5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Low budget, barely passable acting, great footage, great story, must have been written by a firefighter, January 17, 2006
This review is from: Firehouse (DVD)
I was enormously skeptical about this movie, but the 12 year old kid across the street bought it at Wal-Mart for $3.99 and wanted to watch it with me because I'm a professional firefighter.
At first I really thought it was going to be a Blaxploitation flick that got dipped into the world of fire, replete with Richard Roundtree as a righteous black man in a racist all-white firehouse in the inner city. But it was a rather morally complex story where both sides have to learn to see one another for what they truly are, and have to learn to integrate into the team they must be to survive the early 70s in ghetto New York (called by FFs of the era, "the War Years" because of previously unheard of rates of arson and targeting of FFs for violence).
The white FFs have just lost a loved fellow FF to an arson-for-kicks fire in a heavily black neighborhood, they have their firehouse burgled on regular basis while out fighting fires, they have trash and bricks and insults hurled at them by the very people they risk their lives to save day in and day out. Enter Richard Roundtree who is the new black rookie FF assigned to take the recently deceased's place. Most of the men of the house want to give Roundtree a fair shot, except the senior man of the firehouse who is palpaply angry and bitter. While probably not a true dyed-in-the-wool racist, the senior man wrongly takes his friend's death out on Roundtree because he's black, baiting him at every turn and pressuring the other's to do so.
Things in the house go as well as can be expected until Roundtree catches one of the young, black arsonists in the act. The young man accuses Roundtree of being an Uncle Tom, and Roundtree lets him go. The other men in the firehouse find out, and--seeing this as a MAJOR VIOLATION of what it means to be a fireman--make it clear that he could not have done a worse thing and set out to break Roundtree with harrassment and overwork.
In the scene leading up to the final climactic fire, Roundtree and the senior man meet in the alley hand-ball court behind the firehouse to have it out in private. Great scene, just the two of them, no music, no screams, just two men grappling. In the middle of all this, the fire alarm goes off, and they wordlessly break and trot toward the truck to respond to an apartment fire. This scene may possibly be the distillation of of firehouse life: You may hate someone in the firehouse, but when the bells sound, you both get on the truck and watch each out for one another.
Roundtree redeems himself at this apartment fire by dragging a white slumlord who was complaining about the firemen standing around over to the covered corpse of a covered fire victim, and telling the slumlord in no uncertain terms that he should be in jail because of the firetrap he owned. Roundtree also discovers the true mastermind arsonist behind a recent spat of arson fires set intentionally to kill firemen. Roundtree chases him down and kicks the crap out of him in the alley and turns him over to the police before returning to the fire to fall thru a floor while trying to save a dog. The senior man, heretofore the antagonist, rushes upstairs against the orders of the captain to help Roundtree, a fellow fireman.
In the final scene of the movie, days later, the senior man tells Roundtree that while he may never like him personally, he respects what he did to catch the arsonist and fight the fire.
I would bet my next paycheck that this film was written by a firefighter. The language, the sentiments, the intricate firehouse rules and mandates are too genuine to by written by an outsider. Unfortunately, there are no directing or writing credits. It's too bad the production values are so poor, if someone had taken a little more time and spent a little more money, this could have truly been one of the greatest fire movies ever made. If you are a fan of the genre, it's definitely worth seeing, if only for the stock footage of the FDNY at work in the early 70s.
This was written at a time when no fire dept on earth in peacetime had seen what the FDNY in the Bronx and Harlem was seeing. It was hell on earth every single day for these men, with 40 calls a day and 3-4 large working fires a shift.
Read REPORT FROM ENGINE COMPANY 82 by Dennis Smith if you'd like to see this world from an insider's view.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
ONE OF ABC'S BETTER "MOVIE OF THE WEEK" ENTRIES, December 9, 2004
I remember the ABC TUESDAY (and WEDNESDAY) MOVIE OF THE WEEK very fondly. This 1973 entry was one of the better efforts, along with THE ROOKIES (1972), MAYBE I'LL COME HOME IN THE SPRING (1971) and of course, BRIAN'S SONG (1972). You have good performances across the board, with Richard Roundtree in his prime (post SHAFT) and standard TV vets as Vince Edwards, Andrew Duggan, Richard Jaeckel and Val Avery. FIREHOUSE on DVD. Now bring on THE ROOKIES.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
WHEN THE FIRE'S OUT... THE HEAT IS ON, September 20, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: Firehouse (DVD)
Richard Roundtree gives an emotional performance as a dedicated black firefighter, who is a fish out of water, in a n all-white firehouse. Somehow throught sheer hard work and courage, he is able to overcome racial prejudice and hatred, and earn the respect and friendship of the other men.
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