STACK Magazine November Issue 121

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FEATURE
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Screenwriter Bob Gale is best known as the creative force behind the Back to the
Future trilogy, along with Robert Zemeckis. He also co-wrote Steven Spielberg’s 1979 comedy
spectacular 1941, which is now available on Blu-ray in an Extended Edition as part of the
Steven Spielberg Director’s Collection box set. Gale spoke with Scott Hocking about Spielberg’s
most atypical film, and why it’s best experienced in its longer version.
We were so excited, we burst
into Steven’s office the very
next day and told him how
great we thought [Jaws] was.
to various producers and directors.
Impressed by Zemeckis’s work, Spielberg
suggested that they stay in touch, leading
to a longtime association that began with
Spielberg executive producing Zemeckis’s
B ob Gale was attending the USC
School of Cinematic Arts with
classmate Robert Zemeckis in
1974 when he first encountered a young
filmmaker named Steven Spielberg,
who was screening his movie The
Sugarland Express.
“This kid comes in who has just
directed this huge feature with all
these police cars, and it’s got Goldie
Hawn – a big movie star – and all this
production value.We were amazed that
somebody who didn’t seem to be much
older than we were had pulled this off,”
Gale recalls. “That was the first time we
became aware of him, although I may
have seen one of his Night Gallery
episodes when I was in high school.”
The next time the Bobs crossed paths
with this talented young director was after
they’d snuck into an exhibitors’ screening
of Jaws (1976), several months prior to the
release of the film. “We were absolutely
enthralled, blown away, terrified, etc.We
were so excited, we burst into Steven’s
office the very next day and told him how
great we thought it was,” Gale explains.
“He was playing back an audiotape of the
audience’s reaction at the time – just to
hear if they gasped and jumped at all the
right moments – because he would still
have time to make some changes in the
editing. One of the things that we told him
was that we thought that when the shark
devoured Robert Shaw, it was so great
that we laughed out loud. And Steven
said, ‘so it was you guys. I heard
somebody laughing on the
audiotape – that was you!’”
Following graduation, Zemeckis
encountered Spielberg again
whilst screening his student film
directorial debut, the Beatlemania comedy
IWanna HoldYour Hand (1978) – which
he’d co-written with Gale – and ultimately
the pair’s Back to the Future trilogy. But
prior to conceiving the adventures of Marty
McFly, Gale and Zemeckis would collaborate
on the screenplay for Spielberg’s fourth
theatrical feature, theWorldWar
II comedy 1941 (1979).
Set during the titular year, the
film follows a group of paranoid
Californians who fear that the Japanese will
attack Los Angeles following their assault on
Pearl Harbor.The film begins with a spoof
of Jaws’ opening scene (featuring original
victim Susan Backlinie), setting the tone
for the slapstick lunacy that follows, which
includes ninjas disguised as Christmas trees,
a ventriloquist dummy sentry, and fighter
planes screaming down Hollywood Blvd.
A screwball spectacular that plays more
like something Joe Dante would deliver,
1941 is Spielberg’s sole venture into the