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Fighting the Flames — Dreamland
Also known as [Fighting the Flames, Dreamland, Coney Island]
(1904) United States of America
B&W : [?] 423 or 425? feet
Directed by Edwin S. Porter
Cast: (unknown)
American Mutoscope & Biograph Company production; distributed by American Mutoscope & Biograph Company and Kleine Optical Company. / Cinematography by G.W. Bitzer. / © 12 August 1904 by American Mutoscope & Biograph Company [H49061]. Released August 1904. / [?] Mutoscope 68mm spherical 1.36:1 format?
Performance.
Synopsis: [From Biograph promotional materials] The Great Sensational Fire Show of Coney Island and the St. Louis Exposition. Reproduced in Every Detail in Motion Pictures by Special Arrangement with Dreamland, New York's Wonderful $20,000,000 Summer Paradise. The Tremendous Show Boiled Down and Carefully Worked Out to Make the Most Perfect Film Ever Produced. Everyone knows that the “big hit” shows of the season at Coney Island and St. Louis are the remarkable “Fighting the Flames” productions. Nothing like this in the way of sensational realism has ever been attempted before. Thousands of people throng every show and go away wildly enthusiastic over the exciting scenes they have witnessed. The show ordinarily lasts about twenty minutes, but by special arrangement with Dreamland, where the show was put on in its very best shape, we were able to reproduce the salient features of the entertainment into a 425-foot film. The entertainment has all the excitement of a genuine fire. The conflagration is preceded by familiar scenes of every-day life in a busy city. Across the city square pass trolley cars, delivery wagons, coupes and pushcart vendors, while busy people complete the scene of life and activity in a metropolitan city. A well-equipped fire department is ready for emergency, and when the alarm is sounded that a five story hotel is on fire, the engines, hose wagons, water tower, hook and ladder truck and battalion chief’s wagon crowd one another as they rush to the scene of the conflagration. What the audience sees is a raging fire, with excitable people clinging to the windows, others forced to the fire-escapes, where escape is cut off by the flames below. The firemen play the part of heroes. By the use of scaling ladders, while the extension ladder is being raised, the firemen mount the building floor by floor, calm the inmates, bringing some to the ground by means of the scaling ladders and fire escape ropes. While this part of the scene is enacted the life-net has been placed in position. Frenzied people jump from the fire-escapes into the net from every floor. As one man jumps for the net from the roof, an explosion is heard and the roof falls in. All this time the engines have been pumping water into the building and upon the flames. The conflagration is gotten under control and all lives have been saved. The firemen are all ex-firemen. Altogether 4,000 people are employed in this scene. The film is perfect photographically, sharp and clear throughout.
Survival status: Print exists.
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 16 May 2010.
References: Musser-Emerge pp. 383, 602 : Website-AFI.
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