After Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Steven Spielberg could make pretty much anything he wanted. In a positive and negative sense. The result was the war comedy 1941 – Where do you go to Hollywood?, which was released in cinemas in 1979 and as one of the rare Spielberg disasters applies. You can catch up on the film tonight.
The comedy drew John Wayne’s displeasure with its vision of war
The year is 1941: a few days after the attack on Pearl Harbor A Japanese Navy submarine appears off the coast of California. The target is Hollywood. This basic idea isn’t that far removed from the reality of the Pacific War, but realism wasn’t interested in Spielberg and his team. Because what follows is a turbulent comedy full of incompetent officers, grotesque exaggerations and absurd gags. This is promised by the casting of the two Blues Brothers John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd in the main roles.
For the role of the real-life Major General Joseph W. Stilwell, however, they were looking for a seasoned star with military authority. The choice was the Duke himself, John Wayne. Spielberg told Entertainment Weekly in 2011 how that went:
He was very curious, so I sent him the script. The next day he called me and said, he thinks it’s a very un-American film and I shouldn’t waste my time on 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.’
In the end the role went to Robert Stack (To Be or Not to Be).
So you can watch the Spielberg film on TV tonight
1941 – Where is Hollywood? airs tonight on Pluto TV. The free, advertising-financed provider has our Moviepilot TV channel. Only films that do well in the Moviepilot community are shown here. With 6.4 out of 10 points and over 646 reviews, the comedy is one of them – despite its bad reputation.
You can watch the film today, October 28th, from 8:07 p.m. on the live channel Moviepilot TV with Pluto TV watch, without a subscription or additional costs. You can use Pluto TV via the app on your television or via stream, directly here at Moviepilot.
Watch 1941 – Where is Hollywood? streamed here today from 8:07 p.m.:
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1941 received poor reviews but was hugely important for Spielberg
So Spielberg dared to make the “un-American film”, exceeded the budget and the shooting days and experienced – if not shipwreck – at least one of the bigger setbacks of his career. 1941 was not a financial failure, but received subpar reviews. In fact, the fireworks of gags can quickly get on your nerves and afterward you will hardly be mistaken for Spielberg as a born comedy director.
On the other hand, the film looks surprisingly beautiful with its matte drawings and miniature effects, especially for a comedy. It’s worth turning on just to marvel at the effort. For Spielberg himself, the film was a momentous experience, as he revealed in a DGA interview in 2006:
I had a feeling that whatever I captured on film would be successful […]. It was my longest shooting schedule, and on 1941 I went even further over the schedule than on Jaws. […] And I learned the greatest lesson of my career, just from the experience of 1941, and when I made Raiders of the Lost Ark, my next film, I was humbled. Every single shot was storyboarded. I was 14 days behind schedule.