Storyline
It's been six days since the attack on Pearl Harbor. Panic grips California, supposedly the next target of the Japanese forces. Everywhere in California, people are suffering from war nerves. Chaos erupts all over the state. An Army Air Corps Captain, a civilian with a deranged sense of Nationalism, civilian defenders, and a Motor Pool crew all end up chasing a Japanese sub planning to attack LA.
Directors
Writers
Cast
Mickey Rourke, Dick Miller, Ned Beatty, Christopher Lee, Dan Aykroyd, Treat Williams, Eddie Deezen, David L. Lander, Michael McKean, Nancy Allen, Tim Matheson, Joe Flaherty, John Candy, Elisha Cook Jr., Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Susan Backlinie, Frank McRae, Slim Pickens, James Caan, Lucille Benson, Warren Oates, Patti LuPone, Wendie Jo Sperber, Dub Taylor, J. Patrick McNamara, Lionel Stander, Kerry Sherman, Toshirō Mifune, Audrey Landers, Robert Stack, John Belushi, Bobby Di Cicco, Jordan Brian, Dianne Kay, Perry Lang, Steven Mond, Iggie Wolfington
Trailer
Reviews
70
Billed as a comedy spectacle, Steven Spielberg’s 1941 is long on spectacle, but short on comedy. The Universal-Columbia Pictures co-production is an exceedingly entertaining, fast-moving revision of 1940s war hysteria in Los Angeles spawned by the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and boasts Hollywood’s finest miniature and special effects work seen to date.
50
1941 is loaded with slam-bang sight gags and action, but comedy isn't director Steven Spielberg's forte and the movie isn't nearly as funny as it might have been.
40
1941 is less comic than cumbersome, as much fun as a 40-pound wrist-watch.
40
Newsweek
Spielberg has brought forth a farce that is both relentlessly spectacular and spectacularly unfunny. [17 Dec 1979, p.111]
38
It's not fair to say Steven Spielberg's 1941 lacks "pacing." It's got it, all right, but all at the same pace: The movie relentlessly throws gags at us until we're dizzy. It's an attempt at that most tricky of genres, the blockbuster comedy, and it tries so hard to dazzle us that we want a break.
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