The Blues Brothers ***** (1980, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi) – Classic Movie Review 2606

Director John Landis spent what was then a movie fortune ($30million) of Universal Studios’ money on this wild, wacky and wayward 1980 car-crash chase comedy. Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi star in their most famous roles, re-created from America’s Saturday Night Live NBC TV show, as a pair of zany blues band brothers trying to make money to save an orphanage.

Belushi plays Jake Blues, who is just out from prison, and decides to try to save the Catholic home where he and brother Elwood (Aykroyd) were raised by re-assembling his old band. The only way to keep the place open is if the $5,000 tax on the boarding school property is paid within 11 days. The duo set off on their ‘mission from God’ – to raise the money by staging a big concert.

This often hysterical and wildly inventive movie was a considerable box-office disappointment and it’s hard to see why because it’s brash, fast and hilarious. It must just have been ahead of its time. Ten years on from its cinema release, it became a hit video, record and stage show, and now it is a legendary cult classic.

With a hilarious screenplay by Aykroyd and Landis and great musical numbers in person from rhythm and blues, soul and blues singers James Brown, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and John Lee Hooker, it is like Stephen Spielberg’s 1941 (which also undeservedly disappointed), only even better.

Also in the cast are Kathleen Freeman, Henry Gibson, Cab Calloway, Carrie Fisher (Mystery Woman), Charles Napier, John Candy and Jeff Morris.

The originally cut theatrical running time is 133 minutes, with 148 minutes for the extended edition.

Belushi’s partying and drug use on location in Chicago caused long, costly delays. And that combined with the high cost of the destructive car chases on screen helped to make the film one of the most expensive comedies ever produced.

New to film-writing, Aykroyd took six months to deliver a long, unconventional script that Landis had to rewrite before production, which began without a final budget. Fears that the film would fail limited its initial bookings to less than half normal.

Sequel: Blues Brothers 2000 (1998).

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2606

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