TV Terror: PLAYING WITH FIRE (1985)

Figured it would take something major for me to churn out a full blown review and I’ll be damned if that didn’t happen this week when someone unearthed the super elusive TV movie PLAYING WITH FIRE (1985) starring sitcom star Gary Coleman as a teenage arsonist. The NBC TV project was announced in March 1984, just a month after Coleman had turned sixteen and the world’s biggest child star wanted to expand his range beyond playing precocious children due to his diminutive size. Unfortunately, despite being supported by a stellar cast, capable crew and gripping scenario, Coleman saw his opportunity to try new things go up in flames due to a number of factors. 

Coleman stars as 15-year-old David Phillips, who is dealing with the separation of his parents Carol (Cicely Tyson) and Steve (Ron O’Neal). The script wastes little time establishing this as Carol arrives home from her doctor job and seems to ignore David while tending to his little brother. Our lead takes his anger out by throwing a basketball at the family dog, whose yelp results in the mom saying, “I wish your father had taken him instead of a lot of the other things he took.” Stopping before lighting a cigarette because she is trying to quit, Carol leaves her lighter out and David is drawn to it like a moth to a flame. It doesn’t take long for David to get his Drew Barrymore on as he terrorizes the family dog by flicking the lighter toward it and accidentally sets a coat on fire. Suddenly the frustrated David has an outlet for all of his pent up anger and a way to get his family’s attention. 

The abandon David feels at home is reciprocated at school as he is left out of a basketball game even though his best friend Mike (Tom Fridley, the metal dude from FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI) is using David’s prized basketball. This results in David setting fire to a garbage can which in turn results in David’s first encounter with Fire Chief Walker (Yaphet Kotto). David tries to explain it away by saying a spark from a car exhaust caused the blaze, but Walker ain’t buying it. Anyway, David is soon living Def Leppard’s “Pyromania” as he sets fire to some bushes after an encounter with his dad (using the child support check as a igniter), sets fire to the school after a parent conference with the principal, and sets his own house aflame when his mother decides to go out for her first date. All the while Chief Walker is around trying to make sure the stubborn family gets David the help he needs. 

PLAYING WITH FIRE has long attracted interest in cult film circles because, let’s be honest, who wouldn’t want to see TV’s beloved Arnold Jackson cackling gleefully as he becomes - to quote noted 20th century poets The Prodigy - a fire starter, twisted firestarter! The imagination builds so much over the decades that the movie’s eventual viewing will probably be a letdown as it is a pretty somber but normal “Movie of the Week” fare. Writer-producer Lew Hunter was a TV vet by this point, having previously penned the super creepy FALLEN ANGEL (1981), which had Richard Masur as a child molester, and the “our kids are on drugs” drama DESPERATE LIVES (1982). His scenario handles the building of David’s obsession with blazes well, accurately showing the pressure slowly building in the young man. Hunter also tackles the dilemma where parents refuse to admit something might be wrong with their child and their own resistance to therapy to help. Director Ivan Nagy was also a prolific TV vet at the time and handles it all well with DP Gary Graver capturing the fire scenes with the right intensity. (Shockingly, Nagy would go on to his own criminal infamy as he was wrapped up in the Heidi Fleiss scandal and eventually segued into directing porn.) 

As for Coleman, he is handed a complex role and the young actor acquits himself well in it for the most part. The sequence where he sets his mother’s clothes aflame in a rage is probably his best work in the picture. Unfortunately, several factors hold his portrayal back. Despite it being established as an age appropriate role, Coleman still had those cute, chubby cheeks and high pitch voice. It is hard to take some of the dramatics seriously when you are trained to instinctively hear a “whatchutalkinabout?” when some family drama unfolds. The production wisely surrounds Coleman with an amazing supporting cast including legend Cicely Tyson and SUPER FLY himself Ron O’Neal. The best performance is hands down by Yaphet Kotto as the sympathetic fire inspector. There is a great scene where the family debates David’s fate with Chief Walker. “Why don’t you do something,” asks Tyson, to which Kotto sternly replies, “Why do you do something?” There is also an innocent love interest angle with Tammy Lauren, who previously co-starred with Coleman in THE KID WITH THE BROKEN HALO (1982). 

Debuting on NBC’s “Sunday Night at the Movies” on April 14, 1985, the movie actually faced pretty stiff competition as CBS debuted the 13-hour miniseries SPACE while ABC hosted the network television premiere of POLTERGEIST (1982). The James Michener adaptation rocketed to first place with a 19.9 rating/34 share of the audience. Spielberg and Hooper’s suburban ghosts and Coleman’s suburban arsonist battled neck-and-neck for second and third place though, with the former receiving a 15.4 rating/24 share and the latter a 15.3/24 share. 

Not bad for a dramatic debut of a former child star. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. At the time Coleman was the highest paid child actor in the world, making an astonishing $64,000 per episode of DIFF’RENT STROKES. In fact, by the time PLAYING WITH FIRE debuted on television, it appears Coleman was trying to leverage it into more serious roles. He took to the press and said, “I don’t want to play kids forever” and even indicated that he was willing to walk away from the hit sitcom when his contract ended at the end of the 1985 season. Unfortunately, NBC called his bluff and the network canceled the still high-rated show. However, in a bit of television history, it was picked up by competitor ABC for an eighth and final season that spanned from September 1985 until March 1986. Coleman actually ended up taking a long hiatus after that, which was unfortunate because he was never able to recapture his past glory or parlay this interesting dramatic turn into something bigger. Coleman would eventually return on talk shows like THE ARSENIO HALL SHOW in 1989, where he would publicly plead for a serious job in Hollywood. It never happened and Coleman was soon embroiled in a lawsuit against his parents and former manager. It is a shame that Hollywood was so, pardon the pun, short-sighted as Coleman deserved better.