Why "1941" is one of my 20 all-time favorite films

Rating: 10/10 (30 August 2007)

Here's the short list: it has a lot of epic-scale slapstick humor; it sounds great; it looks great; and I greatly admire Steven Spielberg for doing a comedy instead of his run-of-the-mill fare (and just in time... with "CE3K," he really lost his touch).
Here's the long list.
With a mammoth cast, a few characters are going to get lost somewhere in the shuffle. Thank heavens Spielberg knew which ones were the right ones to spend less time on-- for example, the shtick with Madman Maddox would have grown very repetitious, given time. I think people's complaints about cast members like Bobby DiCicco, Nancy Allen, and Lorraine Gary are totally unfounded. After all, DiCicco is really the main character of the film, and yet he doesn't even get top billing (try finding his name, say, on a DVD box) in favor of Belushi and Aykroyd, who are terrific in the movie. But even they are considered as "gone to waste" here, for no reason whatsoever-- Belushi's Wild Bill Kelso is one of the best maniacs in cinematic history, and Aykroyd is playing a man named Sgt. Frank Tree (need I say more?).
Thanks to John Williams' stirring musical score (one of his best and most underrated works) and William A. Fraker's breathtaking cinematography, the film achieves a feel of real substance and grandeur. Throw in a sexually aggressive USO girl (the late and marvelous Wendie Jo Sperber), a whiny Nazi (Christopher Lee), a redneck lumberjack named Hollis Wood (Slim Pickens), and a "Dumbo"-loving general (Robert Stack)-- not to mention a spectacular dance scene that morphs into one of the greatest spectacles ever-- and you've got yourself one doozy of a movie.
If people don't like this movie, it's because it's different more than anything else. This is one of the best movies of all time, and it would be nice if more people could realize that. A word to the wise: watch this in widescreen and uncut. Then, when you're done, if you're using the Collector's Edition DVD, go back and watch with the isolated music score. It's terrific... all of it.