Discover this cult war film with this Steven Spielberg 1941 Movie Poster. Dive into the frantic action of this crazy comedy!
- Paper Feature:
- 🎨 Canvas: global standard in terms of printing and imitating a “painting canvas” look.
- By default, the poster contains a 4cm white border for framing (frame not included). If you don’t want it, please choose “without white border”.
- ✅ Size: several choices available. ✅
- High UV resistance.
- Maximum color brilliance without reflections.
- Recycled paper guaranteed environmental friendliness.
- Poster wrapped carefully and delivered in a protective tube for total protection.
- FREE STANDARD DELIVERY.
⚠️ Frame not included. ⚠️
Description of this 1941 Movie Poster
1941 is a 1979 American comedy film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale. The film stars an ensemble cast including Dan Aykroyd, Ned Beatty, John Belushi, John Candy, Christopher Lee, Tim Matheson, Toshiro Mifune, Robert Stack, Nancy Allen, and Mickey Rourke in his feature film debut. The story depicts a panic in the Los Angeles area following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
Co-writer Gale has stated that the plot was loosely based on the so-called Great Los Angeles Air Raid of 1942, as well as the bombing of the Ellwood Oil Refinery near Santa Barbara by a Japanese submarine. Many other events in the film are based on real events, including the Zoot Suit Riots and an incident in which the U.S. military placed an anti-aircraft gun in a homeowner’s yard on the coast of Maine.
Although 1941 did not achieve the same financial and critical success as many of Spielberg’s other films, it enjoyed a belated surge in popularity after an expanded version aired on ABC, with subsequent television broadcasts and home video re-releases giving it cult status.
At 7:01 a.m. on Saturday, December 13, 1941 (six days after the attack on Pearl Harbor), an Imperial Japanese Navy submarine, commanded by Akiro Mitamura and carrying Kriegsmarine officer Wolfgang von Kleinschmidt, surfaced off the coast of California. Wanting to destroy something “honorable” in Los Angeles, Mitamura decides to target Hollywood. Later that morning, the crew of an M3 Lee tank from the 10th Armored Division, consisting of Sergeant Frank Tree, Corporal Chuck Sitarski, and Privates Foley, Reese, and Henshaw, are having breakfast at a cafe where dishwasher Wally Stephens and his friend Dennis DeSoto work. Wally plans to enter a dance competition at a club that evening with his girlfriend, Betty Douglas. Sitarski does not take kindly to Wally and trips him, causing a fight.
In Death Valley, Captain Wild Bill Kelso of the United States Air Force lands his Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter on a roadside store and gas station, which he accidentally blows up. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Major General Joseph W. Stilwell tries to calm the public, who believe Japan is about to attack California. At a press conference at Daugherty Field in Long Beach, Captain Loomis Birkhead, Stilwell’s assistant, meets his old flame Donna Stratton, General Stilwell’s new secretary. Knowing that Donna is sexually aroused by airplanes, Birkhead lures her into the cockpit of a B-17 bomber to seduce her. As he falls, Birkhead accidentally releases a bomb, which rolls against the conference podium and explodes, although Stilwell and the crowd escape unharmed.
In Santa Monica, at the home of his father, Ward Douglas, and his wife, Joan, Betty and her friend, Maxine Dexheimer, who have just become USO hostesses, tell Wally that they are only allowed to dance with military personnel, as they are now the only male patrons allowed in the club. Wally hides in the garage when Ward, who disapproves, appears. Sergeant Tree and his team arrive and inform Ward and Joan that the military wants to install an anti-aircraft battery in their backyard. Sitarski begins flirting with Betty, and Wally falls from the attic where he was hiding. Wally and Sitarski recognize each other at the cafe, and the tankers throw Wally into a passing garbage truck.
Meanwhile, the Japanese submarine has become lost while trying to find Los Angeles after its compass malfunctions. A landing party goes to shore and captures lumberjack Hollis “Holly” Wood. Aboard the submarine, Hollis is searched, and the crew is delighted to find a small toy compass, which Hollis swallows. After the crew attempts to make him excrete the compass by forcing him to drink prune juice, Hollis escapes from the submarine.
Ward’s neighbor, Angelo Scioli of the Ground Observer Corps, puts Claude and Herb on the Ferris wheel at the Ocean Front amusement park to spot enemy aircraft. Determined to get Donna on a plane, Birkhead drives her to the 501st Bomb Disposal Unit in Barstow, where the mentally unstable Colonel “Mad Man” Maddox allows them to borrow a plane. Donna, excited to finally be on a plane, begins to ravish Birkhead during the flight.
At the USO club, Sitarski drags Betty into dancing. Wally sneaks out and reunites with Betty. They win the dance contest, and Sitarski punches Wally, sparking a fight between soldiers, sailors, and zoot suits that spills into the street and becomes a riot. Sergeant Tree and his team break up the melee, just before L.A. goes on alert when Birkhead and Donna fly overhead and anti-aircraft batteries open fire on them. Kelso chases and shoots them down, landing them in the La Brea Tar Pits. Claude and Herb shoot down the passing P-40 after mistaking it for a Japanese Zero. Kelso crashes into town, where he informs military authorities of the Japanese submarine he spotted at the pier. Wally takes command of the tank after Tree’s accidental incapacitation and rescues Betty as Sitarski accosts it. After Kelso sounds the alarm, Wally, Betty, Dennis, and the tankers head to the pier, followed by Kelso on a motorcycle. At the Douglas house, Ward spots the surfaced submarine and begins firing the anti-aircraft gun, destroying his house. The submarine returns fire and hits the Ferris wheel, which falls into the ocean. When von Kleinschmidt tries to force the submarine to retreat, Mitamura throws him overboard. The tank arrives and sinks when the submarine torpedoes the pier. Kelso jumps off the pier and swims to the submarine, where he is captured by the Japanese.
The next morning, Stilwell and the soldiers arrive at the remains of the Douglas house, where the other protagonists have gathered. Ward vows that their Christmas will not be ruined by the enemy; to symbolize his point, he nails a Christmas wreath to his front door, causing his unstable house to collapse down the hillside. Stilwell, observing the disheveled crowd arguing, says to Sergeant Tree, “It will be a long war.”