AllMovie

Befitting its title, The Smoke Eaters is a fire-fighting melodrama, albeit one of little distinction. After a protracted prologue in which a fireman loses his wife and child to a conflagration, the story jumps ahead 20 years to concentrate on the romance between "smoke-eater" Cullen Landis and Wanda Hawley. Tieing past and present together is the fact that Landis is the adopted son of the selfsame firefighter who lost his family years before. The plot is forgotten as the hero proves that he's as worthy a fireman as his foster father by staging a spectacular climactic rescue from a burning nightclub. While the fire scenes are reasonably well done, it was painfully obvious to the viewer that star Cullen Landis was never really anywhere near the flames.