Review of 1941 (1941) by Allan C — 04 Aug 2015

Steven Spielberg's famous cinematic bomb is undeservedly though of as a bad film because it's actually a very funny and very well made comedy. Set in the days following Pearl Harbor, the west coast lives in fear of a second sneak attack from Japan.

In that atmosphere, Spielberg has a huge cast of characters ranging from coastal homeowners, to fighter pilots, to generals, to USO dancers, to tank commands and much more. The film is really a big broad comedy in the mold of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and it's really the only time Speilberb made and out and out comedy.

Comedy works it's way into most of Spielberg's films, but he's never before or since made anything that was all comedy and never this broad or slapstick. And he does it really well! And how could you go wrong when you have a cast that includes original SNL cast member (Dan Akroyd and John Belushi), several cast members from Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale's underrated "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" (Nancy Allen, Bobby Di Cicco, Wendie Jo Sperber, Eddie Deezen) classic film stars (Robert Stack, Christopher Lee, Warren Oates, Toshirô Mifune, Elisha Cook Jr.

, Slim Pickens, Dub Taylor, Lionel Stander), solid actors and famous folks like (Ned Beatty, Murray Hamilton, Tim Matheson, Treat Williams, Lucille Benson, Dianna Kay, Perry Lang, Patti LuPone, Frank McRae, Michael McKean, Don Calfa,Audrey Landers, John Landis, Dick Miller, Mickey Rourke, Penny Marshall) and even a couple cast members from SCTV (John Candy and Joe Flaherty).

Some the the things that cracked me up as a kid still crack me up; Warren Oats as Mad Man Maddox ("My got! We've been cut off!), just about everything Belushi does in the film is hilarious, the yelling over the end credits, Eddie Deezen on the ferris wheel is continually funny, but I think the USO fight scene is my favorite.

Dianne Kay is one of the stars of this film who I'd kind of forgotten about and who is terrific. I really wish she'd been in more big films, because she has a really winning onscreen presence.

William A. Fraker proves the film with some stellar photography and John Williams proves what is one of my favorite scores of his many classic film scores. One note of interesting trivial, I read that the Robert Stack role was originally offered to John Wayne, which would have been amazing.

To have someone of that statue and history of heroics in war films would have lent an immense amount of gravitas to the scenes where that character is scolding the numbskulls surrounding him. The Duke reportedly thought this film was disrespectful to the men who died in WWII, though there were many many war comedies long before this one.

I'm not sure why Wayne would see this one as any different form a Bob Hope war comedy or even "Mister Roberts." And to be clear about which version I watched, this was the theatrical version, but I do remember liking the extended version even better.

I think I'm going to have to buy this one on blu-ray and watch the extended version again. Such a fun film!