1941 is a 1979 American war comedy film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale.

Co-writer Gale stated the plot is loosely based on what has come to be known as the Great Los Angeles Air Raid of 1942, as well as the bombardment of the Ellwood oil refinery, near Santa Barbara, by a Japanese submarine.

It received belated popularity after an expanded version aired on ABC in the 1980s, with subsequent television broadcasts and home video reissues, raising it to cult status.

[3] On Saturday, December 13, 1941, at 7:01 a.m. (six days after the attack on Pearl Harbor), an Imperial Japanese Navy submarine, commanded by Akiro Mitamura and carrying Kriegsmarine officer Wolfgang von Kleinschmidt, surfaces off the Californian coast.

Later that morning, a 10th Armored Division M3 Lee tank crew, consisting of Sergeant Frank Tree, Corporal Chuck Sitarski, and Privates Foley, Reese, and Henshaw, are having breakfast at Malcolmb’s Café, where dishwasher Wally Stephens and his friend, fry cook Dennis DeSoto, work.

As United States Army Air Forces Captain Wild Bill Kelso chaotically searches for Japanese forces in his Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, Major General Joseph W. Stilwell holds a press conference at Daugherty Field in Long Beach, where his aide, Captain Loomis Birkhead, meets his old flame Donna Stratton, Stilwell's new secretary.

Aware that she is sexually aroused by airplanes, Birkhead lures her into the cockpit of a B-17 bomber and unsuccessfully attempts to seduce her; he accidentally releases a bomb, which collides with the grandstand and explodes, though Stilwell and the crowd escape unhurt.

At the Santa Monica oceanside home of her parents Ward and Joan, Betty and her friend Maxine Dexheimer, who have just become USO hostesses, tell Wally that servicemen are now the only male patrons allowed in the Ballroom.

As Wally hides in the garage from Ward, Tree arrives with his team and orders an anti-aircraft battery to be installed in the front yard.

Ward's neighbor, Angelo Scioli of the Ground Observer Corps, installs his friends Claude Crumm and Herb Kaziminsky in the Ferris wheel at the Ocean Front Amusement Park to scout for enemy aircraft.

Birkhead determinedly drives Donna to the 501st Bomb Disbursement Unit in Barstow, where the mentally unstable Colonel "Mad Man" Maddox lends them a plane.

Wally assumes command of the tank once Tree is accidentally incapacitated, and rescues Betty from Sitarski before heading for the pier with Dennis and the tankers, followed by Kelso on a motorcycle.

Ward symbolically nails a wreath to his front door, causing his unstable house to collapse down the hillside.

After development of the film transferred from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) to Universal Pictures, executives insisted that the title be changed to Rising Sun to avoid the use of the derogatory term "Jap."

The characters of Claude Crumm and Herb Kaziminsky were originally written with The Honeymooners co-stars Jackie Gleason and Art Carney in mind.

[4] After reading the script, Wayne decided not to participate due to ill health, but also urged Spielberg not to pursue the project, as both he and Heston felt the film was unpatriotic.

It was a real accident and Belushi was hospitalized for several days, but Spielberg left the shot in the movie as it fit Kelso's eccentric character.

[7] During the USO riot scene, when a military police officer is tossed into the window of a restaurant from the ladder of a fire engine, Belushi is seen eating spaghetti, in makeup to resemble Marlon Brando in The Godfather, whom he famously parodied in a sketch on Saturday Night Live.

[13][N 1] The advance teaser trailer for 1941, directed by the film's executive producer/co-story writer John Milius, featured narration by Aykroyd as Belushi's character Kelso (here erroneously named "Wild Wayne" and not "Wild Bill"), after landing his plane, gives the viewers a pep-talk encouraging them to join the United States Armed Forces, lest they find one morning that the country has been taken over (for instance, "the street signs will be written in Japanese!").

In addition, the score includes a sound-alike version of Glenn Miller's "In the Mood", and two original 1940s recordings by The Andrews Sisters, "Daddy" and "Down by the Ohio".

The LaserDisc and DVD versions of the film have isolated music channels with additional cues not heard on the first soundtrack album.

This set also included an isolated music score, three theatrical trailers, deleted scenes, photo galleries, and reviews of the movie.

On October 14, 2014, Universal Studios Home Entertainment released 1941 on Blu-ray as part of their Steven Spielberg's Director's Collection box set.

"[29] Charles Champlin, reviewing for the Los Angeles Times, commented "If 1941 is angering (and you may well suspect that it is), it is because the film seems merely an expensive indulgence, begat by those who know how to say it, if only they had something to say.

The characters are so crudely drawn that the film seems to have no human base whatsoever...the people in it are unremittingly foolish, and the physical comedy quickly degenerates into childish destructiveness.

Artificial Intelligence, writing that he was impressed by the virtuosity of 1941 and argued that its "honest mean-spiritedness and teenage irreverence" struck him as "closer to Spielberg's soul" than more popular and celebrated works like E.T.

"[36] In a 1990 interview with British film pundit Barry Norman, Spielberg admitted that the mixed reception to 1941 was one of the biggest lessons of his career, citing personal arrogance that had gotten in the way after the runaway success of Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The critical consensus reads, "Steven Spielberg's attempt at screwball comedy collapses under a glut of ideas, confusing an unwieldy scope for a commensurate amount of guffaws.