cult film freak: CAPTURING THE PANDEMONIUM OF STEVEN SPIELBERG'S '1941'

Title: 1941 from 1979 Director: Steven Spielberg Pictured: John Belush, John Landis Rating: ***1/2

While considered by many to be Steven Spielberg's worst film... especially compared to DUEL, JAWS and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND... the 1979 blockbuster 1941 is actually his most important motion picture...

For a director whose camera-flowing style REMAINS the prototype for other big budget (including comic book adapted) extravaganzas, 1941... from the warplane dogfight to the climactic rolling Ferris Wheel... moved Spielberg from action-BACKED thrillers to action-PACKED thrills...

Great aerial visuals in the Grand Canyon from 1941

Allowing the more tempered and well-timed Hitchcock/Kubrick-inspiration (from JAWS and ENCOUNTERS) to cut loose, unbridled and uncompromising; and without 1941 there might not have been RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK... at least not the way we know it, visually and stylistically, since the director had already graduated from this movie's education of pure action: But one major problem with this infamous slapstick misfire are the characters, because there are simply too many of them...

Inspired by the actual "Battle of Los Angeles" following Pearl Harbor where, in real life, a Japanese sub ACTUALLY blew up an oil refinery off the California coast, 1941 provides all the witless paranoia as if that genuine attack had never occurred (or if THIS had replaced it): making a frantic city of soldiers and civilians that much more reckless, pathetic, and for the most part, not very funny...

Dianne Kay in 1941 with Perry Lang and Bobby Di Cici

Pockets of bedlam are spliced into the action, and the latter needed more time to flow so it's not just visual eye-candy for the characters (and audience) to randomly look up and marvel at, and then hectically react to...

For what doesn't work should've been cut out entirely: the sequence where Christmas Tree seller Slim Pickens is held hostage on the spying enemy-submarine — manned by "honorable" Japanese Toshiro Mifune critiqued by despicable German Christopher Lee — along with Warren Oates as a MAD MAD MAD "Madman" colonel basically mimicking John Belushi's psycho pilot Wild Bill Kelso, who needs no help in the gonzo department...

Dan Aykroyd smoking in Steven Spielberg's 1941

Yet even some of Wild Bill's scenes can get tiresome, and feel a bit forced, as if Spielberg's direction was simply "More Bluto from ANIMAL HOUSE" and, while it's Belushi and Dan Aykroyd's first cinematic team-up, the duo share only one quick moment, saluting each other (though never actually together on screen)...

Meanwhile Akyroyd, as the stalwart tank-riding Sgt. Frank Tree ("Was that Mickey Mouse blitzkrieging across France? Pluto in Poland? Or Donald Duck at Pearl Harbor?")... developed on the big screen what would become his intense-technical-diatribe-guy leading into THE BLUES BROTHERS and GHOSTBUSTERS...

Dianne Kay and Bobby Di Cicco in 1941

Yet with all the running around, the most significant weakness is our buried lead... and in every feature featuring a string of surrounding big named stars, the young-man-in-love baseline is essential...

Herein Bobby Di Cicci is HORRIBLY MISCAST as the jovially-dancing apple of gorgeous blonde Dianne Kay's eye (and an even bigger stretch that they'd already dated, and she already loved him, providing nothing for his character to really NEED) while bullied by Aykroyd's macho second Treat Williams... yet this particular villain's not only tougher and cooler, there's far more genuine chemistry with the equally great-looking Kay...

John Landis with his Animal House star Tim Matheson in 1941

Another flawed subplot has ANIMAL HOUSE star Tim Matheson trying to get Robert Stack's General Stillwell's gorgeous secretary Nancy Allen in bed... or rather, up in a plane: the only place she's able to get all hot-and-bothered...

This initially involving sex-comedy premise drags too long: then during the pivotal dogfight across nighttime Hollywood Boulevard (that visually resembles a precursor for BLADE RUNNER), where Belushi shoots the couple down, equals Treat William's cold-cocking the smug punchable face of Di Cicco's Wally Stephens...

The Ferris Wheel from Steven Spielberg's 1941

An underdog who does predictably wind up the 11th hour hero after Akyroyd's cemented patriot turns demented madman (providing Dan both straight and zany performances): and following overlong dance numbers and dizzying fight sequences, the kid runs the tank aided by underdeveloped soldiers John Candy, Frank McCrea, Walter Olkewicz and a young Mickey Rourke...

All steering towards that climactic Ferris Wheel-lookout with Eddie Deezen and JAWS mayor Murray Hamilton, here are more characters... along with Ned Beatty given an anti-aircraft gun in his backyard, useless middleman Lionel Stander and Kay's token fat friend Wendy Jo Sperber... who needed far less screen-time or none at all...

JAWS victim Susan Backlinie in 1941

But even with the edited-down 2hr theatrical cut, there's still too much left into what's already far too bloated and busy to begin with: a shame since the stuff that works... including a JAWS parody prologue and splendid visuals of Belushi's plane zigzagging through the Grand Canyon... works both beautifully and memorably...

Which is probably why 1941's only maligned by those who don't bother remembering some of the great stuff within all the bad and, either way... fan or not... it takes a lot of patience to either love or hate 1941.