1941 is a 1979 American war comedy film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale. The film stars an ensemble cast including Dan Aykroyd, Ned Beatty, John Belushi, John Candy, Christopher Lee, Tim Matheson, Toshiro Mifune, Robert Stack, Nancy Allen, and Mickey Rourke in his film debut. The story involves a panic in the Los Angeles area after the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.
Co-writer Gale stated the plot is loosely based on what has come to be known as the Great Los Angeles Air Raid of 1942, as well as the bombardment of the Ellwood oil refinery, near Santa Barbara, by a Japanese submarine. Many other events in the film were based on real incidents, including the Zoot Suit Riots and an incident in which the U.S. Army placed an anti-aircraft gun in a homeowner's yard on the Maine coast.
1941 premiered at the Cinerama Dome on December 13, 1979 and was released on December 14, 1979 by Universal Pictures in North America and by Columbia Pictures in other territories. The film received mixed reviews and was not as financially successful as many of Spielberg's other films, but was still a moderate box office success, grossing $94.9 million against a $35 million budget. It received belated popularity after an expanded version aired on ABC in the 1980s, with subsequent television broadcasts and home video reissues, raising it to cult status.
Plot Six days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, an Imperial Japanese Navy submarine, commanded by Akiro Mitamura and carrying Kriegsmarine officer Wolfgang von Kleinschmidt, surfaces off the Californian coast. Wanting to destroy something "honorable", Mitamura decides to target Hollywood. Later that morning, a 10th Armored Division M3 Lee tank crew, consisting of Sergeant Frank Tree, Corporal Chuck Sitarski, and Privates Foley, Reese, and Henshaw, are having breakfast at Malcolmb's Café, where dishwasher Wally Stephens and his friend, fry cook Dennis DeSoto, work. Wally plans to enter a dance contest at the Crystal Ballroom that evening with his girlfriend, Betty Douglas. The extremely short-tempered Sitarski deliberately trips him, instigating an angry scuffle. Once the soldiers depart, Wally and Dennis are fired.
As United States Army Air Forces Captain Wild Bill Kelso chaotically searches for Japanese forces in his Curtiss P-40, Major General Joseph W. Stilwell holds a press conference at Daugherty Field in Long Beach, where his aide, Captain Loomis Birkhead, meets his old flame Donna Stratton, Stilwell's new secretary. Aware that she is sexually aroused by airplanes, Birkhead coaxes her into the cockpit of a B-17 bomber. As he unsuccessfully attempts to seduce her he accidentally releases a bomb, which collides with the grandstand and explodes. Stilwell and the crowd escape unhurt.
At the oceanside home of Ward and Joan Douglas in Santa Monica, Betty and her friend Maxine Dexheimer, who have just become USO hostesses, tell Wally that only servicemen are now allowed in the Ballroom. As Wally hides in the garage from Ward, Sgt. Tree arrives with his team and informs the Douglases that an anti-aircraft gun will be installed in their front yard. Wally falls from his hiding spot while Sitarski flirts with Betty, and is ejected by the soldiers into a passing garbage truck.
Lumberjack Hollis "Holly" Wood is captured by a landing party from the Japanese submarine. When the crew discovers a small toy compass in Wood's box of caramel-popcorn, he swallows it. Eager to replace their malfunctioning ship's compass, the Japanese force Wood to drink prune juice to induce the passing of the compass. Wood manages to cause chaos on the submarine and successfully escape.
Ward's neighbor, Angelo Scioli of the Ground Observer Corps, installs his friends Claude Crumm and Herb Kaziminsky in the Ferris wheel at the Ocean Front Amusement Park to scout for enemy aircraft. While General Stilwell attends a screening of Dumbo at a theater in Hollywood, Birkhead drives Donna to the 501st Bomb Disbursement Unit in Barstow, where the mentally unstable Colonel "Mad Man" Maddox lends them a plane. Finally aroused, Donna begins to ravish Birkhead during the flight.
Sitarski drags Betty into the USO dance at the Crystal Ballroom, but she reunites with a disguised Wally to win the Jitterbug contest. Enraged, Sitarski punches Wally, igniting a brawl between soldiers, sailors and zoot suiters. Tree and his team breakup the melee just before anti-aircraft batteries open fire on the unarmed plane carrying Birkhead and Donna. Kelso pursues the plane, and shoots it down, causing it to crash into the La Brea Tar Pits. Claude and Herb then mistake Kelso's passing P-40 for a Japanese Zero and begin firing. Kelso is hit and lands the stricken plane on Hollywood Boulevard. Stilwell arrives and Kelso informs him about the Japanese submarine he spotted off the pier near the amusement park. Wally, wearing sergeant stripes, takes command of the tank once Tree is accidentally knocked silly, and rescues Betty from Sitarski before heading for the pier with Dennis and the tank crew, pursued by Kelso, Sitarski and Maxine, on a motorcycle.
