1941 (1979)

1941 (USA, 1979) 118 min color DIR: Steven Spielberg. PROD: Buzz Feitshans. SCR: Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale. STY: Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale, John Milius. MUSIC: John Williams. DOP: William A. Fraker. CAST: Dan Aykroyd, Ned Beatty, John Belushi, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Christopher Lee, Tim Matheson, Toshiro Mifune, Warren Oates, Robert Stack, Treat Williams, Penny Marshall, Nancy Allen, Bobby Di Cicco, Eddie Deezen, Dianne Kay, Slim Pickens, Wendie Jo Sperber, Patti LuPone, Michael McKean, David Lander, Joe Flaherty, Maureen Teefy, Elisha Cook Jr., Dick Miller, James Caan, Samuel Fuller. (Columbia)

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By the end of the 1970s, each of the Hollywood Whiz Kids (Coppola, Scorsese, etc.) had made one huge production that may have been high on ambition and excess, but light on storytelling or characterization. In some cases, they were box office duds that had affected their careers. 1941 is Spielberg’s contribution to this trend. This expensive comedy is one of the director’s few flops (either critically or financially), and while it’s no masterpiece, it isn’t as terrible as you might think. (Although the film under-performed in North America, it did turn a profit in worldwide grosses.)

The novel concept of a possible attack on the California coast in the days after Pearl Harbour makes for a huge canvas in which you can spend two hours playing “spot the star” while Spielberg plays with his toys. The characterizations in the film are superficial at best (especially the females), which is especially disappointing, from the pens of Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale (who wrote smarter comedies with I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Used Cars). This might be okay if the film was funnier, and it does indeed have its moments. Spielberg rips himself off in the opening where a girl goes skinny dipping, the Jaws music swells up, and suddenly… instead of a shark’s fin, a periscope pops out of the water. This is also the closest he has come to doing a musical, with the inventive scene of army boys preparing food in the kitchen, choreographed to “In the Mood” (there are dance steps painted on the floor). Spielberg never had a bigger cast of past, present and future stars, including: John Belushi essentially playing Bluto as a pilot, Nancy Allen as a nymphomaniac who gets turned on by being inside aircraft (a role as decorative as the cute hooker roles that her boyfriend Brian De Palma was giving her at the time; and for that matter a character as similarly fetishistic as hers in I Wanna Hold Your Hand), Toshiro Mifune as the Japanese boat commander, Christopher Lee as the German commander on the same ship, Robert Stack as the tough officer who gets all choked up watching Dumbo, Lorraine Gary (from Jaws), Slim Pickens (wearing his cowboy hat from Dr. Strangelove), and of course, the Sam Fuller cameo.

The thin plot is about the bumbling enemy forces trying to find Los Angeles, so they can bring America to its knees by attacking Hollywood. Meanwhile, the equally bumbling American forces take over a household because the property is in a convenient strategic position to ambush the enemy. Planes and boats cruise around, and everyone thinks that everyone else is on the other side. But that’s okay, Steven still has his toys. This bombastic farce exists merely to spend money on art direction to blow up or knock down. As such, his huge cast remains wallpaper. It’s the closest he came to making a John Landis movie. Alas, all was forgiven once Spielberg made Raiders of the Lost Ark.

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Originally published in Vol. #1, Issue #10 (“Summer in the 70s”).