The Blues Brothers (film): Difference between revisions
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==Production== |
==Production== |
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Much of the film was shot on location in [[Chicago, Illinois]] and the surrounding area, between July and October of 1979. The [[shopping mall|mall]] chase scene was filmed in the real, albeit abandoned, [[Dixie Square Mall]] in [[Harvey, Illinois]]. The bridge jump was filmed on an actual drawbridge, the 95th Street bridge, on the southeast side of Chicago. In the final car chase scene, the production actually dropped a car, representing the one driven by the "Illinois Nazis," from a helicopter at an altitude of more than a mile. The shot leading up to the car drop, where the "Illinois Nazis" drive off a freeway ramp, was shot in [[Milwaukee, Wisconsin]] on an unfinished freeway ramp that wasn't completed until over a decade later. Several Milwaukee skyscrapers are visible in the background as the [[Bluesmobile]] flips over, notably the US Bank Building. The building where the band performs its climactic concert is now the [[South Shore Cultural Center]], located in the Chicago neighborhood of the same name. However, the actual concert scenes were filmed in the [[Hollywood Palladium]]. |
Much of the film was shot on location in [[Chicago, Illinois]] and the surrounding area, between July and October of 1979. The [[shopping mall|mall]] chase scene was filmed in the real, albeit abandoned, [[Dixie Square Mall]] in [[Harvey, Illinois]]. The bridge jump was filmed on an actual drawbridge, the 95th Street bridge, on the southeast side of Chicago. In the final car chase scene, the production actually dropped a car, representing the one driven by the "Illinois Nazis," from a helicopter at an altitude of more than a mile. The shot leading up to the car drop, where the "Illinois Nazis" drive off a freeway ramp ([[Hoan Bridge]]), was shot in [[Milwaukee, Wisconsin]] on an unfinished freeway ramp that wasn't completed until over a decade later. Several Milwaukee skyscrapers are visible in the background as the [[Bluesmobile]] flips over, notably the US Bank Building. The building where the band performs its climactic concert is now the [[South Shore Cultural Center]], located in the Chicago neighborhood of the same name. However, the actual concert scenes were filmed in the [[Hollywood Palladium]]. |
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The Blues Brothers also toured that year to promote the movie. Jake and Elwood released their second LP, the soundtrack to the film, which included the Top 40 hit "[[Gimme Some Loving|Gimme Some Lovin']]". They followed the soundtrack with ''Made In America'', a live performance like ''Briefcase Full Of Blues'', which featured the top 40 track "Who's Making Love". Sales of ''Made In America'' were disappointing, and it marked the last new Blues Brothers album to feature Belushi's Jake Blues. |
The Blues Brothers also toured that year to promote the movie. Jake and Elwood released their second LP, the soundtrack to the film, which included the Top 40 hit "[[Gimme Some Loving|Gimme Some Lovin']]". They followed the soundtrack with ''Made In America'', a live performance like ''Briefcase Full Of Blues'', which featured the top 40 track "Who's Making Love". Sales of ''Made In America'' were disappointing, and it marked the last new Blues Brothers album to feature Belushi's Jake Blues. |
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Revision as of 21:28, 22 September 2006
| The Blues Brothers | |
|---|---|
| File:The Blues Brothers DVD Cover.jpg | |
| Directed by | John Landis |
| Written by | Dan Aykroyd John Landis |
| Produced by | Bernie Brillstein George Folsey Jr. David Sosna Robert K. Weiss |
| Starring | John Belushi Dan Aykroyd Carrie Fisher John Candy |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release dates | 20 June, 1980 |
Running time | 133 min. |
| Language | English |
The Blues Brothers is a 1980 musical/comedy film, directed by John Landis and starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd as "Joliet" Jake and Elwood Blues, The Blues Brothers, and their supporting band.
Aside from the band, the film features on-screen musical performances by Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, and John Lee Hooker. Carrie Fisher, Henry Gibson, Charles Napier, Kathleen Freeman and John Candy are featured in non-musical supporting roles. The film contains many cameo appearances, including Frank Oz, Steven Spielberg, Joe Walsh, Steve Lawrence, and Twiggy. Chaka Khan is credited as the lead soloist at the Triple Rock Church where Jake and Elwood have their revelation to re-form their band, and a pre-Pee Wee Herman Paul Reubens plays a waiter in the swank Chez Paul restaurant.
Plot details
Template:Spoiler The movie is set in Chicago, Illinois, and revolves around the title characters, who are reunited at the beginning of the film as "Joliet" Jake Blues is released from Joliet Prison into his brother's custody (he was imprisoned for armed robbery). Elwood immediately irritates Jake by picking him up in a former City of Mount Prospect police car, a 1974 Dodge Monaco (which replaced their Cadillac, the "Bluesmobile", which Elwood had traded for a microphone). Jake is somewhat mollified when Elwood demonstrates the "new" car's powers by vaulting it over an open drawbridge. This also gives rise to one of the most deadpan deliveries in the film from Jake - "The car's got a lot of pickup."
