The Blues Brothers (1980)

It's 106 miles to Chicago, they've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and they're wearing sunglasses....

The brothers are Joliet Jake Blue (John Belushi) and Elmwood Blues (Dan Ackroyd)....and they're on a mission from God.  Well actually they're on a mission to save the Catholic home where they grew up and to get the band back together.  Seems simple enough but there are a LOT of obstacles in their way including US Marshalls, Chicago police, Illinois State Troopers, the Illinois Nazis, the Good Ol' Boys, and...the late, great Carrie Fisher playing "Mystery Woman" who comes HEAVILY armed! :o John Landis (Animal House, Coming to America, An American Werewolf in London) directed this wildly ambitious action comedy musical loosely adapted from the two titular fictional brothers who performed on Saturday Night Live around this time.  Plot is but an afterthought when you have wall-to-wall car chases and/or extended musical numbers from several R&B music luminaries including Ray Charles, Cab Calloway, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, John Lee Hooker, and Chaka Khan.  And that's not even accounting for an extended stacked cast including Kathleen Freeman, John Candy, Steven Williams, Henry Gibson, Charles Napier, and countless others!

Host & Editor: Geoff Gershon
Producer: Marlene Gershon

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Transcript

THE BLUES BROTHERS – 1980

Directed by John Landis

Starring Dan Ackroyd, John Belushi, Cab Calloway, Kathleen Freeman, Carrie Fisher, John Candy, Steve Cropper, Donald “Duck” Dunn, Murphy Dunne, Willie Hall, Tom Malone, “Blue” Lou Marini, Matt Murphy, Steve Cropper, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Heny Gibson, Alan Rubin, John Lee Hooker, Steven Williams, Steve Lawrence, Frank Oz, Paul Reubens, Twiggy, and Steven Spielberg…..and countless more!

Genre: Action Comedy Musical

This movie is just pure joy. It's also THE textbook definition of a "rewatchable" in that you can catch it at any particular part - no matter how late in the movie - and still enjoy it. :) Infact if there's a film which actually BENEFITS from segmented viewing - watching it in chunks - this might be it! Because the overall plot is almost an afterthought...the titular brothers Joliet Jake (John Belushi) and Elwood (Dan Ackroyd) are on a mission....to raise money for the dying orphanage they grew up in....and they want to get the band back together....and blah blah blah....they piss off the Illinois Nazis...yada yada....they've gotta prove themselves to "The Penguin" (no not THAT one played by Colin Farrell)....blah blah....the Good Ol' Boys are after them....it doesn't really matter, it's all about the JOURNEY and the friends you make along the way. ;) And this rambling, likely overstuffed, self-indulgent, expensive (for the time), 133 minute (!) musical action comedy from John Landis still remains one hell of an enjoyable ride for me! 

The plot becomes an afterthought by the time we see the first....of MANY...sterling on-screen performances from musical legends which would be James Brown playing a preacher leading a gravity-defying gospel celebration in a church replete with dancers....including Belushi's stunt double doing one hell of a multiple flip in between the pews. 😆 As if Brown wasn't enough, we've got numbers fron John Lee Hooker, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, and....always my personal favorite....ARETHA! It's fun and somewhat bittersweet seeing ALL of these now-passed legends devouring the screen in a movie from early '80's. Musical legends aplenty all leaving their mark! 

And of course passed comedy legends too...Belushi strutting his stuff with what I think remains his most satisfying on-screen appearance...John Candy, Pee Wee Herman, Kathleen Freeman (who plays the Penguin....she's a nun), Henry Gibson, and...yes who can forget....Carrie Fisher portraying the recurring "Mystery Woman" (that's how she's credited) who for most of this film's runtime would have you suspecting she's a well-armed terrorist. 😯 Alas she's simply a jilted bride who Jake left at the altar....like I said, the plot becomes increasingly irrelevant. But still a playful tribute to so many legendary performers.....

Along those those lines, the seemingly Looney Tunes-inspired action keeps it all moving quite well in between musical numbers. We can see early on the kind of absurd tone which Landis and crew are going for when Fisher uses a rocket launcher to demolish a Chicago building where our protagonist brothers are staying....and the aftermath just features them calmly climbing their way out of bricks and collapsed drywall the way a kid would climb his way out of a ball-pool at Chuckie Cheese. 😜 There's a continuous parade of impressively staged carnage and destruction shown on-screen but it's all played for droll laughs. 

You wanna see the inner concourse of a suburban mall destroyed by cop cars....a Nazi-mobile sent flying off a highway overpass to a height OVER the top of the Sears Tower....a dozen Chicago cops rapelling down over Daley Plaza just uttering "HUT HUT HUT!"....this has just got it all that and more if cartoonish, bloodless slapstick violence is your bag. :) 

Best Needle-drop (best song cue or score used throughout runtime of film) and Trailer Moment (scene or moment that best describes this movie):

Ok in case it wasn’t already obvious, this movie is a veritable smorgasbord of memorable sequences including several musical numbers – there’s an abundance of diegetic needle-drops and potential trailer moments so I’m going to be both combine AND expand these two categories.  Therefore TOP FIVE NEEDLE-DROPS AND/OR TRAILER MOMENTS and trust me, it was EXTREMELY difficult to narrow down this list to just five! 

