“Too outrageous for everyone”: Steven Spielberg’s first crime against cinema was almost even more offensive
Feel free to disagree, but there’s arguably no such thing as a director with a perfect filmography. Many directors have gone on some seminal multi-film runs, though, and Steven Spielberg was so close to joining them until he committed his first crime against cinema.
The chances of making two great movies, if not outright classics, in a row are remarkably slim, and doing it for any longer than that edges closer toward the impossible. It’s entirely doable, but Spielberg shot himself in the foot when he dropped a clanger in the middle of what was almost a near-perfect streak.
Sandwiched in between Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, 1941 sticks out like a sore thumb. With the benefit of hindsight, Spielberg confessed that he’d let his ego get the best of him, and while operating under the impression that he could do no wrong, he discovered that wasn’t the case.
It wasn’t a flop, but it was a nightmare. The production was beset by issues, and the alarm bells were ringing before shooting had even started when John Wayne turned down a role and sternly informed the directorial wunderkind that he shouldn’t be wasting his time on making something so offensively un-American.
Over four and a half decades after its release, 1941 is still one of the worst movies Spielberg has ever made, as well as one that he’s vocally regretted on numerous occasions. It couldn’t have turned out much worse, but it almost did, with co-writer Robert Zemeckis pitching an ending that would have ended the film on a dark, dour, cynical, and altogether disrespectful note.
As things stand, the picture concludes with the panic over a potential Japanese invasion, causing Ned Beatty’s Ward Douglas to destroy his own house with an anti-aircraft gun, while the Japanese sub returns fire and sends a Ferris wheel into the ocean, with a tank ending up in the ocean after a pier is struck.
It sums up the chaotic, farcical nature of the movie, and not a single eyebrow was raised when Spielberg acknowledged in the aftermath that, “I didn’t really have a vision for 1941.” He even suggested that it might have turned out better had Zemeckis directed it himself, with the eventual Back to the Future helmer surmising his original script as “very dark and very cynical.”
How dark and cynical? He fought for an ending that would have seen Bobby Di Cicco’s Wally Stephens compensating for his loss in the jitterbug dance contest at the Crystal Ballroom by ending up as the bombardier on the Enola Gay, who’d work through his frustration by dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
Unsurprisingly, Zemeckis said that it was “too outrageous for everyone,” and no matter how hard he tried to change their minds, “no one would listen to me.” As if 1941 wasn’t bad enough already, it almost ended on the sourest note by turning Hiroshima into a gag.
