YMMV / 1941 (1979)

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Do Dennis’s twin dates know that he’s only pretending to be a serviceman? In their introductory scene, they seem dismissive of Dennis for not being a soldier (which is what inspires him to dress up as one). However, Dennis talks to Wally about having rented the uniform he’s wearing while the girls seem to be within earshot, and they cheer for Wally (who they presumably know is really a civilian from their encounter outside of the club earlier) during his fight against Stretch.
• Awesome Music: John Williams' score, especially the awesomely hilarious (or hilariously awesome) main theme. Spielberg calls it his favorite Williams march, and with good reason.
• Broken Base: This is arguably one of Spielberg's most divisive films. Some call it his worst, with the over-the-top comedy and sheer insanity of events creating an utter mess of a movie. Others find it to be his most underrated, enjoying the intensity of the comedy and the spoofing of wartime paranoia.
• Crazy Is Cool:
  • How gung-ho pilot Wild Bill Kelso behaves, although he might just be crazy.
  • Civil defense volunteer Herbie is a Talkative Loon and a Manchild, but he's also willing to shoot at an enemy submarine with his rifle (and then with a pistol) and declares a near death experience to have been fun.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The quirky tank commander played by Dan Aykroyd.
  • Ward Douglas, the Bumbling Dad who ends up manning an anti aircraft gun.
  • The two spotters posted in the ferris wheel who are always at each others throats, are brave enough to fire on the submarine and are left stuck in the ferris wheel, rolling towards the ocean in one of the film's most memorable scenes.
  • The supporting character of General Stillwell gets a lot of love from the fandom for his Only Sane Man tendencies and excited reaction about watching Dumbo.
• Fridge Brilliance: The behavior of most of the characters at first glance seems really over the top, but considering the fact that the movie is set less than one week after the Pearl Harbor attack, it seems way more plausible: Immediately after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese started invading the Philippines and Malaya and within days also sunk the British battleships of Force Z. Which created the image that they might strike anywhere anytime, so why not in California?
• Funny Moments: While a lot of the slapstick comes across as hammy, there are moments of the movie that are genuinely funny, particularly the way the ventriloquist dummy sees the Japanese sub before everyone else does.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: As he steals his motorcycle, Captain "Wild" Bill Kelso says to Sergeant Mizerany, "Aw, look. A baby wolf!" Mizerany replies, "Where?" At the time, John Landis was working on An American Werewolf in London.
• Moe: Betty can feel pretty endearing for being one of the few generally sweet people in the movie and for the awkward, nervous expressions she makes having to deal with things like her Abhorrent Admirer and the feud between her dad and boyfriend.
• Moral Event Horizon: Sitarski is never a likable character, but any chance he has of turning into one in the climax is completely destroyed when he tries to rape Betty.
• Presumed Flop: It ultimately turned a healthy profit due to international box office receipts — it grossed $95 million on a $35 million budget. But between its negative critical reception, its failure at the US box office, and the fact that it seriously underperformed Spielberg's preceding and following films, 1941 is incorrectly remembered as an outright bomb.
  Bob Gale: It is down in the history books as a big flop, but it wasn't a flop. The movie didn't make the kind of money that Steven's other movies, Steven's most successful movies have made, obviously. But the movie was by no means a flop. And both Universal and Columbia have come out of it just fine.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Mickey Rourke makes his film debut as Private First Class Reese of Sgt. Tree's tank group.
  • Eddie Deezen (aka Mandark) is the ventriloquist hanging out on the Ferris Wheel.
• Signature Scene: Opinions vary on the topic, but there are some standouts.
  • The USO Dance Battler scene is praised by some critics who dislike the movie as a whole.
  • The introduction of the Crazy Is Cool fighter pilot played by John Belushi, where he lands at a gas station and then accidentally blows it up.
  • For Ned Beatty fans, there's the scene of Bumbling Dad Ward trying to fire the anti-aircraft gun in his backyard at the submarine while repeating Sergeant Tree's instructions word-for-word.
  • Some YouTube comments for the Visual Effects of Awesome Ferris wheel scene call that the best scene of the movie.
• Unbuilt Trope: When Pearl Harbor was released more than 20 years after 1941, some critics felt that the former was the film that 1941 would just have parodied.
• Values Dissonance:
  • It's a wee bit racist by 21st century standards, although it's debatable how much of that is the era it was made in (The '70s) and how much is the era it was set in (World War II).^note Some critics at the time also noted that it was surprisingly sympathetic to the Japanese characters (portraying them as disgusted with their Nazi hanger-on until the captain kills him, and letting them finish their mission to their satisfaction and go home with honor).
  • It's very hard to imagine any film these days making a Running Gag out of a man trying to rape a woman (although it should be noted that the guy is portrayed as an antagonist, he nonetheless doesn't suffer any legal punishment for his actions and there's no indication that the characters even consider this). The DVD special features even reveal that at one point he was going to succeed, with Betty getting into it partway through, which thankfully didn't make it into the final film.
  • In light of revelations about Japanese Navy atrocities during World War II, the fate of their captives becomes a lot less amusing.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • Up until Flight of the Intruder a decade or so later, the 1941 Los Angeles miniature was the largest ever built ... and the dogfight down it beats the Star Wars Death Star Trench run hollow.
  • While it's obviously a large-scale model being destroyed, the bit where the Ferris Wheel gets blown off its mount and smashes the pier was an effective pre-CGI effect.
• The Woobie: Joan Douglas's confusion and terror about the situation which leads to the destruction of her house, which is caused by her own husband's gung-ho wielding of an AA gun, makes her pretty pitiable.

---