This is Steven Spielberg’s worst film: This war fiction film, released 19 years before Saving Private Ryan, failed to convince audiences at all.

Few directors have been able to chronicle World War II with as much flair and power as Steven Spielberg.

Whether it’s Schindler’s List, Empire of the Sun, Saving Private Ryan, or the Brothers in Arms series and The Pacific, the legendary filmmaker often explores this dark part of world history in an attempt to uncover all aspects.

Between a comedy and a war movie

However, even if a few viewers still remember it today, his first attempt in this field was not very convincing. Indeed, in 1979, when Steven Spielberg was still at the beginning of his career (but already largely established with duels, jaws and close encounters of the third kind), he signed the comedy in 1941.

This war movie parody (with a jaw-dropping intro) was directed by “Blues Brothers” John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd and imagined a Japanese attack on Los Angeles after the events of Pearl Harbor.

Spielberg’s lowest rated film

The result: a critical and commercial failure when the film was released in theaters, and the lowest-rated feature film in Spielberg’s entire filmography, with an average audience rating of 2,942 out of 5 stars on AlloCiné.

This minor error, of course (which John Wayne refused to participate in) was largely corrected later. Indeed, in the years following the release of 1941, Steven Spielberg in turn provided the audience with real gems, such as the unforgettable ET or the thrilling Indiana Jones saga.

With Schindler’s List in 1993, then Saving Private Ryan in 1998, he again told the story of World War II with much more success, collecting no less than 12 Oscars in two feature films.

(Re)discover the ‘Saving Ryan’ trailer…