Steven Spielberg’s first film about World War II couldn’t be less like his better known “Schindler’s List’’ and “Saving Private Ryan.’’ An expensive box-office disappointment when released in December 1979, “1941’’ is an epic farce about jittery Southern Californians panicked over the threat of a Japanese invasion, (very) loosely inspired by real-life events.
Starring John Belushi as a gonzo flyer and fellow “Saturday Night Live’’ castmate Dan Aykroyd as a gung-ho tank commander, this cult favorite makes its Blu-ray debut in a pair of lovingly-restored versions (the original theatrical cut and a half-hour-longer edition Spielberg originally prepared for TV) as part of the just-out “Steven Spielberg Director’s Collection.’’
As detailed in an exhaustive, feature-length documentary dating back to its Laserdisc edition, “1941’’ was the idea of novice screenwriters Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale — who later wrote the Spielberg-produced “Back to the Future’’ trilogy, directed by Zemeckis. They were inspired by a pair of historical incidents in late 1941: an attempt by a Japanese submarine to shell an oil refinery off the California coast, and the so-called Battle of Los Angeles, in which military anti-aircraft guns fired for a full hour at a weather balloon that had been mistaken for a Japanese bomber.
The project was originally developed for director John Milius — who gets a writing and executive producer credit — and grew to include an enormous musical sequence loosely inspired by another historical incident, Los Angeles’s Zoo Suit Riots of 1943.
When Milius decided to instead direct his surfing epic “Big Wedneday,’’ Spielberg impulsively took on “1941’’ as a follow-up to his enormously successful “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.’’
Modeled on Stanley Kramer’s vastly more successful “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,’’ the film’s enormous cast includes Christopher Lee and Toshiro Mifune as German and Japanese officers who squabble aboard a Japanese sub that ends up torpedoing an amusement pier that Mifune mistakes for Hollywood.
Robert Stack — in a role turned down by John Wayne, who urged Spielberg not to make “1941’’ because it was disrespectful toward the American military — plays real-life General Joseph Stilwell, the film’s sole voice of sanity, who steps out of a showing of Disney’s “Pinocchio’’ into an evening of chaos unfolding on Hollywood Boulevard.
Ned Beatty, Treat Williams, Tim Matheson, Nancy Allen, Slim Pickens, John Candy, Penny Marshall and many, many other familiar faces turn up, including “Jaws’’ veterans Murray Hamilton (paired with comic Eddie Deezen and his ventriloquist’s dummy) and Susan Backlinie, a swimmer who spoofs the opening of the earlier film in the first sequence of “1941.’’
Spielberg’s movie features jaw-dropping pre-digital special effects, including a pair of planes flying below the rooftops on Hollywood Boulevard — and a Ferris wheel rolling off a pier into the ocean after it’s been torpedoed.
“1941’’ got a rocky critical reception in 1979 because it’s way, way over the top — Spielberg literally throws in the kitchen sink at the climax — but that’s precisely why I love this wacky movie, an anomaly in Spielberg’s normally tightly-controlled film universe.
The eight-disc “Steven Spielberg Director’s Collection’’ also includes the Blu-ray debuts of his justly famous TV-movie thriller “Duel’’ (1972); Spielberg’s still-impressive feature debut, “The Sugarland Express’’ (1974), with Goldie Hawn’s best performance ever as a woman who busts her husband out of prison and kidnaps a state trooper to try to get her daughter back; and his ill-fated “Always’’ (1989), an updated remake of the World War II romance “A Guy Named Joe’’ (1943) with Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter, Brad Johnson and Audrey Hepburn in roles previously filled by Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunne, Van Johnson and Lionel Barrymore.
Four Spielberg titles that have previously been available on Blu-ray are also included in this pricey set: “Jaws,’’ [https://nypost.com/2012/07/31/dvd-extra-jaws-with-bite-a-grand-illusion-digital-restorations-3-d-conversions-for-classics/] “E.T.: The Extraterrestrial,’’ “Jurassic Park” and “The Lost World: Jurassic Park.’’
Coming attractions: A superb new 4K transfer of Howard Hawks’ “Only Angels Have Wings’’ (1939) will be utilized for the film’s Blu-ray debut on Nov. 25 from the TCM Vault Collection. Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Rita Hayworth and Richard Barthelmess star in this 75-year-old classic.
The screwball classic “The Palm Beach Story’’’ (1942) with Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Rudy Vallée and Mary Astor becomes the first Preston Sturges title to get a Region 1 Blu-ray release on Jan. 20, thanks to the Criterion Collection.
Universal’s sporadic manufacture-on-demand DVD program, the Universal Vault Series, has been stepping up its output of late. Recent new-to-DVD titles include Victor Halperin’s “Supernatural’’ (1933) starring Carole Lombard and Randolph Scott; Kurt Neumann’s “Secret of the Blue Room’’ (1933) with Lionel Atwill and Gloria Stuart; Stuart Walker’s “The Mystery of Edwin Drood’’ (1935) with Claude Rains; “The Mystery of Marie Roget’’ (1942) with Patric Knowles and Maria Montez; and “Gypsy Wildcat’’ (1944) with Montez and Jon Hall.
The Universal Vault Series has also disgorged a couple of titles from the not-on-DVD lists I published earlier this year — Mitchell Leisen’s “Frenchman’s Creek’’ (1944) starring Joan Fontaine and Basil Rathbone; and Robert Mulligan’s “The Great Imposter’’ (1961) with Tony Curtis and Karl Malden.
Another MOD program, the Fox Cinema Archive, has released Herbert Leeds’ “Just Off Broadway’’ (1942), an installment of the Michael Shayne detective series with Lloyd Nolan; and an even more obscure film from that year, Harold Schuster’s “On the Sunny Side’’ (1942), a family comedy starring Roddy McDowell and Jane Darwell.