A Ripoff of "City on Fire"

fx_gent

I have been interested in disaster films since seeing the ?Poseidon Adventure? in 1972 (among the better made) and over the years I have seen many, some good, many bad.  I rented this film,interested by the box?s description.  When I actually started to watch it, I felt like I was experiencing deja vu.  In 1979, another film was released called ?City on Fire? with an identical plot involving a city, an industrial complex, and firestorm. Having seen it about three times, I am somewhat familiar with the plot.  ?Inferno? is nearly identical, in fact it is if someone took that other script, altered some things and came up with this.  The kid trapped in the house, the hospital trapped in the firestorm, the scaffolding falling on people running from the hospital, the guy running into the burning building to retrieve a file, and the gauntlet of fire people must run to escape the hospital are a number of examples.  Another person stated that some scenes looked like stock footage from the 70s, the reason for this is that many of those scenes appeared to have been lifted from ?City on Fire.?  This film was an embarrassment to those performing in it and the writer should be ashamed of themselves.  I am surprised the original scriptwriter did not try and sue for copyright infringement.  They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, in this case it is not.

score /10

fx_gent 30 November 2002

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0686241/