1941
What is funny? Thatâs a question that can be answered differently by almost any viewer on the planet. Some would say it is watching two people having a semi witty conversation about everyday mundane things ala Seinfeld. Others would say that itâs humor that crosses racial or ethnic boundaries in the form of jokes and / or stereotypes. And still others would maintain that itâs watching grown men like Pee Wee Herman jump around and act like a 5 year old on TV. Really the question of what is funny is one that can never be answered definitively, and thus the same applies to the genre of comedy in cinema. Whereas some films seem to hit a universal chord of making people laugh, others remain divisive to this day with its detractors openly saying that there was nothing really funny about a given film, while still others will vehemently defend it on the basis that THEY think that itâs one of the most hysterical that theyâve ever seen. Which brings us to the legend of Steven Spielberg, a director who had struck gold early on in his career whom while finishing up his most âpersonalâ film to date (Close Encounters Of The Third Kind), was handed a comedy script written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale which utilized a take no prisoners, anything goes approach to the story at hand as though they themselves wanted to take Hollywood itself by storm (which they eventually did). In turn, the insane nature of the multi character screenplay itself caused to grow within Spielberg a virtual obsession to actually get this movie made with him as the director, using nearly all of his clout and goodwill in the business at that time to be able to do so. Perhaps the young wunderkind saw within it a literal bacchanalia of an all out comic mayhem storyline that could be his own version of Itâs A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, with an all star cast, big budget, first class production values, and a litany of slapstick destruction and anarchy second to none. And when the film was released in 1979, it quite literally was, but the problem for many laid with the premise itself, as it depicted California in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, where it was heavily believed by many that the Axis powers would follow up on that quickly with an attack on The West Coast, as the humor was being derived from witnessing how both the fear and paranoia in LA and elsewhere would descend into absolute chaos and craziness, much of it caused by us mistaking each other for the enemy (with many events as written being derived by real life incidents at the time) while always showing a wry irony when it comes to the nature of American jingoism and patriotism. And thus is where the real problems came, as many people (including John Wayne and Charlton Heston who both turned down roles in the film) deemed the movie to be both unpatriotic as well as disrespectful to American servicemen at the time for showing them to be such buffoons that they would literally burn down Los Angeles out of little more than plain old paranoia while the enemy wouldnât even have to really lift a finger. It is true that the vast majority of the characters in the story are purposely written to be complete idiots for comic effect, but at least the film plays fair and depicts most of the crew of the Japanese sub hovering off The West Coast in the same way, which is where the film begins as Spielberg works in some neat self parody of his own Jaws, having the original actress from the opening scene (Susan Backlinie) once again go skinny dipping only this time to encounter a Japanese submarine captained by none other than Toshiro Mifune, the perfect choice for the role it being he is widely considered to be the greatest Japanese actor in history. Also on board is an observing Nazi captain played by Christopher Lee, hilariously clashing with Mifune over strategy and drawing the dislike of the rest of the crew, most notably a little guy who continuously blurts out âHollywood!â over the prospect of attacking the place where dreams really do come true, like when he sees the naked Backlinie still clinging to the pole. Perhaps what makes the cast here so amazing is that each actor or actress literally represents at least one major movie, genre, and / or director of the mid to late 70s (with actual directors like Sam Fuller and John Landis also putting in interesting cameos here) as we follow various characters in the region and witness the way that they deal with the perceived crisis, from Ned Beatty (Superman, Network) as the typical upright husband and family man told that his coastline home is now considered a strategic point and thus is given a high powered gun on his property that he canât wait to use to engage the enemy with, much to his wifeâs (Lorraine Gary, Jaws) chagrin, to Dan Aykroyd (SNL, Blues Brothers) as the tank Sergeant leading his crew of John Candy (SCTV), Frank McRae (Used Cars), Walter Olkewicz, and even a young Mickey Rourke (with two lines), first seen irresponsibly giving Beatty detailed instructions on how to use the weapon that he is not trained to handle, and later on giving a rousing speech to inspire people to band together and fight even invoking Mickey Mouseâs name in doing so, before getting conked on the head five minutes later and spending the rest of the movie babbling like an idiot, Murray Hamilton (Mayor From Jaws) as the government assigned coastal lookout on the Santa Monica Pier who is not only afraid of heights but is told that he will be positioned on top of the very large ferris wheel alongside the most annoying partner (Eddie Deezen, Grease) that they could find for him, so much so that the guy even brings his own ventriloquistâs dummy along with him(!), Tim