The Fire Brigade

This film provides the contrast to a jerky, primitive print of Life of an American Fireman in the Hollywood documentary series, and ever since seeing that clip, I wanted to watch the whole film. That proved to be difficult until 2009 when it was shown at Cinevent.

Charles Ray stars as an aspiring fireman who has to go through extensive training and testing to achieve his goal. His sweetheart is May McAvoy whose father keeps many properties that he knows are fire hazards. The story plays second fiddle to the polished and impressive fire fighting scenes, including a whopper of a finale which is featured in the documentary. It isn't an amazing film and it might not live up to the hype that its rarity gives it, but it is undeniably entertaining.

The fact that this film is still so rare emphasizes the point in Hollywood that silent films with scenes as impressive as this one were a dime a dozen and that the general perception of the era is unfortunately severely distorted.