1941 (1979)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Studio/Distributor: A-Team Productions/Universal
Budget: $35 million
Domestic Gross: $31.8 million
Non-USA Gross: $60.7 million

Steven Spielberg's fifth film was this big-budget, zany but dark screwball comedy film. It told about imagined events on the West Coast surrounding the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor in December, 1941. It was a silly, epic parody of the actual shelling of a tidewater refinery (with minor damage to the piers and oil wells) by a Japanese submarine off the coast near Santa Barbara in late February 1942.

The disastrous film followed the director's multiple successes, including Jaws (1975) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). The film turned out to be a combination of Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) and The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966). It featured special effects (of miniaturized model planes flying over Hollywood in a parody of Star Wars (1977)), an opening sequence that spoofed Spielberg's own Jaws (1975), lots of destructive explosions and crashes (including a giant runaway ferris wheel on the Santa Monica pier), a paint factory and its effects on a tank, street rioting, a USO jitterbug contest, and a crash-landing in the La Brea Tar Pits.

It sported an all-star cast including lots of Saturday Night Live actors and Animal House (1978) performers, and a John Williams musical score. Important to note was that the film was nominated for three Academy Awards (Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, and Best Sound).

Set in Los Angeles, the hyperactive, non-politically correct plot involved the sighting of a Japanese submarine off the coast (captained by Toshiro Mifune as Cmdr. Akiro Mitamura and with Christopher Lee as German Capt. Wolfgang von Kleinschmidt), and the mass hysteria and chaos that resulted. Many actors were involved in major roles or cameos, including John Belushi as cigar-chewing, P-40 fighter airpilot Captain Wild Bill Kelso, Robert Stack as inept Major General Joseph Stilwell and Dan Aykroyd as Sgt. Frank Tree, Slim Pickens as captured Christmas tree farmer Hollis "Holly" Wood, and Ned Beatty as Dagwood-type homeowner Ward Douglas with Blondie-wife Joan (Lorraine Gary) whose house became an artillery base.

The budget of this unfunny and noisy slapstick film with undeveloped characters spiraled out of control, to a near-record $35 million, and resulted in disappointing box-office. It was originally released at 118 minutes, although an extended version existed at 146 minutes. The film was widely criticized by most film reviewers, and audiences avoided it, although it did fairly well overseas.

Can't Stop the Music (1980)
Director: Nancy Walker
Studio/Distributor: EMI Films
Budget: $20 million
Domestic Gross: $2 million

This infamous musical was a major box-office bomb, although its Hollywood producer/writer Allan Carr was the co-producer of the hit film Grease (1978). Originally titled Discoland: Where the Music Never Ends!, it was changed due to the fact that the disco craze had long ago peaked. It starred the Village People, in a semi-autobiographical story about their success as a group of eccentric performers of macho American stereotypes with outrageous costumes (consisting of Felipe Rose the Indian, Randy Jones the cowboy, David Hodo the hard-hatted construction worker, Ray Simpson the police officer, Glenn Hughes the leatherman biker, and Alex Briley the G.I.).

It included their notorious gay-themed popular Y.M.C.A. number (a well-choreographed calisthenics segment with a chorus line of bikini-clad swimmers, accompanied by a nude male shower and hot tub sequence), the knock-off Busby Berkeley-like Milk Shake number - an all-white costumed dance craze (with the leading lady in a giant milk glass), the gay pride anthem Liberation, and the crazed finale Can't Stop the Music filmed as a concert at San Francisco's Galleria.

The film's feeble plot was about an aspiring music composer and song writer named Jack Morell (Steve Guttenberg, pre-Police Academy (1984) and Short Circuit (1986)) (a character loosely based on real-life, openly-gay Village People songwriter-producer Frenchman Jacques Morali) who through his housemate - ex-high-fashion model and liberated Samantha Simpson (Valerie Perrine) - connected him up ultimately to "put on the show" with the Greenwich Village group dubbed "Village People" - the group of homoerotic fantasy characters - buffed-up "macho men" (although cleaned up to appear straight). It also featured a cameo performance from Leigh Taylor-Young and introduced non-actor Bruce Jenner (ex-Olympic decathlon medalist and non-actor) as uptight record-company tax lawyer Ron White from St. Louis.

