Join me for a viewing of this zany 1980 movie with exuberant dance scenes, fantastic blues musicians, a hundred wrecked cars, and ridiculous antics from John Belushi and Dan Akroyd.
Maybe Thor and I are hopeless dinosaurs, but we just don’t seem to click with many of the new shows and movies coming out. So we went time-traveling the other night back to 1980 and “Saturday Night Live” regulars John Belushi and Dan Akroyd and their cult classic “The Blues Brothers.” The ridiculously hilarious action movie arose as a tribute to their beloved blues musicians, many featured in the movie.
The plot follows Jake and Elwood, brothers who grew up in a Catholic orphanage and later formed a blues band. Jake ended up in prison for petty crime, and the story begins as Elwood picks him up on release. He’s driving an old police car that has “a cop motor, cop suspension, cop shocks, cop tires,” which prove handy as they avoid a traffic jam by hurtling across the gap in an opening drawbridge. The car will survive an escalating series of police pursuits as the story evolves. First stop is the orphanage, where the Mother Superior, or “Penguin,” condemns their low-life behaviors and informs them that the orphanage needs $5000 to pay taxes, or it will be closed. Their “mission from God” begins.
During a visit to a Black Baptist church, where the Reverend Cleopholus (musician James Brown) leads a rambunctious congregation in music and gymnastic dancing – my favorite scene!– Jake has a vision to regroup their old band and earn the money for the orphanage.
Rounding up all the musicians and instruments, and trying to find bookings to earn the cash, they launch into a series of excellent songs and dance performances by famous blues musicians, including Aretha Franklin (as a diner waitress singing “Respect”), Ray Charles, Cab Calloway, and John Lee Hooker. The local color of Chicago back streets provides a backdrop, including a terrific street scene of a crowd of all ages dancing to “The Twist.” The brothers blunder through many misadventures that result in being pursued by multiplying police and state patrol cars, a Neo-Nazi group, a violent cowboy band, and a murderous girlfriend (Carrie Fisher) with a bazooka and thirst for revenge after being jilted by Jake. Along the way, the mayhem of wrecked buildings, insane car chases, and wrecks escalates.
Here’s a YouTube video of one of the movie trailers:
From Wikipedia: “Over 500 extras were used for the next-to-last scene, the blockade of the building at Richard J. Daley Center, including 200 National Guardsmen, 100 state and city police officers, with 15 horses for the mounted police, and three each Sherman tanks, helicopters, and fire engines.”
The film wrecked 103 cars during production, a record at the time. In addition to the musicians featured (including more for the Blue Brothers band), several actors and celebrities appeared in cameos: John Candy, Steven Spielberg, Frank Oz, and Paul Reubens.
Among many memorable moments, as the brothers (always wearing black Raybans) are heading toward a booked performance and evading various pursuers, Elwood behind the wheel remarks, “It’s 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark… and we’re wearing sunglasses.” Jake replies, “Hit it.”
Apparently the production itself was a wild story, with budget issues, no script at first, and Belushi’s partying and drug habits slowing the filming. The stars had a private bar, the Blues Club, built on the set, for themselves, crew, and friends. When the film was finished late, the studio limited distribution due to hesitance about white audiences for “black music.” But it was a big success and has become a cult classic. In 2020, The Blues Brothers was chosen for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
Richard Corliss in “Time” wrote, “The Blues Brothers is a demolition symphony that works with the cold efficiency of a Moog Synthesizer gone sadistic.”
And even the Vatican recognized the movie as containing “Catholic values.”
*****
You will find The Rambling Writer’s blog posts here every Saturday. Sara’s latest novel from Book View Café is Pause, a First Place winner of the Chanticleer Somerset Award and an International Pulpwood Queens Book Club selection. “A must-read novel about friendship, love, and killer hot flashes.” (Mindy Klasky). It’s also a love letter to the stunning beauty of her native Pacific Northwest wild places. Sign up for her quarterly email newsletter at www.sarastamey.com