#5 Early on and it’s kind of funny this is probably THE quietest scene in the movie….our two titular brothers visit the fancy Chez Paul restaurant in Chicago…..where they have come to court the first of SEVERAL former bandmates….Mr. Fabulous played to haughty perfection by Alan Rubin. (Audio clip) 

This one’s an obvious Belushi Special with classic slob behavior such as slurping wine, chewing with his mouth open, asking inappropriate questions of nearby diners….and to be fair, Ackroyd is holding his own here with the physical comedy.  And of course, it DOES take two to toss shrimp into each other’s mouths from across the table. (Audio clip) 

#4 Oh right I had mentioned car chases right?  Well how about an aforementioned sequence where our boys are fleeing the local Illinois cops….and decide to try to evade them by driving the Blues Mobile RIGHT into the Dixie Square Mall….during PEAK shopping hours no less.  It’s an audacious sequence of playful distraction and they’re CLEARLY not going for realism here…..also GREAT deadpan from our two brother, apparently this mall has EVERYTHING. (Audio clip) 

#3 Talk about a CLASSIC sequence….around the 80 minute mark, the band’s back together and they’ve got their first gig….sort of.  Driving into the night aimlessly, they come upon Bob’s Country Bunker….where they apparently play BOTH types of music…(Audio clip) 

So yes with the help of some quick thinking – and a whip and THANK GOD some chicken-wire to protect them - our boys DO eventually win over this midwestern cowboy crowd with a spirited rendition of “Rawhide” performed by Frankie Lane back in 1958 as theme music for the popular TV show of the same name.  Gotta say that I really dig how they add a bridge to this song too….and that ONE local shit-kicker who starts dancing up a storm on that table.  (Audio clip) 

#2 Right around the half-way point…after most of the band has gotten back together, what do you know they still need instruments?  Well what better place to go than Ray’s Music Exchange in Calumet City?  Oh and DON’T go trying to steal any instruments…..as this young kid played by Argyle from Die Hard (Deveraux White) learns the hard way. (Audio clip) 

Why it’s the late, great Ray Charles of course….and he is on fire here, deliver the SECOND best prominent cameo in the movie, cracking wise and eventually breaking out into his own increasingly raucous version of the catchy 1968 single from The Five Du-Tones….and with a glorious crowd of back-up dancers JUST outside no less dancing on cars, in the street, on the elevated train platform.  The song is “Shake A Tail Father.” (Audio clip) 

#1 SUCH a close call but it’s the best musical number AND the best cameo in the movie.  It’s a relatively simple sequence but just SO much joy…I’m referring to when the ‘Brothers head over the Soul Food Café in Chicago to recruit Matt and Blue Lou back in the band.  And who should they encounter at the counter but Matt’s wife…..played by Aretha Franklin. (Audio clip)   

I just love everything about this sequence from Aretha’s spirted rendition of her own 1968 hit single “Think” to Elwood’s food order to the way Blue Lou sheepishly joins the music (with his saxophone no less) to the three patrons who become back-up dancers for Aretha.  Just an all-time great scene! (Audio clip) 

Wasted Talent (most under-utilized talent involved with film): 

It’s hard to refer to any particular talent involved as “wasted”….except when of course describing their physical and mental state during filming.  (drum beat) But yes as this film was a definitive time capsule of its particular time, several elements have not aged the best.  Hell in the 40+ years since then, The Blues Brothers "brand" itself through spin-offs, franchise bars, and follow-up performances has just become an increasingly in-your-face relic of cultural appropriation.  Even moreso the reputation of its director unfortunately….mostly because of a VERY tragic occurrence which occurred on HIS watch when co-directing an even more ambitious film just a few years later….not gonna get into that any further. 

MVP (person or people most responsible for the success of this film):

Speaking of which though, I cannot see this film working AT ALL without strong hand guiding it, no matter how much chaos was allowed during production.  You see after having recently watched Spielberg's similarly bloated (but much less entertaining) 1941, it's just all the more obvious how difficult yet ridiculous this was to pull off! Whereas that big budget epic comedy was ALL large-scale highpoints and hijinks, what Landis (and co-writer Ackroyd) pulled off here was much more varied....even giving the best gags and jokes some room to breathe.  For pulling that off with JUST the right blend of car chases and musical numbers, John Landis is the MVP. (Audio clip)  

Overall Rating: 5 stars out of 5

It's a near-perfect genre blend still structured just well enough and carried by two strong comedic lead performances to add up to an almost cohesive movie. 🤗 But at THIS particular coke-fueled point in 1980 - with all of these stars properly aligned - it just worked as balls-out entertainment.  Happy 45th Anniversary to one of THE Ultimate Chicago Movies!

Streaming on Apple TV Plus

And that ends another BOTH KINDS…COUNTRY AND WESTERN review!