**SPOILERS** The city of Chicago get's the grand treatment here in this 1937 20th Century Fox production. After going on and on with a boring and uninteresting love story between handsome and wisecracking Dion O'Leary,Tyrone Powes, and beautiful stage singer and dancer Belle Fawcett, Alice Faye it really takes off with a bang or flame. This happens when Dion's older brother Jack, Don Ameche, is persuaded to run for mayor against the corrupt Gil Warren, Brian Dunlevy, political machine.
Getting elected mayor with the help, which he didn't know about, of his brother Dion Jack O'Leary is now determined to condemn the Colney Patch District thats the center of Warrens political power in the city. The four square mile Patch District is not only riddled with political corruption but is a tinder box of wooden houses and shacks, a shantytown for the many new Irish immigrants in the city, thats in danger of going up in flames at the striking of a match.
Jack in a convoluted effort to get the goods on Warren & Co. plans to use his own brother Dion, who in fact got him elected, to testify not only against Warren but himself with the help of his girlfriend Faye. Who as a chorus girl worked for both men who run nightclubs in the Patch. This illogical plan on Jack's part falls flat on it's face when he's tricked, by being mayor of the city, by Dion to marry him and Faye without knowing that a wife can't testify against her husband. Throwing Jacks entire plan of getting the corrupt political kingpin Gil Warren, through his brother Dion, right in the garbage can!
Outraged at being tricked by Dion into making a complete fool of himself jack slugs it out with his brother only to later have his and Dion's mom Mrs. O'Leary ,Alice Brady, leave her prized cow Daisey, whom she was milking, alone by herself in the barn. It's then that Daisey kicks over a lantern that in effect, according to legend, started the Great Chicago Fire of October 8-10, 1871 that destroyed almost a quarter of the city.
Only worth watching for the amazing state-of-the-art Hollywood special effects, for the late 1930's, in showing the devastating Chicago Fire. With the Warren Mob, thinking that it was started by the mayor himself, rustling up a lynch mob to string Mayor Jack O'Leary up. With the fire quickly getting out of control the Warren hoodlums, lead by the future Creeper & Brute Man Rondo Hatton,are caught flat footed as the whole Patch District is blown to pieces. On orders of Gen. Sheridan,Sidney Blackmar, with hundreds of sticks of dynamite in order to put the fire out. Warren who instead of trying to put out the fire tried to start a new one by inciting a riot and is later trampled to death by hundreds of steers who escaped from the burning Chicago stockyards.
The grand final has thousands of people from in and around the Patch district scurrying out of their homes in order to save their lives by escaping into the only avenue opened to them left by the great fire the shore and waters of Lake Michigan. The one barrier, natural or man-made, that the flames couldn't penetrate. Despite the great cast with an strikingly handsome Tyrone Powers who looked even better, if thats possible, after he got his brains beat in. There's also the gorgeous Alice Faye as well as the wonderful acting of Alice Brady. Who won an Academy Award for her role as Mrs. Molly O'Leary. Still the actors and actresses had to take second place to the special effects of Great Chicago Fire thats as heart-wrenching and exciting now as it was back then 70 years ago.
Getting elected mayor with the help, which he didn't know about, of his brother Dion Jack O'Leary is now determined to condemn the Colney Patch District thats the center of Warrens political power in the city. The four square mile Patch District is not only riddled with political corruption but is a tinder box of wooden houses and shacks, a shantytown for the many new Irish immigrants in the city, thats in danger of going up in flames at the striking of a match.
Jack in a convoluted effort to get the goods on Warren & Co. plans to use his own brother Dion, who in fact got him elected, to testify not only against Warren but himself with the help of his girlfriend Faye. Who as a chorus girl worked for both men who run nightclubs in the Patch. This illogical plan on Jack's part falls flat on it's face when he's tricked, by being mayor of the city, by Dion to marry him and Faye without knowing that a wife can't testify against her husband. Throwing Jacks entire plan of getting the corrupt political kingpin Gil Warren, through his brother Dion, right in the garbage can!
Outraged at being tricked by Dion into making a complete fool of himself jack slugs it out with his brother only to later have his and Dion's mom Mrs. O'Leary ,Alice Brady, leave her prized cow Daisey, whom she was milking, alone by herself in the barn. It's then that Daisey kicks over a lantern that in effect, according to legend, started the Great Chicago Fire of October 8-10, 1871 that destroyed almost a quarter of the city.
Only worth watching for the amazing state-of-the-art Hollywood special effects, for the late 1930's, in showing the devastating Chicago Fire. With the Warren Mob, thinking that it was started by the mayor himself, rustling up a lynch mob to string Mayor Jack O'Leary up. With the fire quickly getting out of control the Warren hoodlums, lead by the future Creeper & Brute Man Rondo Hatton,are caught flat footed as the whole Patch District is blown to pieces. On orders of Gen. Sheridan,Sidney Blackmar, with hundreds of sticks of dynamite in order to put the fire out. Warren who instead of trying to put out the fire tried to start a new one by inciting a riot and is later trampled to death by hundreds of steers who escaped from the burning Chicago stockyards.
The grand final has thousands of people from in and around the Patch district scurrying out of their homes in order to save their lives by escaping into the only avenue opened to them left by the great fire the shore and waters of Lake Michigan. The one barrier, natural or man-made, that the flames couldn't penetrate. Despite the great cast with an strikingly handsome Tyrone Powers who looked even better, if thats possible, after he got his brains beat in. There's also the gorgeous Alice Faye as well as the wonderful acting of Alice Brady. Who won an Academy Award for her role as Mrs. Molly O'Leary. Still the actors and actresses had to take second place to the special effects of Great Chicago Fire thats as heart-wrenching and exciting now as it was back then 70 years ago.