In Santa Monica, Ward begins firing the anti-aircraft gun at the surfaced submarine, consequently wrecking his entire house in the process. The submarine returns fire, hitting the Ferris wheel, which rolls down the pier and into the ocean. When Kleinschmidt demands they submerge, Mitamura throws him overboard. The tank arrives on the pier and fires at the sub; the sub fires, destroying the pier, sending the tank and crew into the ocean. Kelso, having driven the motorcycle off of the pier, jumps and swims to the sub where he's captured by the Japanese and demands he be taken to Tokyo. Deeming the mission an honorable success, Mitamura departs. The next morning, Stilwell arrives with soldiers at the damaged Douglas residence, where the other protagonists have gathered. Ward symbolically nails a Christmas wreath to his front door, causing the remains of his damaged house to collapse down the hillside. Stilwell, observing the disheveled crowd arguing and fighting, informs Sergeant Tree, "It's going to be a long war."
Cast
Production According to Steven Spielberg's appearance in the documentary Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, Stanley Kubrick suggested that 1941 should have been marketed as a drama rather than a comedy film. The chaos of the events following the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 is summarized by Dan Aykroyd's character Sgt. Tree who repeatedly states, 'If there's one thing I can't stand seeing, it's Americans fighting Americans".
Robert Zemeckis originally pitched the concept to John Milius as a serious depiction of the real-life 1942 Japanese bombardment of Ellwood, California; the subsequent false alarm of a Japanese air raid on Los Angeles; and the 1943 Zoot Suit Riots, titled The Night the Japs Attacked. After development of the film transferred from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) to Universal Pictures, executives insisted that the title be changed to Rising Sun to avoid the use of the derogatory term "Jap". The story became a comedy after Steven Spielberg became involved as director, and the script was rewritten during the production of Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977. The characters of Claude Crumm and Herb Kaziminsky were originally written with The Honeymooners co-stars Jackie Gleason and Art Carney in mind. Hollis P. "Holly" Wood and "Wild Bill" Kelso were originally minor characters before Belushi and Pickens were cast.
1941 is also notable as one of the few American films featuring popular Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune. It is also the only American film in which Mifune used his own voice in speaking Japanese and English. In his previous movies, Mifune's lines were dubbed in English by Paul Frees.
John Wayne, Charlton Heston, and James Stewart were originally offered the role of Major General Joseph Stilwell, with Wayne still considered for a cameo in the film. After reading the script, Wayne decided not to participate due to ill health, but also urged Spielberg not to pursue the project, as both he and Heston felt the film was unpatriotic. Spielberg recalled, "[Wayne] was really curious and so I sent him the script. He called me the next day and said he felt it was a very un-American movie, and I shouldn't waste my time making it. He said, 'You know, that was an important war, and you're making fun of a war that cost thousands of lives at Pearl Harbor. Don't joke about World War II'.""John Wayne - John Wayne Urged Steven Spielberg Not To Make War Comedy." contactmusic.com. 2 December 2011. Retrieved: December 2, 2011. Initially Spielberg wanted Hollywood agent Meyer Mishkin to portray himself, but had to cast Iggie Wolfington because of Screen Actors Guild regulations barring film agents from working as actors.
Susan Backlinie, the first victim in Spielberg's Jaws, appeared as the woman seen swimming nude at the beginning of the film. The gas station that Wild Bill Kelso accidentally blows up early in the film is the same one seen in Spielberg's 1971 television film, Duel, with Lucille Benson appearing as the proprietor in both films. Inadvertent comedic effects ensued when John Belushi, in character as Captain Wild Bill Kelso, unintentionally fell off the wing of his airplane and landed on his head in the scene where Kelso encounters Col. Maddox and his men. It was a real accident and Belushi was hospitalized for several days, but Spielberg left the shot in the movie as it fit Kelso's eccentric character.Erickson, Glenn. "1941 - A giant comedy, only with guns!" DVD Savant, 1999. Retrieved: December 16, 2012.
During the USO riot scene, when a shore patrolman is tossed into the window of a restaurant from the ladder of a fire engine, Belushi is seen eating spaghetti, in makeup to resemble Marlon Brando in The Godfather, whom he famously parodied in a sketch on Saturday Night Live. Belushi told Spielberg he wanted to appear as a second character and the idea struck Spielberg as humorous. At the beginning of the USO riot, one of the uncredited "extras" dressed as a sailor is actor James Caan. Mickey Rourke makes his first screen appearance in the film as Private First Class Reese of Sgt. Tree's tank group.Heard 2006, p. 22.
The M3 tank Lulu Belle (named after a race horse) and fashioned from a mocked-up tractor, paid homage to its forebear in Humphrey Bogart's 1943 movie Sahara where an authentic M3 named Lulubelle was prominently featured.Nelson, Erik. "The Perfect Double Bill:'The Hurt Locker' and Bogart's 1943 'Sahara'." Salon, January 12, 2010.
Renowned modelmaker Greg Jein (best known for his work in the Star Trek franchise) received his second Academy Award for Best Visual Effects nomination for his work on the film; he would later use the hull number "NCC-1941" for the starship USS Bozeman in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Cause and Effect"."First Person: Greg Jein." CBS Entertainment. Retrieved: October 19, 2011. Paul De Rolf choreographed the film.
1941 is dedicated to the memory of Charlsie Bryant, a longtime script supervisor at Universal Studios. She had worked on both Jaws and Close Encounters, and would have reprised those duties with this film had she not unexpectedly died."Review of 1941 (1979)." Time Out, New York.
Special effects The Oscar-winning team of L. B. Abbott and A. D. Flowers were in charge of the special effects on 1941. The film is widely recognized for its Academy Award-nominated special-effects laden progressive action and camera sequences.Culhane 1981, pp. 126–129.
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