
Alvin Rakoff

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: Montreal

City on Fire is a 1979 disaster action film directed by Alvin Rakoff, written by Jack Hill, Dave Lewis, and Céline La Frenière, and stars Barry Newman, Susan Clark, Shelley Winters, Leslie Nielsen, James Franciscus, Ava Gardner, and Henry Fonda. The film's plot revolves around a disgruntled ex-employee who sabotages an oil refinery, setting off a blaze that engulfs an entire city. People try to either fight the fire or flee as it spreads throughout the city.

Production

The film required several urban blocks that could be set on fire, which led production to search for appropriate locations to shoot, including Atlanta, Edmonton, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. Montreal was eventually chosen to represent the fictional American city.

Principal photography was scheduled to begin August 10, 1978, becoming one of the largest film sets in Canada at the time, eventually costing about $400,000. The shoot was constructed in the east side of the city and required approximately 45,000 gallons of fuel to set it ablaze during filming.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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