1941 (1979)
Its hard to believe that even the great Steven Spielberg had a flop in his career, shock horror ,well sort of, it wasn't the blockbuster like his previous movies, but it still made money according to the world wide web. 1941 for those who have never seen it ,is a massive big budget world war two comedy, think Animal House meets Pearl Harbour. On top of that it has quite an all star cast Christopher Lee as Captain Wolfgang von Kleinschmidt, Toshirō Mifune as Commander Akiro Mitamura and Dan Aykroyd as Motor Sergeant Frank Tree to name a few. The film starts with Spielberg homages his own film jaws, as a Japanese submarine is off the coast of California thinking of invading America, on board is Captain Wolfgang von Kleinschmidt a German naval officer who is at constant logger heads with his counterpart Commander Akiro Mitamura. Mean while on shore Bobby Di Cicco as Wally Stephens is trying to date Dianne Kay as Betty Douglas, only Corporal Chuck "Stretch" Sitarski (Treat Williams) keeps trying beat up Wally and get Betty to date him. On top of that Dan Aykroyd as Motor Sergeant Frank Tree and his tank crew are causing all manor of destruction and if that wasn't enough John Belushi as Captain "Wild" Bill Kelso, U.S. Army Air Corps is causing mayhem across California in his Curtiss P-40 fighter plane. 1941 if anything is a spectacular movie, its big brash and bold, certainly no expense was spared to recreate USA in the 1940s . The reason I think it wasn't a major success (well not as big as jaws) is that its two zany too far out and set against the background of world war two it may of just been to jarring for a patriotic American audience, nobody in this film especially the U,S military come out of this looking normal, in fact everybody portrayed in the army or air force comes across as criminally insane or looney tunes mad. I first saw the film as a graphic novel,I didn't think the film would be anywhere near as crazy as the comic book suggested but boy was I wrong,thats probably the best description for the film is that its a comic in live action form,its a Road Runner cartoon, its like a crazy dream after you've eaten cheese the night before. The humour doesn't always work and some of the characters are some of the characterisations are so over the top you do wonder if Spielberg seems to of lost control over his own pet project.Still you probably won't ever get a film like this ever made again ,its so anarchic. Recomended for Spielberg completest and the criminally insane. Apparently some of the incidents that happened are true,zoot riots, sticking an Anti air craft gun on someone's lawn and the fact the American's actually bothered to get involved in WW11 at all.
out of 5