This over-the-top, outrageous film was made by inexperienced director Nancy Walker -- better known as a sit-com actress: as maid Mildred in the early 70s TV show McMillan & Wife, as Rhoda Morgenstern's (Valerie Harper) Jewish mother on the mid-70s TV show Rhoda, the short-lived The Nancy Walker Show in 1976, and as Rosie the Waitress - the Bounty Lady on TV commercials for the "quicker-picker-upper" paper towels.

The disco film musical was strangely touted as a family musical, with an exorbitantly-expensive publicity campaign (reported to be $10 million) and a promotional tie-in to the American Diary Association. However, it also inspired and won the First Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture - a recognition given to the most banal and awful 'turkey' film of the year. It received seven Razzie Awards nominations in fact, Worst Actor (Bruce Jenner), Worst Actress (Valerie Perrine), Worst Director (Nancy Walker), Worst Original Song ("(You) Can't Stop the Music"), and Worst Supporting Actress (Marilyn Sokol), and won two: Worst Picture and Worst Screenplay. In 2005, it was again nominated as the Worst 'Musical' in 25 years of Razzie Awards (also nominated was Xanadu (1980), Rhinestone (1984), Spice World (1997), and Glitter (2001)), all losing to From Justin to Kelly (2003).

This disastrous film was badly timed - released after the disco craze had mostly worn itself out, and with its slightly-veiled homosexual tone (with gay in-jokes), irrelevant plot, and amateurish production, it lost its appeal quickly. The only place the film was a hit was in Australia, surprisingly.

Heaven’s Gate (1980, 1981)
Director: Michael Cimino
Studio/Distributor: United Artists
Budget: $44 million (estimated)
Domestic Gross: $3.5 million

Pretentious auteur director Michael Cimino, who had just earned a Best Director Oscar for the multiple-award-winning The Deer Hunter (1978), was given unprecedented creative control (in the overindulgent, director-centric 70s era) and a large budget for the production of his long-brewing, flawed script titled The Johnson County War. Problems could have been forecast when the writer/director demanded that the film be titled "Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate" ('Heaven's Gate' was the name of a roller-skating rink in the film). The disastrous western film has since become synonymous for any film facing major financial disaster, although it had a cast of prominent actors (Christopher Walken as hired mercenary Nathan D. Champion, John Hurt in a minor role as Billy Irvine, Kris Kristofferson as US Federal Marshal James Averill, and French actress Isabelle Huppert as brothel madam Ella Watson). The ponderous and flawed film (with beautiful cinematography and art direction, but often muffled dialogue) included abundant nudity, violence throughout, a love triangle, a cock fight, a country-western roller-skating sequence, and a lengthy series of bloody battles at film's end.

Difficulties became apparent when an entire town was created in Montana for the expensive, historically-recreated sets, and the shooting schedule quickly fell behind after repeated re-takes of each scene with a crew that was required to routinely work overtime. A number of poorly-paid extras in the production suffered accidental injuries, and the poor treatment of various animals in the film caused the ASPCA to protest. Even officials at Glacier National Park became exasperated at Cimino's disregard for preserving the public lands in their pristine condition. At the conclusion of location shooting, Cimino had filmed 220 hours of film, and then insisted on an additional prologue (a lavish opening dance sequence to the tune of Blue Danube (filmed at Oxford University in England)) at an additional cost of $5 million and a short epilogue (filmed in Rhode Island and San Diego) at an additional cost of $1 million. United Artists' incomprehensible, over-long epic Western film about Wyoming's Johnson County Wars cost almost six times above-budget to produce (from $7.5 million to about $44 million), with an additional amount for promotion amounting to about $11 million.

Originally, the first cut -- a 5-hour 25 minute version (derived from more than 500 hours of developed film) had to be cut down to 219 minutes for its November 18, 1980 NYC premiere (and a one-week run). The infamous review of New York Times critic Vincent Canby (who called the film "an unqualified disaster") built negative press until Cimino's film was permanently doomed. The picture was immediately pulled (with further 'exclusive' showings cancelled), re-cut and then re-released six months later on April 23, 1981 in Los Angeles for its first theatrical release (after being shortened by 70 minutes down to 149 minutes) - and the re-edited film still failed due to more bad press and poor reviews.

It stunned its studio by becoming the biggest flop in film history at the time (US box-office was about $3.5 million) - it lost at least $40 million when the final tally was taken. UA's corporate parent, Transamerica, had to sell the studio to MGM for only $350 million as a result. The film's fiasco immediately caused the resignation of veteran studio president Andy Albeck, other top officials, and the firing of UA executive Steven Bach. [UA was responsible for earlier hits Midnight Cowboy (1969), Rocky (1976), Annie Hall (1977) and the James Bond films.] Bank-rolled support for independent 'auteur' directors of the New Wave of 70s directors (who controlled their own production costs with little studio oversight) ended when this film's egotistical director (nicknamed "The Ayatollah") was criticized as being self-indulgent, financially irresponsible and ego-driven.

