boblipton
A policeman spots a fire in a home He tries the windows, but they are locked. He runs to the nearest fire station. Will they be able to save the residents.It's a very impressive movie for 1901, shot in five scenes. Each of the sequences begins with a life-threatening situation: can the policeman get into the house and help the occupants? Can the fire brigade get the equipment on the street? Can they get to the house in time? .... and so forth. The camera placement is simple and the editing is, by modern standards, simple. Time is linear within the movie; cross-cutting has not yet shown up. Even so, it plays very well, even today.James Williamson, who directed and produced and, presumably edited this movie, was born in 1855 and came into film-making not through photography, but because he ran a chemist shop -- where he presumably developed film -- and expanded into selling photographic equipment, in Hove, quite near George A. Smith's St Ann's Well Pleasure Garden. Besides shooting and directing his own films, he patented a couple of devices useful for film production, founded a company to produce photographic equipment that was active at least until the Second World War, and lived until 1933.
He_who_lurks
If you've ever heard (or seen) Edwin S. Porter's "The Life of an American Fireman" from 1903 then you should know that this earlier drama from Williamson clearly inspired Porter's film. Not only does it tell a story that would've excited audiences, it also takes 5 minutes to do so which is, undeniably, long for its time. Because of this, I'm giving it a 7.The story is very simple: the typical rescue of a family from a burning building premise. The film uses 5 scenes to tell it: the first scene is when the cop discovers the burning building, the second the firemen leave to go to the rescue, the third a shot of the racing firemen, the fourth scene is the rescue of the man, and the continuation of the events continue in the last scene, a shot of the outside of the house.Also, note that firemen rescue scenes were very popular in cinema's first years. In 1896 the Lumiere brothers filmed a street scene of firemen racing to the rescue (A Fire Run), and even before that was an early Edison short depicting a rescue scene ("Fire Rescue Scene"). Filmmakers really must've found firemen to be an exciting subject for early dramas. While the story really isn't involved enough, for 1901 it was exceptional and the film is one that would actually be interesting to see today.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
I am fairly certain that the 1901 movie "Fire!" was much more effective to watch 115 years ago than it is today. A fire starts, a man is in his house and can't get out, but the firefighters come and rescue him. He is happy. This is basically the storyline. Unfortunately, a fire is one of these occurrences which were really hard to depict in silent films. You do not hear the people scream. You do not see the bright colors of the fire. You do not hear the noises from the fire or from the wood that is burning. Quite a challenger for Scottish film pioneer James Williamson. Still, I have to say, he did a fairly decent job all in all I guess. It's not a bad watch by any means, but it's not among the best films of its time either. Maybe among the longest at 5 minutes.
MartinHafer
For an early film, this one is actually pretty good. In this silent movie, the crew re-creates a fire and shows the firemen doing their job--starting with leaving the firehouse all the way through rescuing all the victims. It's sort of like a documentary of their job that is done by re-staging what looks an awful lot like a real fire. Unlike some similar films, this one looks authentic enough that it both entertains and gives us insight into the profession in 1901. I particularly liked seeing the horse-drawn fire wagon as well as the people jumping out the window into the trampoline-like device the firemen use. Pretty good stuff and a pretty good historical record to boot!
AD
