1941 (1979)

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

As I watched this movie, I could only think that there were many individuals elements of nascent humor, that may have actually been quite funny, but none of them were in any way linked by even the most incoherent of plot lines. There were many big names in humor, and many scenes that were marvelously executed, but few ended up doing much. What's more, the cinematography was horrible. For those reasons, it was truly a dreadful movie to watch, for you dint feel as if you gained anything from it.

I like funny stupid movies, Dumb and Dumber, Something About Mary, Animal House to name a few. This movie just missed the mark on all the it's jokes. Things that should have been more goofy were too serious (aka Treat Williams as a total rapist psycho, somehow that was supposed to be funny?)I wanted to like this movie since it was Speilberg's first attempt at comedy but it is pretty bad and even though I read the previous reviews and heard all about how it stunk I still gave it a shot. It wasn't worth it. There are other way funnier stupid movies out there to spend your time on. Your not missing anything by not watching this one.

This is an epic comedy that has a lot of good points but unfortunately it's weighed down by how it doesn't really know what it wants to be. Is it a comedic film trying to be dramatic or a drama trying to be comedic? A lot of the content just seems off place here. It's hard to tell what's meant to be taken as a joke. There's some pretty weird slapstick in this movie. You'd think a film based on World War II wouldn't have the disclaimer that any similarities to real people would be included. Well, I guess the story is pure fiction.A lot of the characters just come off as mean in this. They just randomly have soldiers and sailors fight each other. The fights don' even make sense. Still, it's definitely a big nice looking film. It's great to see an all star cast of John Belushi, John Candy, Dan Aykroyd and Christopher Lee in this. They're not at their best, but these are all fine actors. I guess it might be worth it for a quick Christmas watch. There's a lot better and lot worse stuff out there. **1/2

I have a sneaking suspicion that Steven Spielberg must have seen and loved It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World as a sixteen year old kid and resolved that if he became as big a movie name as Stanley Kramer he'd do a film just like it. In 1979 Spielberg succeeded admirably creating a chaotic classic about a very serious time.I doubt we're ever going to be ready for decades for a film like this about the days following the Twin Towers. Those were pretty scary days, especially on the Pacific coast where our fleet with the remarkable exception of the carriers was at the bottom of Pearl Harbor and who really knew where and how many the Japanese were following the attack in Hawaii. It should give you cold chills to think that if it was more than Toshiro Mifune lost submarine with German observer Christopher Lee on it that they would have been met with what we see in 1941. At the time our home defense on the Pacific Coast was commanded by Major General Joseph L. Stillwell known to all as Vinegar Joe. But he could be moved as we see as he takes in a screening of Dumbo which did come out around that time. Like It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World the cast it populated with some of the great comedians and comic players of the time. At some point or other they all intersect in their comic defense of California under attack from the Japanese as surely as the world was under attack from Orson Welles's broadcast of War Of The Worlds.There are a lot of memorable performances where some serious players got to show a comic side and really get unrestrained. One example would be crazy National Guard colonel Warren Oates meeting up with equally crazy would be air ace John Belushi. Slim Pickens saves California by his Faux constipation, he really goes unrestrained. Tim Matheson as Stilwell's aide is as horny as he was in Animal House as he maps out a campaign to nail aviation buff Nancy Allen and winds up midair in a plane he knows not how to fly.Robert Stack plays Vinegar Joe Stilwell the only true character in 1941 and he plays it straight as a string. If he survived this bunch of lunatics, how come he couldn't get Chiang Kai-Shek off his duff and fight those Japanese who were really invading his country? Maybe duty in the Far East was a welcome relief for Stilwell, but not for long.Be eternally grateful that this was NOT the way it was in 1941 and sit back and enjoy.