1941

Contrary to what you may have heard, it was not a commercial flop. The budget was $35,000,000. The world box office was $92,455,742. No flop even by Hollywood studio bookkeeping. The thing was, it just wasn’t a mega-blockbuster like his previous two movies. However, it is true that it ran way over time and budget, and Spielberg himself admits that it was a case of hubris on his part. Almost thirty minutes were cut for its initial release, and have been restored on the version I saw this time. Most of the cuts had to do with character development.

Stanley Kubrick was a friend of Spielberg, and had this rather odd comment about it: “It’s a masterpiece. But it’s not funny.” Not funny? One of the biggest knockabout comedies ever made, not funny? But I’ve been thinking about it, and I see what he meant. I watched it and can’t recall laughing out loud a single time. I smiled a lot, there are some very clever references and visual treats.

But the thing is so massive it just rolls over you. One scene after another, harmless movie destruction on the scale of Pearl Harbor itself, paced relentlessly. It’s like they kept coming up with new stuff to add into the mix, and no one had the heart to cut any of it. You haven’t had enough visual action with the two planes flying up and down Hollywood Boulevard? (Which seems to have stretched to about a hundred miles long.) Well, then we’ll drive a tank through a huge paint factory. Then we’ll roll a giant Ferris wheel down a pier and into the ocean, followed by a two-story house falling off a cliff. No CGI here, friends. That was an actual house. For the rest of it, the real artists in this film were the model-makers. They did an incredible job.

Since its release the film has become a cult favorite, and has been re-evaluated by a lot of people who called it a stinker back then. For myself, I always thought it got kind of a raw deal. It’s not a great film by any means, but I had fun watching it the first time, and this time, too.