Ever since the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, the American people have been acting like lost extras from Steven Spielberg’s 1941 (1979). For those familiar only with the film’s reputation as a misfire of epic proportions and the disastrous critical fallout, this assertion may seem ludicrous, if not downright offensive—how could a film pitched as a “Comedy Spectacular,” which Spielberg himself chalks off as “a good opportunity to break a lot of stuff,” speak to a global reality changed irrevocably in the space of just a few minutes? The initial reception (co-scripter Bob Gale claims the film made a profit, but with a $35 million budget and a $34 million domestic gross, it must have had a terrific run overseas) indicates that viewers found it barely worthy of the year it eulogized, much less the one that birthed it, rocked as it was by the expulsion of the U.S.-backed Shah in Iran and subsequent hostage crisis, the ascendancy of conservative Margaret Thatcher to the Prime Minister post in Great Britain, and the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union. (Does this sound awfully familiar?) However, coming at an approximate midpoint between the two most devastating acts of war ever carried out on American soil, 1941 is a prescient vision for anyone who’s thought seriously about buying some duct tape, missing rush hour on high terror days, or even packing their home and fleeing from residency in any major city. Its broad stabs at humor and gung-ho-go-America sheen might make 1941 seem an ideal choice for a Dick, Don, and Dubya Sunday afternoon of pretzels and beer (maybe chocolate milk for Georgie), but slyly, quietly, puts a real subversive politic at play.

Robert Zemeckis, who co-wrote the script with Gale, notes in the DVD’s making-of documentary that their initial intention was to write a “really dark comedy” about an amusing piece of post-Pearl Harbor historical trivia (an imagined assault on Los Angeles that resulted in an all-night firefight against a nonexistent foe). 1941 may have been conceived as a black comedy, but Zemeckis carefully notes, “When Steven came on ... it became something ... different.” The “something ... different” we’re left with is a bloated mess, so overcoated with layers of incoherent slapstick excess that it’s almost impossible to laugh at—all one can do is stare in awe. (During the first test screening more people were seen covering their ears than smiling). At the time, a “Comedy Spectacular” starring John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, and John Candy, devoid of honest laughs must have more seemed more than a little questionable, but it’s interesting to consider what might have happened with a simple tweak of the marketing campaign. Especially in the present context, 1941 seems a film that shouldn’t be funny, but perhaps more than a little instructive. If it had been taken seriously in the wake of Vietnam, who knows what effects it might have produced? It does end up performing the work of satire, but channels its critique through a different set of generic parameters, managing to cough up a striking portrait of homeland hysteria, a phenomenon that really shouldn’t be laughed at, especially given the darker implications of a terrorized populace in a democratic system. The film’s creators may have intended all of this to be a riot, but due to an odd confluence of great ideas, considerable talent, a considerable budget, and an equally considerable lack of focus, 1941 managed to hit on something much more important than any of its component pieces could imply. If the film had kept viewers busy laughing, no one might have ever noticed.

There is a certain irony in the 2003 rerelease of a “Collector’s Edition” DVD of 1941. The slippage between Universal’s potential motivation behind the timing and the possible effects the film allows, speak to an attempt at war profiteering subverted by the product—sold as a nostalgic curiosity that casts a gently comedic eye on our greatest generation, it can easily be re-read as Strangelove-ian in relevance to the post-9/11 Iraqi colonization condition. Neo-conservative signatories of the “Project for a New American Century” had Iraq in their sights long before even Bill Clinton took office, though they admitted that it would take an event on “the magnitude of Pearl Harbor” to be able to justify the military invasion necessary to create the keystone for their re-imagined Middle East. In a strangely convenient stroke, they got what they wanted (and an image that Spielberg’s runaway ferris wheel can only aspire to), and in Al-Qaeda found the perfect enemy for the information age: everywhere, yet nowhere at the same time—all the easier to brandish as a weapon of control, a physical and ideological threat possible to plant wherever convenient. Watching 1941 now, one can’t help but notice uncomfortable echoes: Ned Beatty digging out the black paint isn’t a far cry from sticky polymer solutions put forward by our Homeland Security department as vaccines against terror; Zoot Suiters don’t strike me as too far removed from hipsters planting their heads firmly in the sand and lining up to catch the latest post-punk revival act on the Bowery; and Major General Stillwell (Robert Stack) even institutes a color-coded warning system (only three, and no hint of adding extra colors to avoid having to use it properly). Though 1941 skimps somewhat on implicating the ways and means in which an opportunist government can abuse homeland life during wartime to its advantage, it nails a confused and conflicted populace (homebound military forces included) responding to a new threat in hugely unpredictable and increasingly outrageous ways.

Even so, it is a dubious choice to let the powers that be off the hook. Stillwell (representative of authority and a terrifically easy target) may be somewhat foolish, but he still manages to distance himself from the confusion wrought by some of his less competent subordinates. (Toshiro Mifune’s Japanese submarine commander is probably afforded more respect than anyone in the film, but this is probably due more to personal admiration for the performer than any truly revisionist bent.) A scene left on the cutting room floor would have brought the critique full circle: after the climactic “battle” over L.A. sparked by the transformation of an Army jet into a runaway libidinal instrument, Maj. Gen. Stillwell rushes to inspect Wild Bill Kelso’s (John Belushi) kill only to find Nancy Allen and Tim Matheson coitus interruptus in the cockpit (the couple’s attempts to reach true “lift-off” forms the basis of one of the only running jokes in the film that actually works, and is especially funny today when our leaders are waving military prowess around as if it legitimized their policies, pushing towards the creation of nuclear-based bombs with better ability to penetrate). Stillwell quickly has the Rising Sun painted on the plane, just in time for the media to arrive for a staged photo-op with the hero, who plants his hand right on the disguise, but never lets on that he’s realized the subterfuge. This scene draws a straight line to the dramatic “rescue” of Private Jessica Lynch (patriotically dubbed “Saving Private Jessica” by the arch-conservative New York Post) from a bunch of unarmed and terrified Iraqi medical workers who had already tried to hand her over twice, only to be shot back by American forces both times. Thankfully the mission was completed without casualties, unless one counts the expensive technology the hospital had reserved for her care. Isn’t it strange that we haven’t heard a thing from her since? Wait for the TV movie.

The only groups that will always benefit from war are those who create the tools used to wage it. Steven Spielberg took a drubbing but his visual effects team got an Academy Award nomination; the bosses at Halliburton and Bechtel may be making out like bandits, but what they’re looking at is pennies compared to our annual defense budget. For a young director coming off of two huge successes, 1941 turned out to be a pyrrhic victory—he lost the battle, but the film’s cult longevity and renewed topicality have won the war. December 7th is readily referred to as the day America lost its innocence—if that is true, then perhaps September 11th will be remembered as the historical marker for the day we realized that it’d been sold out from under us. As our nation wades through “Gilded Age: The Sequel” featuring gross political patronage, imperial ambitions, an increasing divide between the ideas of the government and those of the governed, and a shrinking distinction between big business, the military, political leaders, and the media (a confluence notable for its predecessor in Fascist Germany) we can only hope that the potential to make a film like 1941 will not erode along with other constitutional rights already under fire. In a stunned country that’s been blackmailed into war by its own government with the threat of another country’s weapons, it’s a more than reasonable fear. Closing the film with Ned Beatty’s farcical run-in with real artillery seems now a timeless warning—he’s saved the nation, but has destroyed his home in the process. How far from that eventuality are we?