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Few things in the realm of movie geekdom irk me like people who simply regurgitate what they’ve heard without including their own insights. This happens a lot with “legendary” bad movies like *Ishtar *(not that bad), Howard the Duck (pretty damn bad), and (most irritatingly) Steven Spileberg’s 1941. One hears of a film’s alleged reputation, and then their experience with the film is tainted with the knowledge that “I *shouldn’t *like this movie.” And man is that a screwed up way to watch a film.
Over the years I’ve written adamant defenses of films like Popeye, Friday the 13th, and *Flash Gordon *(sue me, I like 1980), but I don’t love those flicks like I adore Spielberg’s 1941. Yep, I said “adore.” And yet, Mr. Spielberg seems to think so little of the film (and his experience making it), that he’s never once gone back to full-bore comedy. Odd. Released in mid-December of 1979, which put it up against movies like Being There, Kramer vs. Kramer, Star Trek: The Motion Picture … you know, Oscar bait movies … the movie did solid if unspectacular business, which means it was to be forever labeled as a “bomb.” Just because it didn’t do as well as *Jaws or Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
A virtually plotless collection of colorfully chaotic episodes that occur on one fateful night in Hollywood, *1941 *poses the question of what would happen, farce-wise, if a Japanese submarine wandered into California waters. Virtually plotless, like I said, but I don’t think a traditional three-act structure and a series of firm character arcs are what screenwriters Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis were going for. The *1941 *I look at feels like an ever-escalating series of outrageous action scenes, populated by amusing caricatures, and brought to life with clever editing and some pretty stellar special effects.
Continue reading In Firm Defense of Steven Spielberg’s ‘1941’