Hospitals Don't Burn Down!
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2015}}
{{Use Australian English|date=July 2015}}
{{Infobox film
| name = Hospitals Don't Burn Down!
| image =
| caption =
| director = Brian Trenchard-Smith
| producer = Peter Johnson
| writer = Anne Brooksbank
Chris McGill
| based_on =
| narrator =
| starring = Jeanie Drynan
Mark Edwards
Ray Marshall
Ralph Cotterill
Ken Goodlet
| music =
| cinematography = Ross Nichols
| editing = Bill Stacey
| studio = Film Australia
Department of Veterans' Affairs
Kingcroft Productions
| distributor = Film Australia
| released = {{Film date|1978}}
| runtime = 24 minutes
| country = Australia
| language = English
| budget = $90,000{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article51594100 |title=COMPACT. |newspaper=The Australian Women's Weekly | date=21 June 1978 |accessdate=4 February 2013 |page=57 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}
| gross =
}}
Hospitals Don't Burn Down! is a 1978 pseudo-documentary short film directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith about a fire at a hospital.
Cast
- Jeanie Drynan as Sister
- Mark Edwards
- Ray Marshall
- Ralph Cotterill
- Ken Goodlet
Plot
A tossed cigarette from a patient causes fire to break out after midnight in a multi-storey hospital, cutting the top floors off from escape. It spreads quickly and despite the prompt action of the fire department, lack of fire safety training results in several fatalities.
Production
The movie was widely screened around the world and won a number of prizes. Trenchard-Smith says it is one of the movies of which he is most proud:
[It] won all sorts of industrial safety awards all over the world, and was Australia's highest-selling industrial film for 25 years, used all over the world. We staged a fire, cutting a multi-story hospital in half, bursting from the laundry chute out onto one floor. And the film was designed to have a whole series of lessons to be learned in a lecture afterwards. There were alarming incidents of smoking-related fires in their hospitals. It actually became a fire-safety film worldwide. It's actually a film I’m proud to have made, and I made it for very little money, but I’m very pleased that I spent the four months that I did making that. I was told that one hospital changed their arrangements after seeing the film, and moved the non-ambulatory patients from the fourth floor to the ground floor, and several months later, the fourth floor caught fire.[http://www.ithaca.com/arts_and_entertainment/article_9ef34ff8-2f44-11e2-b924-001a4bcf887a.html "Interview with Brian Trenchard-Smith", Ithaca, 26 November 2012] accessed 3 February 2013
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{IMDb title|id=0849448}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20120410041328/http://www.marcom.com.au/Sguides/FA/88FAHB.pdf Notes for trainers using the film]
- {{YouTube|YXaqN5pCl3Q|Complete copy of film}} at Film Australia YouTube Channel
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20130428152935/http://www.documentaryaustralia.com.au/case_studies/details/9/hospitals-don Hospitals Don't Burn Down] at Documentary Australian Foundation
- [http://www.ozmovies.com.au/movie/hospitals-dont-burn-down! Hospitals Don't Burn Down] at Oz Movies
{{Brian Trenchard-Smith}}
Category:1978 short documentary films
Category:Australian short documentary films
Category:Films directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith
Category:1970s English-language films
Category:1970s Australian films
Category:English-language short documentary films
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