Matheson (Animal House) as the Generalâs aide who could care less about the hectic goings on around him but does care very much about scoring with the sultry hot new secretary (Nancy Allen, Carrie, Dressed To Kill) whoâs just been assigned, but since she wonât go all the way unless sheâs up in an airplane, Matheson endeavors to find a plane for the two of them to go up in throughout the whole movie so that he can get things done with her, Warren Oates (Sam Peckinpah Movies, Various) as a crazy Colonel stationed with his men in the middle of nowhere who keeps asking for more weapons and troop reinforcements even though the only things that are actually surrounding him are just crickets, Robert Stack (Airplane!) as the General in charge of defending Southern California who is so completely disgusted by the lunacy he sees around him that he just wants to crawl into the local movie theatre to watch Dumbo and to be left alone, Treat Williams as the mean and nasty Corporal so obsessed with a local girl (Dianne Kay) that he chases her around before dancing the jitterbug with her in such a brutal way that it resembles the poor girl getting mauled by a bear, all while her own best friend (Wendie Jo Sperber, I Wanna Hold Your Hand) is actually so madly in love with the bastard that she looks for every opportunity to throw herself at him instead, and best of all, we have John Belushi himself embodying the true spirit of the film as the crazed pilot flying his own (privately owned?) fighter plane as he tools around the area looking for any enemy Japanese forces to engage in a dogfight with. Unfortunately, with any large cast there is a misstep here and there, and in the best tradition of Caddyshackâs Danny Noonan we get just that with our nominal âleadâ role here, played by the never quite made it in his career actor Bobby DiCicco as Wally, a smarmy, unlikable schmuck so blasĂ© about current events that he actually wears a Pearl Harbor vacation shirt (!) in public and becomes the main rival to Williams over the Kay character while also getting himself integrated with the other storylines as the movie goes on, but is still such an obvious little asshole that we almost want to root for the near bestial Treat Williams character to give him what heâs got coming to him, especially with DiCiccoâs very flip attitude towards any sort of men in uniform even as the script attempts to contrive to try and make him the âheroâ of sorts towards the end, although in all fairness, someone on the creative side saw the obvious unlikability of the character (and DiCicco) and saw to it that he did indeed get his ass kicked and shit pushed in at a number of points in the film. The film also features roles (mostly cameos) for luminaries such as Elisha Cook Jr., Slim Pickens stealing the movie with his extended sequence of being captured by The Japanese, Lionel Stander, Dub Taylor, Joe Flaherty, David L. Lander and Michael McKean, Dick Miller, Sydney Lassick, Penny Marshall, and even James Caan (Godfather) being thrown in as an extra at one point. While some might detect a rather unhealthy texture of political incorrectness at certain points (the John Candy character is written as a racist who clashes with the black McRae), there really are just so many awesome setpieces throughout that itâs hard to truly hate something this massively epic and funny, including the aforementioned Pickens being held captive by Mifuneâs people bit, showing the Japanese sailors to pretty much be idiots in their own right who canât even handle a simple compass, but then thereâs the amazing Jitterbug Dance Off / Fight Sequence, a succession of dazzling choreography and (Oscar nominated) camerawork which starts off with Williams stalking DiCicco and Kay around and amongst the dance floor before turning into an all out brawl with sailors and soldiers each taking up their sides and going at it tooth and nail. Then there are the bits which seem a bit unusual if they werenât also so eerily accurate, like the USO girls being told to only dance with and date servicemen from now on as their âcontributionâ to the war effort, along with Beatty counseling Kay (his daughter) to do the same, but then there is the bit where Beattyâs three smartass little sons set up their sister and her friend to fall into a 6 foot trench, with one of the kids even coldly saying to them âYou dug your own grave nowâ. Or when the two craziest characters in the movie (Belushi and Oates) finally cross paths and in so doing immediately see each other as kindred spirits, and of course the really BIG parts, most awesomely the ferris wheel getting blasted by the sub and rolling down the pier into the water, or Beatty blasting away at the sub with his own big gun and destroying his own home in the process. And when Belushi finally gets his dogfight with the first plane that he finds in the air over Los Angeles, that being Matheson and Allen trying to get it on with each other before crazy Belushi comes calling. Naturally not everything here is going to work for everybody, some less than others, but Spielberg does maintain an incredibly quick, breezy pace for 2 and a half hours, and the boredom level never seems to set in whether it be because of loud explosions or offbeat dialogue to hold your attention. Many consider this to be a failure of Spielbergâs, but one wonders just why that is, as it actually was a moderate box office success but just didnât generate either Jaws or Close Encounters sized numbers (and was never going to), but as far as being Big Steveâs one major attempt to do a balls out, budget be damned comedy of epic proportions, he certainly succeeded in creating yet another classic in what will always be thought of as being the most subjective of cinema genresâŠ
9/10