1941 (1979)

Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: John Belushi, Dan Akroyd, Treat Williams

Synopsis:
Amid the paranoia following Pearl Harbor, LA is thrown into panic and confusion while an off-course Japanese submarine plots to launch an attack on the US mainland.

Impressions:
Before seeing it, the main thing I knew about this film was that John Wayne turned down the role of General Stilwell because he considered the movie to be anti-American after reading the script. The filmmakers take a crack at him for rejecting the film with a line about the Japanese blowing up his house. Anyway, as for the movie itself, it was box office bomb that took Spielberg down a couple pegs after flying high off of Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. You'd think a collaboration between Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis with an ensemble cast of some of the biggest names in comedy from the 70s would bode well, but the humor is very hit or miss, leaning more on the miss side for me. One thing that was positively brilliant was having Toshiro Mifune as the Japanese sub commander and Christopher Lee as the Kriegsmarine advisor. Of the comedic actors, Slim Pickens was the only one who was consistently good, but the others had their moments to varying degrees. A lot of money was put into this movie, including a fairly memorable score by John Williams, but it feels like a bit of a waste. If you want to see a very different sort of film from the stuff Spielberg's typically known for and are willing to put up with a highly uneven comedy, you may want to give this a shot. Otherwise, you may want to look elsewhere.

Rating:
50/50