Other Reviews in this Series: Duel, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Empire of the Sun, Amistad, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Catch Me If You Can, War of the Worlds, Munich, Lincoln
Other Spielberg Reviews: Jaws, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Bridge of Spies
(If you haven't already, check out my new archive in the corner ---->)
Disclaimer: I watched the extended director's cut, so take any complaints about the length of this film with a grain of salt.
Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale, John Milius
Cast: Bobby Di Cicco, Dan Aykroyd, Ned Beatty, John Belushi, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Christopher Lee, Tim Matheson, Toshiro Mifune, Warren Oates, Robert Stack, Treat Williams, Nancy Allen, John Candy, Eddie Deezen, Perry Lang, Frank McRae, Slim Pickens
Runtime: 118 mins. (directors cut: 145 mins)
1979
1941 is great, but not funny.
-Stanley Kubrick
Humor is a magical elixir. It's like practicing alchemy except sometimes it actually works. Professional improvisers, comedians, Sunday comics writers*, and comic filmmakers have dedicated whole careers to seeking out that elixir, and trying to capture its magic consistently. So what is it that makes a movie funny?
*maybe not
In the wake of the massive success of Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg decided the answer is excess. 1941 is a movie about California in the fallout following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Everybody is convinced that the Japanese are going to invade Californian soil, and the attack could strike at any moment. The movie is a wide-ranging survey of mostly military characters who mostly react with panic or bravado until their paths mostly cross in one of several of the movies climaxes. Everything in 1941 is built for bombast. The special effects are spectacular, the gags are enormous (often involving heavy machinery of war), and the cast boasts a great many of the comedic stars of the '70s. It's a cavalcade of tomfoolery.
It's also overlong, oversaturated, and not very funny.
Watching 1941 is a curious experience because all of the pieces are in place to deliver something enjoyable. The camerawork is skillful, the effects are thrilling, the timing is usually on point, the gags are plentiful, the themes are resonant, the humor is subversive**, and the cast is full-on committing to the zaniness. If this is beginning to sound an awful lot like that other WWII screwball comedy about ineptitude and overreaction in the military, Kubrick's masterpiece Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, that's because they are quite similar, with one glaring exception: somehow none of 1941 congeals into anything worthwhile.
**Spielberg wanted John Wayne to be in the picture, but after reading the script Wayne told Spielberg that he shouldn't make the movie because it was unAmerican.
The easy write-off is that Spielberg clearly doesn't have the dark genius for scathing satire that Kubrick wielded. Yet everything in 1941 is well done from a comedic-technical perspective, and even as the jokes aren't that funny, many of them are not awful (with significant exceptions). That being said, I can't help but pin the blame for the failure of this movie on Spielberg's shoulders, as he himself does.
Spielberg calls himself a failed comedian, but I more agree with his other explanation for 1941. Coming off of Jaws and Close Encounters, Spielberg was on a publicity high and simply stopped believing he could do anything wrong. For that reason, he calls the critical and financial speedbump of 1941 one of the most important lessons of his career.
Apparently the original version of the screenplay remains far more focused on the core group of young people who seem to be the de facto protagonists despite fairly minimal involvement in the grand narrative. Rather than focus in on their story and build them as characters navigating the idiotic world surrounding them, Spielberg was encouraged to drastically expand the creative talent on display. Thus Spielberg drafted comedic performer after comedic performer, and his movie morphed into little more than a revolving door of cameos. Despite its unseemly length, the movie still feels like it barely has room to breathe as it tries desperately to stuff in yet another joke from yet another celebrity. It's a late '70s comedy version of the issues that plagued Age of Ultron, but 1941 doesn't pull off the trick quite as satisfactorily.
I can't help but return to the word excess. If Spielberg would have slowed down the pacing and focused on what he does best--character via precise details--the movie could have been something special. In fact, most of my favorite moments from the film are the brief windows in which Spielberg lets an interaction linger. A father pulls his daughter aside and, without making eye contact, says, "We've never really had a talk... have we? A father-daughter talk?" It's a quiet moment, but that respite allows the absurdity of the interaction to really land, and it lets the performers drive the scene home. It works far better than manic cross-cutting between our main character pulling off a scheme, Dan Aykroyd sustaining head trauma, and John Belushi falling off an airplane wing.
By far the greatest sequence in the movie is a chase scene inside a crowded dance hall, a drastically expanded version of the opening scene from Temple of Doom. Spielberg doesn't zip past this part and it's all the better for it. The scene is a brilliant screwball mix of dancing and fisticuffs, and for once the physical comedy feels engaging rather than alienating. The sequence is masterful, with its roving camera and hundreds of extras. It makes me wish the whole movie were a musical, a choice that Spielberg jokingly considered during filming. It could have been a nice focusing lens, rather than just piling more and more actors into the screenplay.
There are also an unfortunate number of sex jokes at women's expense (not to mention the awful mistreatment of the movie's only person of color), which could fall under the umbrella of satire considering the era in which the movie is set, but Spielberg doesn't really pull off that tonal juggling act. Tawdry Spielberg just feels wrong somehow.
1941 is the movie people point to when they claim that Spielberg isn't funny, or that he has no gift for comedy. After all, they point, the only comedy film he ever directed is unfunny. I disagree with that leap. Spielberg may be rubbish at screwball satire, but when he's on his game he has a gift for comedy just as he has with most other cinematic domains. I would point to the underrated Catch Me If You Can as a counterexample. That film is at least 50% comedy (some of it sex jokes at women's expense that are insightful because of the right tonal balance!), and Spielberg pulls it off with aplomb.1941 was just the wrong movie at the wrong time for a young Steven Spielberg who had adopted the wrong mentality. When the opening scene of your movie is a parody of the most famous scene from your breakout hit, you better be extra careful to make sure you're not being masturbatory. Even legends have their off days--the good news is they usually bounce back.
1.5 / 5 BLOBS
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