1941 (1979)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
In the days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, panic grips California, where a military officer leads a mob chasing a Japanese sub.
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What critics compared 1941 to
However, for a film as wildly overscaled as this to succeed, it has to either use its excesses in order to make a point (as Steven Spielberg did in his underrated "1941", where the over-the-top approach was meant to mirror the hysterics that the United States falls into at the slightest hint that its superiority in the world is threatened) or by having fun with its absurdities (as Michael Bay himself did in his cheerfully goofy epics "The Rock" and "Armageddon") Here, though, there is no point and no humor to be had-the excesses exist only because Bay managed to convince Sony Pictures to give him zillions of dollars and he was hell-bent on spending every single cent because he could.
While some may have had similar reservations about "Saving Private Ryan," it, of course, was directed by Steven Spielberg - who had already proven he could be as reverent as they come with "Schindler's List" after his WWII comedy "1941" - and went on to great public and critical acclaim.
Just about every scene is a conscious and loving 'steal’ from another movie, usually something directed by Spielberg – quotes from E.T. and especially Close Encounters abound, but there’s also riffs on Jaws, Duel, The Sugarland Express and even 1941!
Capturing that magic is something that has eluded even Spielberg himself on certain occasions (“1941,” “Always,” Indy 4), it’s not a fun lesson to learn but it’s one all filmmakers experience.
But it's essentially the kids movie Spielberg himself would have directed between Close Encounters and E.T. if he hadn't fucked up and made 1941 instead.
Sure, most people will inevitably compare “Dunkirk” to “Saving Private Ryan” but in this particular respect, watching the various storylines pinball off of each other reminded me more of a more serious version of Spielberg’s great WW II epic “1941.”
For all its breathless globetrotting action-adventure, the Spielberg movie that "Tintin" suggests is not "Raiders" but "1941," the 1979 World War II comedy that collapsed beneath its own bloat.
And yet, virtually every scene in the film has some elaborate structure to it--even the sight of Snowy chasing an errant cat around a room seems to cause more destruction than the climax of "1941"--and it all just grows kind of boring after a while.
Intrigue, chases, fights, killings, explosions, and flying bullets are the order of the day, with a musical track as always by John Williams, making the whole thing sound more than ever like a cross between "Indiana Jones" and "1941."
The story combines elements from three of Hergé’s 23 Tintin adventures: The Crab With the Golden Claws (1941), The Secret of the Unicorn (1943), and Red Rackham’s Treasure (1944).
(A pirate-ship duel between Haddock's and Sakharine's ancestors, with both combatants stamping out an explosives fuse multiple times, has the flavor of the Jones cliffhangers and the somewhat unfairly reviled 1941.)
However I found the film just okay, and from a director like Spielberg that’s almost worse than being a total 1941.
Excavating and elaborating his memories, Spielberg tells this story with a free-swinging vigor that he has matched only in “1941”—and that, there, was heightened by an antic facetiousness that’s altogether absent from the warmhearted, good-humored, intensely sincere “Fabelmans.”
Following the incredible successes of Jaws and Close Encounters , 1941 was generally regarded as Spielberg's first critical flop (though it turned a small profit at the box office).
There’s always been a weakness for that kind of thing in Spielberg’s mindset — dare we summon the ghost of his most notable flop, “1941”?
No, I haven’t forgotten about “The Adventures of Tintin” or “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” or “Hook” or “1941.”
That it ends on what is essentially a giant fart joke would seem juvenile in the worst kind of way, but Spielberg pulls it off (he has always been a deft comedy director, and the perceived disaster of his wartime slapstick farce 1941 has probably been the only thing holding him back from making another outright comedy).
To be fair, Spielberg has never traded in mindless spectacle (with the exception of the hideous Temple of Doom installment of Indiana Jones and, to a lesser degree, 1941 ).
This is really the first whack Spielberg has had at depicting mass destruction since 1941 over twenty-five years ago, and he shows all the summer-movie whippersnappers how it's done.
Spielberg gives the movie a snappy, glitzy gusto of the type that he gave his early chase films like The Sugarland Express and 1941, and it's refreshingly lacking in that heavy nobility he injected into The Color Purple and nearly every film since.
Spielberg has never been adept at full-on comedy (Exhibit A: 1941), and though he shows a lot of fizz and relish in depicting Franks ingenious scams (which are carried off by DiCaprio with brio and charm), you have to sit through some draggy parts to get to them.
Think of the unknown swimmer getting chomped to begin Jaws (and actress Susan Backlinie reprising that intro in 1941), the discovery of the World War II airplanes in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the opening chase in E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial.
In the past, Spielberg treated World War II as farce ("1941"), as swashbuckling adventure ("Raiders of the Lost Ark") and as tragedy ("Schindler's List").
"Reality" being a judgment call in most cases and arguably unattainable in cinema, here's perhaps the truest measure of nonfiction in Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg's exceptionally graphic and somewhat doc-like epic of World War II combat: Could someone who's never seen a Spielberg film watch an anonymously credited double feature of the punishing Private Ryan and the screwball 1941 (1979), recognizing them as the work of the same director?
“Indy 4,” which is the worst Steven Spielberg popcorn flick since the forgotten “1941”–yes, it’s worse than “Hook”–is a series of campy comedy action scenes awkwardly linked by a dopey plot that brings together the twin fifties obsessions of Communists and flying saucers, along with a search for El Dorado, the lost city of gold.
To date, he has made exactly one good comedy-the brilliant, misunderstood and unappreciated "1941"-and that worked precisely because the entire film was itself a study in over-the-top hysteria; his method fit the material perfectly.
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Even the best directors have clunkers on their resume – Steven Spielberg’s “1941” may be the best example.
A medio camino entre la comedia física de Chaplin en The Great Dictator (1939) y el atasque de ideas sin mucha coordinación de otra película de Spielberg, la menos conocida y poco querida 1941 (1979), la cinta de Taika Waititi es una comedia bufonesca que quiere convertirse en una tragedia enternecedora.
"Go! Go! Go! Go!" and endless utterances of "Seriously") plus visual crutches, including an amusement park with a Ferris wheel homage to Steven Spielberg's critical flop "1941."
You'll recognize Deezen's distinctive voice instantly from things like "1941" and "WarGames."
Zemeckis, making his first foray into WWII territory since co-writing the screenplay to the cult favorite “1941,” is, of course, justly famous for making films that push the envelope in terms of technology.
Zemeckis and Gale have attempted to rewrite history before; "I Want to Hold Your Hand" told a fictional story about Jersey teen-agers trying to sneak in to visit the Beatles at the Plaza Hotel in 1963, while "1941" was a wild speculation on what would have happened if post-Pearl Harbor hysteria in Los Angeles had reached epidemic proportions.
They love the crassness, obviousness, and manic energy of old TV, and it gives their work (Used Cars, the screenplay of Spielberg's 1941) a uniquely American zip and vulgarity, like the best early-60s rock.