The film received numerous Razzie Award nominations (Worst Actor- Kris Kristofferson, Worst Musical Store, Worst Picture, and Worst Screenplay- Cimino), including a Worst Director prize for Cimino, although it received generally positive reviews after release to video, and fairly good results from its international box-office. It was critically re-evaluated by the LA-based Z Channel when it premiered on cable TV in its uncut version in 1982, but it was already too late. Details of the film's notorious production could be found in production head Steven Bach's 1985 book Final Cut: Art, Money, and Ego in the Making of Heaven's Gate, the Film That Sank United Artists.

Popeye (1980)
Director: Robert Altman
Studio/Distributor: Paramount/Walt Disney Productions
Budget: $20 million (estimated)
Domestic Gross: $49.8 million
Rentals: $24.6 million

The spinach-loving sailor man, originally a comic-book creation (by E.C. Segar) and cartoon character (by Max Fleischer), was brought to life by individualistic, maverick director Robert Altman. For the ten years surrounding this film, most of Altman's films were unsuccessful and poorly-received: A Wedding (1978), A Perfect Couple (1979), Quintet (1979), HealtH (1980), Streamers (1983), Secret Honor (1984), O.C. and Stiggs (1985), and Beyond Therapy (1987).

This big-budget adaptation, an experimental comedy musical with an integrated musical score featured mostly forgettable, unmemorble songs by talented songwriter Harry Nilsson. Fast-talking, improvisational comic Robin Williams (in his film debut, after becoming known as Mork - the alien from planet Ork on TV's Mork And Mindy) starred as the buff-fore-armed, squint-eyed title character, who found himself in his dinghy (under the credits) searching the "seven seas" for his father Poopdeck Pappy (Ray Walston) that abandoned him. Docking in the small seaside/harbor town of Sweethaven, he met hamburger-addicted Wimpy (Paul Dooley), his lanky future love interest Olive Oyl (a perfectly-cast Shelley Duvall), his newfound abandoned son Swee' Pea (Altman's grandson Wesley Ivan Hurt), and brutish bearded pirate Capt. Bluto (Paul L. Smith) whom he battled as a jealous rival for Olive's affection in their long-running, exaggerated love triangle. [Note: Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin were at one time considered for the lead roles.]

The fictional, oppressive shanty-town fishing village of Sweethaven with crazy-angled streets was actually constructed on the Mediterranean island of Malta, an expensive project (by production designer Wolf Kroeger) that took seven months to complete, although it turned out to be the ideal, visually-spectacular, eccentric backdrop for the film's story. However, if the film was originally designed for family audiences, it would only confound younger viewers with its over-sophisticated approach designed to honor the original Popeye characters. Larger than life, eccentric characters that were often annoying and involved in cheap slapstick made the film difficult to appreciate.

The strangely-fashioned, almost wacky, unwieldy and rambling, original and offbeat film (a live-action cartoon or comic-strip) could technically be called a hit (although it wasn't a major blockbusting success), but it was basically an artistic, visionary failure that misfired. It was dissonant and uneven (alternating between being bizarre and funny in its organized confusion), slightly ahead of its time with its live-action retelling of the famed story, and often incomprehensible (dialogue was incoherently muttered by Popeye under-his-breath or was overlapping). Paramount Studios fortunately risked the financial burden by co-producing with Walt Disney Productions.

Honky Tonk Freeway (1981)
Director: John Schlesinger
Studio/Distributor: EMI Films/Universal Pictures
Budget: $24 million
Domestic Gross: $2 million

British director John Schlesinger (known for Midnight Cowboy (1969), Sunday, Bloody Sunday (1971) and Marathon Man (1976)) directed this large-cast ensemble comedy to skewer American enterprise and the American dream, in the style of Robert Altman's Nashville (1975). This crude, overstuffed, fragmented and shrill film with a slapstick finale told about an isolated small Florida tourist town named Ticlaw without a freeway off-ramp exit to its safari park. So to ensure visitors and not be bypassed, the town was painted pink, free gas was offered as a lure, and the town featured a water-skiing elephant named Bubbles and a wild charging rhino.

