Why I decide to make this website?    

  

  I decide to make this website for a few reasons: first, because this is my favourite movie of all time; second, because I am a collector and I feel I should share my material with other fans; and third, because there are a considerable number of people who just love this movie, wishing to have a place like this where they can get their fill about the one and only Fire with Fire.

 

 

 What kind of people contact me?

As Fire With Fire is a teen movie, you probably think I only receive messages from teen people but you couldn't be more wrong. Actually I receive e-mails from people of all ages, ranging from a German girl only 16 years old to a 50-year-old man from USA! People have contacted me from Brazil, Peru, and Norway to the UK, USA, Germany, and a few other countries. If you have something to say, to ask, or to propose, you just need to mail me at claudiamatossilva@gmail.com. I respond to all emails.

 

 

Greetings To... 

…Those who have e-mailed me all the time saying how much they appreciate my work throughout the years. If I didn't receive all that feedback, I probably would forget about the idea of making a bigger and better Fire with Fire website. Special thanks to Cindy (you know who you are), to Tony (my dear England boy who I love to talk to about Fire With Fire and all other stupid things) and Chris (the sweet German boy who was looking for me but I was the lucky one to find him). Special thanks to the girl on YahooGroups who made feel very proud of my work with the promotion of "our movie" and for the incredible good idea of giving this website the title "Fire with Fire in Our Hearts"...it couldn't be more true.

 

 

How Did all begin?

 

Fire with Fire was inspired by an article in July 17, 1978 edition of New West Magazine by Sharon Boorstin, which told a story of a young man in a probation camp in L.A. and a girl who attended Alverno High School in Pasadena, California, a women's catholic school. The article dealt with the two young people meeting each other at a school dance put on for the boys. Screenwriters Bill Phillips, Warren Skaaren, and Paul & Sharon Boorstin slightly altered that set up and created the rest of the story which leads up to the dance and follows the young lovers through the thrilling climax.

 

 

 Fire with Fire for beginners...

Craig Sheffer

 

 Stars as the street-smart Joe Fisk in Fire With Fire somewhat unjustly confined to an honor probation camp in Oregon, who when running through the woods in the midst of a competitive race, comes across Lisa (Virginia Madsen).

 

Backstage one night, Sheffer slipped and reinjured the knee he initially had hurt when he was quarterback for East Strousberg College (Pennsylvania). Reconstructive surgery was the only route to prevent permanent damage to the knee. "A couple of days before surgery, my agent called said that Jackie Burch (the casting director) wanted me to read for this filme Fire With Fire, I said the surgery would keep me on crutches past the start date". "Maybe the start date will get pushed back. Besides, it couldn't hurt to meet these people in case they have something else for you down the line" said Craig's agent. "I finally broke down, read for jackie Burch and director Duncan Gibbins and then took a cab to the hospital and had a knee surgery the next morning". 

 

He had not bothered to read the script for the movie, for the meeting and instead did improvisational material with Gibbins, who immediately decided, as did the others involved, that Sheffer was their man for the part of Joe Fisk, surgery or not.

 

"The minut i could take phone calls, everyone wanted to come by

 and bring different actresses to read with me right in the hospital. I put everyone off for a week and then did a screen test where no one could tell I was on crutches". The filming on Fire with Fire did start on time, which forced the actor to wear a brace under his pant's leg durining filming. All scenes that required physical activity on his part were pushed back as far as possible.

 

Like his co-start Virginia Madsen for her role, Sheffer was able to draw parallels from his own life to develop Joe Fisk. "For Joe, The Story is about Leaning how to trust, which quite frankly has been a problem in my own life". 

 

Despite where Joe Fisk is and what has brought him to the detention camp, Sheffer sees him as someone teenagers can look up to "first of all he's only in the detention camp for driving his mom's car though a sears auto store window. Joe has an amazing lack of prejudice for someone his age. He takes people at face value, like mapmaker who no one else likes, and is also friends with Ben Halsey who is rather disturbed over certain personal things.   

 

Virginia Madsen

 

Virginia Madsen portrays the beautiful and intelligent Lisa Taylor who takes matters into her own hands after seeing Joe Fisk (Craig Sheffer) first in the woods, then at a local movie theatre.  It is Lisa who initiates the idea of a school dance with the boys from the nearby prison camp.

Virginia Pulled a lot out of her own life to help develop Lisa in Fire with Fire because "like Lisa, I was pretty much of a loner in high school, some would have had stronger words".

 

"Lisa has a lot of questions about life and is not getting the answers in the existence she's leading, so she's ready for someone like Joe to come into her life".

 

 "When I work with actors such as George Scott, Robert Mitchum or Kate Reid as in this film, I get intimidated by them, not because they are intimidating, but their careers and what they have achieved and the roles they've played are so intimidating."

 

This chance encounter ignites a spontaneous emotional reation in each of them, and sets them on a path that will change their lives forever. Together, they break the rules, defy the establishment, and they must fight fire with fire all the way!