Review by Adam Stephen Kelly
Stars Dan Aykroyd, Ned Beatty, John Belushi, Tim Matheson,
Robert Stack, John Candy, Christopher Lee | Written by Robert Zemeckis & Bob Gale
UK Certification 12 | UK RRP £14.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 114 minutes | Directed by Steven Spielberg
I really wanted to love 1941, I did. Hell, I wanted to like it. But I just didn't. This two-disc release of Steven Spielberg's 1979 comedy is the first time the film has been seen in the UK on DVD, which is very surprising indeed given the director. If you have heard anything about the film or seen it for yourself, you'll know that this is by far the most critically panned production in Spielberg's long, highly successful career. He's been at the top since Jaws and he's never come down a rung on the Hollywood ladder, remaining in his place as one of the most celebrated directors in the history of movies, and even with a critical flop like 1941, it didn't phase his career.
Many predicted that Spielberg would fall flat on his face with his third big studio picture after the success of Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and they were right. A success at the box office for co-producing companies Universal and Columbia, reviews poured in claiming the film to be high on spectacle, but low on comedy, referencing the tagline “A Comedy Spectacular”, and I'm afraid that I couldn't agree more.
1941 is a comedy of epic proportions. The laughs are far from on that scale, but the destruction, catastrophe and chaos certainly are. Set a few days after the Japanese declared war on the United States by attacking Pearl Harbor, the residents of Hollywood, California are in a state of hysteria when rumours fly about an impending attack from Japan on the city, and a German U-Boat full of Japanese emerges on the coast, revealing an alliance between the Nazis and the Land of the Rising Sun.
With an all-star comedy cast you would expect plenty of laughs, but they are extremely few and far between. The humour is more giggle-inducing than uproariously hilarious, which is a real shame when you think just how much potential the film had. There's Christopher Lee in the role of a Nazi officer, the late John Belushi as an eccentric fighter pilot, as well as Lorraine Gary and Murray Hamilton, Ellen Brody and Mayor Vaughn respectively in Jaws. Speaking of Spielberg's Peter Benchley adaptation — my personal favourite film of all time — the opening of the film is a parody of the famous Chrissie Watkins scene from Jaws where she is the first victim to be ravaged by the killer shark. Susan Backlinie even reprises her role as the nude swimmer. A little self-indulgent? Maybe.
The comedy is all silly fun — it's obnoxious, rude and crude slapstick with a big-budget gloss. The $30,000,000 put into the film results in so much chaos and carnage that the plot almost takes a backseat and you really forget all about the submarine that's lurking off the coast, and instead focus on the elaborate explosions. While that's all very cool to watch — the film boasts outstanding special effects for its time and a terrific use of miniatures — what you really want to be doing is enjoying the movie for its comedic value, and not awarding it stars for its resemblance to a Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich flick.
Beyond the endless fires, blazing planes and a tank crashing through a warehouse containing a sea of paint, 1941 is the closest as Spielberg has ever gotten, and probably will ever get, to directing a dud. It isn't, but it all too nearly is. Steven has proven himself to be a gracious person when it comes to his critics, and his response to the wide slamming of the film is that it's honestly baffling to him, not understanding why more people didn't find it as funny and enjoyable as he did.
It should be noted that this UK release runs just under two hours and is, for some reason, not the director's cut, which is half an hour longer than the theatrical version on the DVD, which has garnered the film more favourable recognition than the cut we get to see here.
EXTRAS ★★★ 1 ½ hour making of feature from the '90s laserdisc edition, deleted scenes, production photographs, a comic strip of production photos, gallery of posters, a number of unfavorable reviews from the time of the film's release, and three theatrical trailers.