1941

Steven Spielberg – 1979 – USA

He should have listened to John Wayne. Steven Spielberg offered Wayne a part in 1941, and Wayne not only turned it down but told Spielberg that he shouldn’t make the film at all. 1941 is Spielberg’s Magical Mystery Tour; the thing that revealed the great artist to be fallible after all. It’s easily one of his worst films, and not just because it’s crushed into his filmography just after Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and with Raiders of the Lost Art and E.T. to follow; monster blockbusters and critical hits one and all; a feat matched by very few. Like other “epic” comedies of the period, 1941 suffers from too many ideas and influences and too little discipline. It doesn’t feel like a dream project of Spielberg’s – though it does accommodate his famous interest in World War II and aviation – but more like an idea pitched to him at a Hollywood coke party sometime in 1978 that he agreed to pursue in a moment of hubris when he had fully bought into his own press and believed that he had the Midas touch. It begins with a parody of Jaws’ classic opening scene; intended as an endearing wink to the audience but which comes off as arrogant, which cheapens the memory of the earlier, superior film. It’s an opening that truly sets the tone for the entire film, and not for the good. (The inside reference that does work, though, is the return of Lucille Benson’s gas station owner from Duel.) It’s the kind of cocaine-fueled mess that’s crammed with a mix of Hollywood legends and Saturday Night Live actors and that should probably have been directed by John Landis or Robert Zemeckis, though it wouldn’t have ended up much better in their hands. It’s not unpleasant or without its moments, but the problem is that it simply isn’t that funny; (even Stanley Kubrick told Spielberg that the film should have been marketed as a drama). The warmth, humanity and easy humor of Jaws and Close Encounters is absolutely nowhere to be found here. Instead we have the forced comedy of a mogul who thinks he’s cleverer than he really is and is surrounded by people who don’t tell him the truth.