A last hurrah of movie comedy rather than the final nail in its coffin

Rating: 8/10 (11 October 2008)

Whilst I suspect Stanley Kramer would like to have made "Schindler's List"( I hope against hope he would at least have retained the original title),he already made "1941",but he called it "It's a mad,mad,mad,mad world".There are those perverse moviegoers who consider it his best and most human work and I am not about to argue with them.Similarly with Mr Spielberg;he too makes "worthy" films,films about Middle America,socially - conscious films,good heavens he might even be the new Stanley Kramer - now there's a thought.But,apart from Elliot's mommy in "E.T" I have never believed in or loved any of his characters,his humans lacked the stuff of humanity. In "1941",however,every gloriously loopy, lovable,eccentric and downright demented aspect of the human psyche is given full rein.There are "hommages" to more movies than you can shake a stick at,including some of his own,the military,be it Japanese,German or U.S. is guyed affectionately.To suggest,as some have,that the movie is racist is absolute nonsense.Mr Spielberg takes the p*ss out of everybody . On its release,many watched it po - faced,disappointed that it was "only" a comedy,as if comedy was beneath a man of his stature.To make comedy that is funny is no laughing matter. In "1941" you can see echoes of Chaplin,Keaton,Mr Laurel and Mr Hardy, The Marx Brothers and the more physical humour of The Three Stooges,in fact all the great movie comics that so influenced early Cinema;Mr Spielberg cannot be faulted on his Movie History. It's failure at the Box - Office brought to an end the era of big budget retro - comedies that had been very popular in the 1970s.Now the word "comedy" is synonymous with foul - mouthed rant and we can look back on 1979 as an age of relative innocence and "1941" as the last misunderstood hurrah of the genuinely funny movie rather than the last nail in its coffin.