This Forgotten Steven Spielberg Movie Has A Surprising Indiana Jones Connection

Before its release in December of 1979, "1941" was poised to be a mega-hit. For one thing, it was director Steven Spielberg's follow-up to not one but two certified blockbusters, "Jaws" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." For another, it featured an all-star cast to rival even the most ambitious Irwin Allen production, an ensemble made up of bona fide screen legends (Toshiro Mifune, Warren Oates, Christopher Lee), beloved character actors (Ned Beatty, Robert Stack, Slim Pickens), and up-and-coming comedy superstars (Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, John Candy). Sadly, however, after Spielberg was convinced to cut his 146-minute director's cut down to an incomprehensible 118 minutes and some awkward controversy surrounded the movie's reception, "1941" garnered an entirely different reputation. For years, it was considered Spielberg's biggest mistake and his most costly bomb.

While time has been much kinder to "1941" on all fronts, its many years in the trenches of public opinion have left it forgotten, at least when compared relatively to the bulk of Spielberg's other work. Thankfully, the filmmaker's hard work on the film was not all for nought. In addition to teaching Spielberg a few lessons about tone and pace, "1941" contributed — albeit inadvertently — to another Spielberg milestone, 1981's "Raiders of the Lost Ark." In one instance, one of the film's models found use in the climax of "Raiders." In another, a deleted gag from "1941" found its way into "Raiders," with much more successful results.

During the climax of "Raiders," Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) surreptitiously hitches a ride on a German submarine as it heads to the Nazi's hidden base in the middle of the Mediterranean, where the goons plan to open the Ark of the Covenant. In order to visually depict the journey without needing to shoot an actual full-scale submarine near an island in the ocean, the effects crew at Industrial Light + Magic simply borrowed a leftover prop from "1941." What had been, in that film, an Imperial Japanese Navy submarine became the German sub. As an extra detail, the ILM artists even placed a tiny figure of Jones on the top of the submarine.

In order to get the shot of the sub headed toward an abandoned island, the folks at ILM made use of both real photography and an ages-old optical trick. According to a 2020 article on the "Indiana Jones" trilogy at Lucasfilm: "The model was floated through San Francisco Bay towards one of the two Marin Islands just off the shoreline from ILM's then-headquarters in San Rafael. The real-world island was later replaced with a matte painting."

When "1941" was released just a few years before the filming of "Raiders," the model work was largely the most consistently praised element of the movie, and is still considered a landmark achievement to this day. Just goes to show that Spielberg and the ILM crew were not ones to let great work go to waste!

A submarine model wasn't the only hand-me-down that "1941" gave "Raiders." For one scene in "1941," Spielberg had the idea to have Christopher Lee's Captain Wolfgang Von Kleinschmidt intimidate Slim Pickens' Hollis Wood by unveiling what at first appears to be some manner of torture device or weapon, only to reveal that it's merely just a coat hanger in the end. Spielberg was happy with the scene, but unfortunately, preview audiences didn't feel the same way. As the filmmaker said in "The Making of 1941" DVD documentary: "I shot it, but when I previewed the film in Dallas, nobody laughed. It wasn't funny."

Thus, Spielberg cut the scene from all versions of the film. However, he vowed to attempt the joke in every movie he would make from then on, for as long as it took for the gag to finally get a laugh. Fortunately for "E.T.," "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" and "The Color Purple," his very next film was "Raiders," and the moment in which Major Toht (Ronald Lacey) menaces Marion (Karen Allen) by slowly unveiling his coat hanger got a big laugh and was left in the final cut of the film. So, whether you consider "1941" an unsung Spielberg gem or a misfire by one of the greatest directors working, there's no doubt that it holds an important place in Spielberg history.