1941: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack [Soundtrack]

John Williams (Composer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 9, 1997)
• Original Release Date: December 14, 1979
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack
• Label: Varese Sarabande
• ASIN: B00000151M
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #188,213 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. March from "1941"

2. The Invasion

3. The Sentries

4. Riot at the U.S.O.

5. To Hollywood and Glory

6. Swing, Swing, Swing

7. The Battle of Hollywood

8. The Ferris Wheel Sequence

9. The Finale

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Classic by the King of Movie Scores, February 14, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Los Angeles CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 1941: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Audio CD)

A must for fans of John Williams.

Reminiscent at times of Indiana Jones, Close Encounters, Superman, and Star Wars, yet still shining with its own worth. Fun, energetic, memorable and entirely charming.

Oddly, the pure orchestral experience is marred by a "comic" recorded cannon blast used as percussion and one very distracting yet brief John Bellushi voice-over.

If you only want the orchestral version of the 1941 march, look for it on the John Williams/Boston Pops collections. If you love the sound of John Williams' late-seventies/early-eighties scores, buy 1941!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wild Music, January 27, 2001

By 

Luis M. Ramos "Soundtrack and Film Freak" (Caracas, Venezuela) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 1941: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Audio CD)

The march from "1941" is propulsive and exciting, and shows us that we are listening to the music for a comedy. John Williams goes beyond this movie, presenting us with wild tunes that keeps us marvelled and entertained. The CD presents us with incredible marches that only Williams knows how to write. And let's not forget 'Swing, Swing, Swing', a track that definetely presents us with a great dancing rhythm entangled with comedy. This is a great CD, in spite of its thirty eight minutes.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This was a great John Williams soundtrack...., January 11, 2008

By 

The JuRK (Our Vast, Cultural Desert) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 1941: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Audio CD)

...but the movie was a bomb.

The real shame of "1941" was how badly it wasted the music, the actors and the production values. One year after the smash success of NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE, this couldn't-miss monstrosity lurched into theatres for Christmas of 1979 and laid a massive holiday egg. I was in high school and nobody looked more forward to this movie than I did.

The script was all over the place and nothing seemed to come together. The laughs were few and far between. The direction was...wasn't...there. Nobody could figure out how Steven Spielberg could make instant classics like JAWS and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and then turn this out. (He definitely redeemed himself with his next film: RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK). Watching "1941", I kept wondering, "Where was John Landis?" Get him and his KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE team in there.

But John Williams provided a great soundtrack to a lame comedy. It invoked the spirit of the World War II Hollywood movie marches and would've been the perfect music accent or undercut the comic mayhem...if there had been any.