Divorced Chance Buckman fights international oil rig fires. An injury brings his daughter and to his dismay, she weds Greg, a team member. Chance gets a desk-job, so he and Madelyn remarry, ... Read allDivorced Chance Buckman fights international oil rig fires. An injury brings his daughter and to his dismay, she weds Greg, a team member. Chance gets a desk-job, so he and Madelyn remarry, but a Venezuelan oil rig fire reunites them.Divorced Chance Buckman fights international oil rig fires. An injury brings his daughter and to his dismay, she weds Greg, a team member. Chance gets a desk-job, so he and Madelyn remarry, but a Venezuelan oil rig fire reunites them.
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Did you know
- TriviaJay C. Flippen had a leg amputated due to infection in 1965 while filming Cat Ballou (1965). That is why he played Jack Lomax as being wheelchair bound, with the reason given that the character had broken his back fighting a fire.
- GoofsDuring the office scenes, looking through the office window, obvious toy cars were used to simulate the highway (that could be seen from outside when the helicopter first landed).
- Quotes
Chance Buckman: Exactly WHAT did you tell her about Madame Loo?
Greg Parker: Only that she's 80 years old, weighs 300 pounds and is one of your oldest friends.
- Crazy creditsThere is a print which has been shown on UK television, an original English language print with English titles, which however includes two frames of opening titles in Italian: the list of technical consultants is headed "Consulenti Tecnici" and the next sheet explaining that the events depicted are based on the real live experiences of those people, is written in Italian. Then the credits revert to English.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The Sopranos: Walk Like a Man (2007)
A little over 20 years after Hellfighters came out, the person that Wayne's character was based on, Red Adair came into prominence when he took on the Herculean task of putting out all those oil fires that Saddam Hussein started in Kuwait when he fled that country. Turns out the biggest assignment Adair had was way in his future in 1968.
I'm sure Red Adair must have been flattered all to heck when the biggest box office draw in cinema history was portraying a facsimile of him on the screen. Who knows though maybe Red Adair's real story and real name on the screen might be good entertainment. Might be a great subject for a film now, what with all the new computer generated special effects that could be used.
Though the film is based on Adair's exploits, it is first and foremost a John Wayne film. He's not Red Adair on the screen, it's the Duke that all of us have come to know. Wayne and his cast put together a nice action filled film with a minor subplot about his family life. Vera Miles plays his estranged wife, Katharine Ross his daughter, and Jim Hutton a protégé Wayne is grooming to take over his company.
This was Wayne's third film with Vera Miles and twice before he didn't wind up with her, either in The Searchers or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Third time the charm.
Hellfighters also is an example of Wayne's well known generosity to his fellow players. When he liked you he was the best friend you could have. Jay C. Flippen who plays an oil executive lost a leg to diabetes a year or two before. Wayne gave him that extra pay day by casting him in Hellfighters in a wheelchair. I could cite a lot of other examples of him helping people by doing that in other films.
Hellfighters is an enjoyable two hours of Wayne in modern dress, battling the elements like he did in The High and the Mighty and Island in the Sky instead of bad guys. There is one sequence where he and his crew were battling an oil fire in Venezuela with some rebels shooting at them. Since it's the Duke, you kind of expect him to pick up a rifle and blow them all away.
Though Hellfighters is a good, not a great film, I'd still like to see the real Red Adair story on screen.
- bkoganbing
- Dec 26, 2005
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Details
Box office
- Budget
- $6,000,000 (estimated)
- Runtime2 hours 1 minute
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1