1941(1979)
1941 is a stupid farce based on a stupid idea: What
would have happened if, after bombing Pearl Harbour, the Japanese
had gone on to attack Hollywood?
It is the premise of this picture that the Americans would have
been so moronic that they would have done the enemy's job for
them. The Americans in this film knock each other out and destroy
the California coast before the Japs ever get to Hollywood
Boulevard.
Since it never rises above the silliness of old Abbott and
Costello, Three Stooges, and Martin & Lewis comedies, the
movie will only appeal to the Animal House audience, and
there's a lot of cruelty and violence in it that isn't the least
bit funny.
The opening sequence is clever - A nubile young girl leaps from
a car on a California beach in the quiet fog of a December dawn,
sheds her robe and plunges naked into the freezing surf. As the
John Williams music signals familiar approaching danger, the girl
is impaled on the snout of a black monster and hoisted high above
the waves, screaming her head off. It's not a shark this time, but
the periscope of a Japanese submarine commanded by Toshiro Mifune.
The scene is short, but one of the few genuinely funny
interludes in the movie. Later, there's an exciting musical
production number that involves a takeoff of the Andrews Sisters
in which a riot breaks out and the doughboys demolish a USO centre
in the middle of a jitterbug contest.
This kind of clever send-up of 1940s movies indicates real
insight, and there's no doubt that Spielberg has seen Hollywood
Canteen instead of just Animal House. Unfortunately,
the movie slides quickly downhill from there, landing in a farrago
of flying vegetables, broken plates, wooden situations, and
imbecilic sight gags.
John Belushi is something that crawled out of a roach motel.
Ned Beatty and Lorraine Gary, as a Dagwood and Blondie couple who
get an antiaircraft tank planted in their front yard, get lost in
the confusion.
Slim Pickens is nauseating in a scatological bit involving a
swallowed compass from a Crackerjack box and a lot of prune juice.
Robert Stack is a general who cries at Dumbo. Tim
Matheson is merely baffled as a pilot who crashes into the La Brea
Tar Pits. Treat Williams is wasted as a bully.
The cast is vast and unimportant. Mifune even says, "rotsa
ruck." Actors will obviously do anything for Spielberg, even
if it means sullying their reputations.
Farce is never effective unless it is played with deadly
seriousness. Two hours of noise and custard pies are not
enough.
1941 seems to have been made with the philosophy that if
anyone stands still too long he gets his head shoved into a tank,
a fist, a toilet, or a chocolate cake.
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