The fragmented film was mostly about the various 'road stories' of various caricature-types who were enroute to the tourist-trap town with an ambitious but crazy mayor Kirby T. Calo (William Devane): two New York bank robbers, an aspiring children's book writer with a book titled Randy the Carnivorous Pony (Beau Bridges), a wacky elderly couple (Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy), a discontented and frustrated nun (Deborah Rush), and a small-town nymphomaniacal whore (Beverly D'Angelo) bringing her mother's ashes (in an urn on the dashboard) to the town.

The film was allegedly the most expensive comedy made up to its time. It received one Razzie nomination: Worst Original Song ("You're Crazy But I Like You"). Its financial backers at EMI Ltd., impresarios Lew (Lord) Grade and Bernard (Lord) Delfont, had already recently financed a number of flops: Raise the Titanic (1980), The Jazz Singer (1980), the Village People musical Can't Stop the Music (1980), and The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981). Their investment of $11 million in this American film was a nail in their movie-making coffin.

Inchon (1981)
Director: Terence Young
Studio/Distributor: One Way Productions, MGM/UA
Budget: $46 million
Domestic Gross: $5.2 million

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MGM/UA's and Terence Young's incoherent, anti-Communist Korean War epic (originally titled Oh, Inchon!) starred miscast, aging 73 year-old Laurence Olivier at the end of his long film career as General Douglas MacArthur. The war epic was a re-enactment of the UN-led, surprise amphibious invasion of Seoul's port of Inchon in 1950 to expel N. Korean Communists from South Korea.

The film flop was produced by Rev. Sung Myung Moon and his Unification Church (supported by thousands of obediently 'brain-washed' Moonies), financed by a newly-formed film production company named One Way Productions (led by Moon's associate Mitsuharu Ishii). It was supposedly created to provide a fresh look at the Korean War with its major 'divinely-guided' hero MacArthur, although it totally ignored the fact that Gregory Peck had just starred in the failed epic biopic MacArthur (1977). The film's screenwriter was Robin Moore, known as the author of the following books later made into films: The Green Berets (1968), The French Connection (1971), and The Happy Hooker (1975). The director was Terence Young, who had directed three James Bond films: Dr. No (1962), From Russia With Love (1963), and Thunderball (1963).

The Korean production company lavishly financed director Young at $1.8 million, and other cast members, mostly with cold hard cash (Jacqueline Bisset at $1.65 million after her memorable wet T-shirt role in The Deep (1977), Laurence Olivier at $1.25 million, Ben Gazzara at $750,000, Shaft (1971) actor Richard Roundtree at $200,000, and ex-Fugitive TV star David Janssen at $300,000 (whose scenes were ultimately deleted)).

There were various calamities on the set - two typhoons (Irving and Judy) and resultant mud, days of scorching heat, a chronically-ill Bisset with laryngitis, an earthquake (that washed a camera crane out to sea), continuing problems with the language barrier, and political strife between the Korean government and Moon's Unification Church. Long and expensive delays (at the cost of $200,000/day) occurred during the arduous process of securing permits and receiving government permission to shoot in Korea. Olivier's makeup took four hours to apply - and the results were hideous (an ill-fitting toupee, a putty nose, and feminine makeup). There were no speaking roles given to the Communists in the cast, to emphasize their subhuman, godless nature. Reshoots and extensive editing expenses helped to bloat the film's original budget by millions. When the controversial religious leader Moon himself publically admitted in January 1980 that he had contributed about $35 million to the film's making, everyone embarrassingly attempted to disown their association to the film.

This incompetently-made, turkey film (at an original running time of 160 minutes) that took four years to make and had a whopping budget of about $50 million was an embarrassment that was quickly withdrawn after awful test screenings and previews (including its world premiere showing in Washington DC in May of 1981). Screened at Cannes in the spring of 1982 in a trimmer version, it was then pared down to 140 minutes long, and again edited down to 105 minutes. At the time, MGM/UA was approached with a remunerative offer to release the film domestically on September 17, 1982 (the 32nd anniversary of MacArthur's Inchon landing). Accusations that the Unification Church was trying to recruit converts with its promotional ploys to attract audiences to the film helped to discourage moving-going audiences -- one of many reasons for the film's low US box-office.

The film embarrassingly won four "Razzies": Worst Actor (Olivier), Worst Director, Worst Picture, and Worst Screenplay, and had a fifth nomination for Worst Supporting Actor (Gazzara). It was never released on home video or DVD.