1941

Ha! Watching 1941. It is sooo much better than I remember!

Release-night it was shredded by the critics, but this is wonderful, just absolute mayhem!

In the extra material the creators and Spielberg remembers how disastrous the showing-night was, a pure "humiliation". "When you experience something like that, you know it's for a purpose". At the pre-showings, Spielberg remembers, the audience sat with their ears covered. Covering eyes, that he had seen, but covering ears... "I realised I was in hot water by then!"

Loud? By todays' standards that is just nuts. 

I  love the scenes from the sub. Lee speaking German, Mifune Japanese. Characters hating eachother, a great deal of slapstick. A great scene of his was cut from the final film:

When they have captured Hollis and brought him to the sub, they want him to talk. Lee comes in with an instrument in his hands, chains and all, to make us associate to a torturing device. After leaving the room, he puts it together into a coat-hanger.

 That scene was cut from 1941 since the audience didn't laugh, but Spielberg filmed it many times over in other films, and eventually it ended up in Indiana Jones.

In Tall, Dark and Gruesome, edition of 1999, Christopher Lee writes: "Now 1941 has become a cult movie, a phrase that covers the a multitude of sins on the part of critics and distributors, meaning that years pass before they get the point and the audience is given a proper chance.

Once we'd all arrived in vintage 1941 cars at the Los Angeles premiere, 1941 had the stickiest of all sticky starts. At the end of the showing there was a rare and peculiar silence. Next day the critics seized their chance to flay Steven, their golden boy. I've never seen such harsh reviews."

And that must say a lot.