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After the enormous success of Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Steven Spielberg was dealt his biggest box office blow to date with 1941. The film, billed as a ‘comic spectacular’, takes place in Hollywood the day after the Pearl Harbor bombings, as America’s west coast becomes hysterical with fear that the Japanese might attack them next. A Japanese submarine indeed appears, troops are summoned to protect the streets of Hollywood, and several wacky, rogue characters further thicken the plot along the way. Somehow, through a series of coincidences and serendipity, Los Angeles survives the night and the Japanese submarine heads back to Japan.
1941 is well cast and directed by Spielberg, who can stage complicated action scenes with large numbers of characters better than anyone. Good actors like John Belushi, Ned Beatty, Treat Williams, and Dan Aykroyd appear in the film, but no one really stars in it. The over-plotted screenplay by Bob Gale, Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future), and John Milius (Conan the Barbarian) favors mechanical mayhem, explosions and destruction over character or any meaningful storytelling. The film desperately needs one strong, main character and one strong, central storyline, but instead juggles a number of both to ill effect. The result is a film that lacks a storytelling point of view. The only point of view we get is Spielberg’s and the screenwriters’ points of view, and it appears all they’re really interested in is blowing stuff up.
If you watch 1941 as a series of comedic skits, there are a number of moments that might entertain, even if the film as a whole never coalesces. Slim Pickens is funny as a hostage aboard the Japanese submarine. He swallows their only functioning compass, so they force-feed him prune juice and wait outside the bathroom door for it to ‘reappear’. Treat Williams and Bobby Di Cicco duke it out in the middle of a USO show, giving Spielberg a chance to combine an epic fist-fight with a choreographed dance number. Even though he doesn’t have much screen time, John Belushi gets top billing for playing a wild renegade pilot similar to his Animal House character, and Nancy Allen plays a woman who can only be sexually stimulated aboard a plane in flight, which naturally leads to some high-flying shenanigans.
Even though 1941 remains one of Spielberg’s messiest and most disappointing big-budget outings, it’s still worth a look just for the sheer size of its notable cast and their individual efforts. Those with the most screen time include Christopher Lee as a Nazi commander, Toshiro Mifune (Seven Samurai) as the Japanese sub captain, Tim Matheson, Lorraine Gary (Jaws), Wendie Jo Sperber, Dianne Kay, Robert Stack, Murray Hamilton, Eddie Deezen, John Candy, Frank McRae, Perry Lang, and Warren Oates. In smaller bit parts you’ll see Penny Marshall, Patti LuPone, Dub Taylor, Michael McKean, Don Calfa, Mickey Rourke, John Landis, and Dick Miller. And of course, a John Williams score never hurt a movie, either.
Oscar Nominations: Best Cinematography (William A. Fraker), Best Sound, Best Visual Effects