Review of 1941 (1941) by Paul D — 03 Feb 2009

Comedy is hard. Tear Jerkers are easy.

Steven Spielberg tried to do a comedy and found out it wasn't easy. It should have been funny. The cast is good. The stunts are good. The jokes are good. The special effects are good. But when it was all put together it just didn't click. The re-cut extended version on DVD is better than the original cut released to the theaters. I think the set ups to the jokes were too quick in the original. In the DVD they take more time to set-up each joke so that it seems funnier. Spielberg's style of fast paced action works well in action-adventure movies but falls flat in a comedy. In comedy you have to set up the joke then deliver the punch line. In a drama or action-adventure you can throw in a joke as comic relief and get a good laugh. I think he thought that if you just threw one punch line after another at the audience it would be funny. Instead the audience didn't get half the jokes because they were trying to figure out the last one. Slim Pickens is great and has some very funny lines. Warren Oates and John Belushi also were funny. The problem is that they were side characters to the plot of the movie. The movie is based on an actual event that took place in December 1941 when the Anti-Aircraft Artillery (AAA) in Los Angeles began firing at imaginary Japanese aircraft. The official version reported that they were firing at Unidentified Flying Objects. This was the first official use of the acronym UFO. He also threw in the many reports of Japanese submarines that occurred during the first months of the war and the Zoot Suit riots that actually took place later in the war. When watching this movie at home it is actually a pretty funny movie. For some reason when shown to an audience in a theater it couldn't draw the crowd in and maintain the comedy.