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'1941' no By David Baker Gumscuck Film Critic Since its opening on December 14, Steven Spielberg's 1941 has received more than its share of negative reviews ? mostly from critics who, I expect, are reviewing not the movie, but its $32 million budget (a budget which makes it the most expensive comedy ever produced). While it's true that the movie has problems (it's shapeless, sprawling, and somewhat incoherent), it is filled with so many hilarious moments that to condemn it because of its structure would seem like an act of treachery. The story takes place on December 13, 1941, just six days after the Japanese destruction of Pearl Harbor. As the film opens, the inhabitants of Southern California are certain that Tokyo is planning a similar fate for them. Rumors are rampant that the Japanese have hidden air strips in the alfalfa fields of Pomona, that Japanese Zeroes have been sighted over the Grand Canyon, and that . the waters off Catalina Island are virtliallv nVPrflnvL'inO onnmti J ? "?? * V.I1VI1IJ I submarines. As Spielberg and seripters Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale would have us believe, however, there is, in reality, only one Japanese submarine in American I waters and it's lost somewhere ! along the Oregon coast, searching j for Hollywood. No clear story line ever develops from this premise, as Spielberg and Co. are content just to present us with dozens of sketches, some related and some not, about the effects such a false alarm can have on otherwise normal people. About three out of every four sketches work and those that don't fail not because of the writing, but because of the actors involved. As a demented fighter pilot, John Belushi rages out of control in his every scene, and if ham is vn?r dish, you can feast on Warren Oates as a paranoid army colonel. Tim Matheson and Nancy Allen| mug shamelessly in their roles as a horny Air Corps officer and a military secretary who gets passionate only when she leaves t big budc the ground. Treat Willi IlUK 9U!iin proves he has the wrong first name as a sadistic corporal. The rest of the cast, including Dan Aykroyd as a motor pool sergeant, Ned Beatty and Lorraine Gary as a married couple who destroy their house while trying to destroy a submarine, Robert Stack a tformtvjl \uhn crmnHc mnef nf MU u ^VIIVI Ul TT IIV/ opviiuo * 1 IViO I VI the movie crying through a screening of Walt Disney's Dumbo, and Christopher Lee and Toshiro Mifune as a Nazi officer and the commander of the Japanese sub, are fine and funny. Slim Pickins and Wendy Jo Sperber are outstanding in their respective cameo roles as a patriotic lumberjack who is captured by the Japanese and force-fed prune juice (so as to return the compass he swallowed) ana a tubby teenager who has the hots for anything in a uniform, but who would rather have someone really mean (whom she finds in Williams' character). Technically, 1941 is a masterpiece. William F raker's cinematography is beautiful, using the bohemian s~~ i rnnrvk i/-r ^LtHKHINLt SALE < sweaters, blouses i s~\ is f r X-J A /-\ ^ r. ^ ? 407o-b07o off 2736 Devine St. Cola, S.C... 256 I3PINIONA TED ? f" f fll piM i \ BPu Ifeli 2 mm ^ ^ . . . write a leLLer Lo the ecM.cjr. '| MHBflBB?MP?iCTHC? ^HKn i mM M. AMnHSawB 11 :ta 11? kMagBWSMBMia i ^ :. .. ja . . ? ----- - jet bomb ^J^iolKorrf'e nf o/\lnnfn/"J o u autuuu n. vi ocicv-icu overexposures to create an almost ethereal milieu for the cast's lunatic escapades to take place in. Production designer Dean Mitzner has outdone himself with the movie's elaborate sets, and the special effects ? including a giant Ferris wheel that breaks free from its supports and rolls into the ocean ? by A.D. Flowers are breathtaking. John Williams' score is the best U ~ J ? * ' iiiuig ne s uune since ^pieiuerg s Jaws, though I doubt 1941's theme song will make a successful single release as the Jaws theme did. This is Spielberg's fourth theatrical film (in addition to Jaws, his previous films are The Sugarland Express, a car chase melodrama starring Goldie Hawn, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, one of the 1970's best sciencefiction pictures. That he has succeeded in four dramatically different areas proves that he is a master of the medium. It will be interesting to see what he chooses for his next project, and what the results of that choice will be. -0629 . . Visa, Etc.. . 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