Hellfighters (film)

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Hellfighters
Directed by	Andrew V. McLaglen
Produced by	Robert Arthur
Written by	Clair Huffaker
Starring	John Wayne Katharine Ross Jim Hutton Vera Miles Jay C. Flippen
Music by	Leonard Rosenman
Cinematography	William H. Clothier
Editing by	Folmar Blangsted
Distributed by	Universal Studios
Release date(s)	November 27, 1968
Running time	121 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
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IMDb profile

Hellfighters is a film released in 1968 starring John Wayne, Katharine Ross, Jim Hutton, Bruce Cabot, Jay C. Flippen, and Vera Miles. The movie, directed by Andrew McLaglen, is about a group of oil well firefighters, based loosely on the life of Red Adair. Adair, "Boots" Hansen, and "Coots" Matthews, served as technical advisors on the film.

1 Plot
2 Main cast
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Plot

Chance Buckman (John Wayne) is head of an oil fire-fighting outfit. Along with a team that includes wheelchair-bound Jack Lomax (Jay C. Flippen), Joe Horn (Bruce Cabot), and Greg Parker (Jim Hutton), he travels around the world putting out blazes from Houston to Canada to the East Indies. While Chance enjoys the thrills of the job, he still holds a place in his heart for his wife, Madelyn, who left him 20 years earlier taking their daughter Tish (Katharine Ross)with her, because she could not bear to see her husband risk his life. Chance's life gets more complicated when he suffers a near fatal accident, and his daughter comes to see him against his wishes. He is further dismayed when he discovers that his assistant Greg has married her a mere five days after meeting her. In spite of this, Buckman does not have any hard feelings toward the two, and he warmly accepts the marriage. However, Greg suspects that his new father-in-law is growing increasingly protective of him after the marriage. Also, Tish wishes to personally see the fires that her husband and father are fighting, something that neither of them encouraged. But Tish is persistent, and she usually gets what she wants. After some time, Buckman resigns from the company and takes a job at an oil company, leaving Greg as the head. Madelyn is happy to see her husband in a safe job and marries him. Meanwhile, Greg is encountering problems with an oil well fire in Venezuela, problems made worse by guerillas trying to undermine the operation. He asks Chance to come back and help fight the fire, something Chance needs no permission to do. Madelyn faces the truth that Chance will never be able to resist the lure of fighting fires. Chance goes to Venezuela, and try as he might, he cannot keep Madelyn and Tish from going also. Thanks to the combination of careful planning and the help of the Venezuelan army, the fire-fighting team manages to beat back the fire.