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| A packed, explosive and fire engine red poster drawn poster for Steven Spielberg's 1941 |
Ohioan master filmmaker Steven Spielberg's (Jurassic Park (1993)) initial entry in the annals of the bombs of the New Hollywood directors is his 1979 war comedy 1941. The failure was not as spectacular as that of some of his contemporaries, like Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie (1971), Martin Scorsese's New York, New York (1977), Francis Ford Coppola's Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), George Lucas's Howard the Duck (1986) or (especially) Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate (1980), and it broke even and may have turned a slight profit, but it is still a deeply strange jumble, an impressively gigantic production of a crazy array of ideas and pointless dalliances. It is written by Robert Zemeckis (Flight (2012)) and Bob Gale (Amazing Stories (1986), TV-series), with John Milius (Evel Knievel (1971)) contributing story elements.
Centered on a war-paranoid, gun-loving Los Angeles in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 1941 presents a range of more or less comical figures, who we follow as they engage in attacks on - mostly - each other.
Some audiences surely think that 1941 portrays the American war effort in WWII as silly, a laugh, pointless, and/or unimportant. If Spielberg had not stayed working for decades and given us two of the best, serious WWII-films of all time as well, later on in his career - Schindler's List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998), - 1941 would have been a much more embarrassing blot on his body of work than it is.
As it stands, I don't feel he should be embarrassed of it. Everyone knows that Spielberg's heart is in the right place, and he just made a ridiculous film back in the heyday of these young directors' perceived immortality in 1979. Today, perhaps, he has become even more immortal in terms of his industry status and monetary gains; (he was the second-highest earning celebrity of 2012 according to Forbes Magazine; making around 100 mil. $; only surpassed by Madonna.) - But does Spielberg have more good pictures up his sleeves? His only directorial effort planned at the time of writing this is an Indiana Jones 5, with the far from youthful Harrison Ford (Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)), and it thus it unfortunately seems that Spielberg's finest hours are behind him. (Ed.: This was proved wrong as Spielberg did return with great family comedy The BFG (2016) and political drama masterpiece The Post (2017).)
Back to 1941:
Lacking a central character and an engaging story, and super-abundant in odd slapstick-comedy that doesn't result in real laughs, 1941 is strange, empty and extravagant to a point of ... pointlessness.
Visually, much of it is made uncomfortably bright for no apparent reason, while a seemingly grand and spectacular airplane scene in LA towards the end is so under-lit that it is hard to make out what's going on.
With an impressive cast of names such as Toshirô Mifune (Winter Kills (1979)), Ned Beatty (The Killer Inside Me (2010)), John Candy (Space Balls (1987)), Christopher Lee (Starship Invasions (1977)), Slim Pickens (The Swarm (1978)), Robert Stack (Police Story (1976), TV-series), Treat Williams (Moola (2007)) and others, and several fellow filmmakers involved in its making, contributing jokes, cameos, story, and script-wise, at least for Spielberg's sake, when the film was met with incomprehension, head-shaking and box office far below his two sensational films before it, masterpiece Jaws (1975) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), - he had a boatload of good people on his side to share the negative critique with.
The things that make 1941 bearable (if not, for the general viewer, worth watching exactly), are the few laughs that it does have. Especially John Belushi (Old Boyfriends (1979)) and Dan Aykroyd (Tammy (2014)) and some of the toilet-humored Pickens-scenes supply these. There's also a quite extraordinarily staged and filmed dance scene that goes totally amok, which is also entertaining and fun in its own way.
Spielberg has stated that he considered turning 1941 into a musical halfway through production, and that, in retrospect, it might have helped it. I doubt it, but, of course, we will never know.
Related posts:
Steven Spielberg: The Post (2017) - Spielberg returns to mastery with a thrilling salute to the virtues of real, critical, brave journalism
War Horse (2011) - Spielberg visits WWI with problematic horse drama
The Adventures of Tintin/The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011) - Affinities for Tintin, earlier Spielberg and film will decide your experience of this 3D mo-cap adventure
Super 8 (2011) - Abrams' nostalgic family crowdpleaser (producer)
Band of Brothers - TV mini-series (2001) - WWII-sacrifice and -comradeship portrayed with skill and integrity (producer)
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) - A robot fairy tale with both heart and mind
Amistad (1997) or, Must... Free... Slaves!
Empire of the Sun (1987) - Spielberg's grand production of boy-in-China-during-WWII is a misfire
Twilight Zone The Movie (1983) - Fear takes many forms in tragedy-struck anthology
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) - Spielberg's greatest accomplishment
Top 10: Best car chases in movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Duel (1971) - Spielberg's truck terror is ideal afternoon fare
Here is a teaser for the film with Belushi prominently featured
Cost: 35 mil. $
Box office: 94.4 mil. $
= Box office success
[1941 premiered 13 December (Los Angeles, California) and runs 118 minutes. Spielberg sought out cinema legends John Wayne and Charlton Heston to participate in the film, but both advised him against it and called it unpatriotic. The enormously long shoot took place in California, including Los Angeles, and in Oregon from October 1978 - May 1979. Belushi was in an airplane accident during shooting and was hospitalized; the shot of the accident was used in the film. The film opened #3 to a 2.7 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it grossed 31.7 mil. $ (33.6 % of the total gross). The film was nominated for 3 Oscars: Best Cinematography (William A. Fraker (Protocol (1984))), lost to Vittorio Storaro for Apocalypse Now, Best Effects, Visual Effects, lost to Alien, and Best Sound, lost to Apocalypse Now. Roger Ebert gave the film a 1.5/4 star review, translating to one notch harder than this review. Spielberg has later said that personal arrogance on his side contributed to the film's not "funny enough" but that he is "not embarrassed by it." He returned with great adventure Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Belushi and Aykroyd returned together in John Landis' masterpiece The Blues Brothers (1980). 1941 is rotten at 36 % with a 5.2/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of 1941?
