The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, January 21, 1980, Page Page 10, Image 10
'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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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