Over Jake's vehement protests, they then visit the inner-city Catholic orphanage which was their childhood home, and learn that it is to be shut down unless the back property taxes on the building can be paid within a short time. Although this is normally regarded as a goof, as church-owned property is exempt from property tax, it was actually based on a real bill that was being put through at the time of the writing of the film. The bill was never enacted into law. The orphanage director, a strict nun referred to as "The Penguin" (Freeman), emphatically refuses to accept any "filthy, stolen" money from the brothers. At the prompting of Curtis (Calloway), the elderly orphanage worker who originally introduced the brothers to the blues, a visit to an evangelical church service gives the duo an epiphany: they can legitimately raise the necessary funds by taking their legendary rhythm and blues band for a tour. As they drive home, Elwood attracts the unwanted attention of two Illinois state troopers with his reckless driving habits. He has 56 warrants for 116 parking violations, according to the troopers' on-board "SCMODS" computer. Elwood pronounces it "Skmauds", which he says stands for "State County Municipal Offender Data System". He then earns the pursuing officers' undying enmity by driving through a shopping mall to escape capture. Director Landis cameos as another police officer during this chase.
With the assistance of John Candy's character, the two law officers track the brothers down to the flophouse where Elwood is living, but only after being thrown off the trail because Elwood had falsified his driver's license, giving a home address of 1060 West Addison Street, which is the location of Wrigley Field. Just as the three police are about to move in for the arrest, the flophouse is blown up by a "Mystery Woman" (Fisher). Miraculously, the Blues Brothers climb out of the smoking rubble unhurt and dust themselves off, still wanted by the police.
The Blues Brothers spend the rest of the film's first half tracking down members of the Band and convincing them to re-join, as well as playing venues to raise the requisite $5,000 needed to save the orphanage. Staged and spontaneous musical numbers spring up throughout their their journey, not to mention several car chases, with an extremely large number of crashes, in parody of the car chases in earlier movies such as The French Connection.
Along with the aforementioned troopers, the duo collects additional enemies: a neo-Nazi group ("The Illinois Nazis", modelled on the American Nazi Party) targets them after the brothers disrupt their rally; a Country and Western band called "The Good Ol' Boys" (led by Charles Napier) chase them after the brothers steal their gig at a bar called Bob's Country Bunker, where they play both kinds of music: country and western. The Blues Brothers band plays behind chicken wire and evidently repeats two songs all night long: the theme from Rawhide and "Stand by Your Man"). Bob, owner of the Bunker, comes after them when they run out on their huge bar tab. And throughout, the Mystery Woman, eventually revealed to be Jake's jilted fiancée, reappears at regular intervals, attempting without success to kill Jake and Elwood using various methods including a rocket launcher, a flamethrower and an assault rifle.
The film culminates in a live concert, during which Cab Calloway opens with "Minnie the Moocher", and then the Blues Brothers perform two songs before escaping from the surrounding police cordon with the timely help of a record executive. This is followed by a final massive car chase in which, with the entire "Illinois law enforcement community" in pursuit, the brothers race to deliver the money raised from the concert to downtown Chicago in time to pay the tax debt owed by the orphanage. The target building is stormed by hundreds of police, firefighters, and the U.S. Military. Literally seconds after paying the bill to the assessor clerk (Spielberg), the brothers are arrested, and the film ends with the entire band, who have all been imprisoned in the same prison, playing Jailhouse Rock for their fellow inmates.
Production
Much of the film was shot on location in Chicago, Illinois and the surrounding area, between July and October of 1979. The mall chase scene was filmed in the real, albeit abandoned, Dixie Square Mall in Harvey, Illinois. The bridge jump was filmed on an actual drawbridge, the 95th Street bridge, on the southeast side of Chicago. In the final car chase scene, the production actually dropped a car, representing the one driven by the "Illinois Nazis," from a helicopter at an altitude of more than a mile. The shot leading up to the car drop, where the "Illinois Nazis" drive off a freeway ramp (Hoan Bridge), was shot in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on an unfinished freeway ramp that wasn't completed until over a decade later. Several Milwaukee skyscrapers are visible in the background as the Bluesmobile flips over, notably the US Bank Building. The building where the band performs its climactic concert is now the South Shore Cultural Center, located in the Chicago neighborhood of the same name. However, the actual concert scenes were filmed in the Hollywood Palladium.
The Blues Brothers also toured that year to promote the movie. Jake and Elwood released their second LP, the soundtrack to the film, which included the Top 40 hit "Gimme Some Lovin'". They followed the soundtrack with Made In America, a live performance like Briefcase Full Of Blues, which featured the top 40 track "Who's Making Love". Sales of Made In America were disappointing, and it marked the last new Blues Brothers album to feature Belushi's Jake Blues.
Critical reaction
The Blues Brothers is often regarded as the best of many films adapted from Saturday Night Live sketches. It effectively combines the deadpan humor of Belushi and Aykroyd as the title characters with over-the-top action and slapstick sequences (the film held the record for the most cars destroyed in one film until surpassed by its own sequel), interspersed with highly-stylized musical numbers from the soul music legends in the supporting cast.
This film is widely credited for putting Chicago on the radar as a venue for filmmaking. Mayor Richard J. Daley had all but prevented movies from being produced there up until his death in 1976 (this is mentioned in a line by Mr. Fabulous), which may have in part provoked the scene which has the Bluesmobile plowing through Daley Plaza and crashing into the Richard J. Daley Center lobby. Since then, nearly 200 movies have been filmed in Chicago. "Chicago is one of the stars of the movie. We wrote it as a tribute," says Aykroyd. [1]
In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted The Blues Brothers the 14th greatest comedy film of all time.
This film is number 69 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies".
See also
External links
- The Blues Brothers at IMDb
- Chicago Filming Locations based on Google Maps