The Blues Brothers
Short description
After serving time in prison, Jake Blues is picked up by his brother Elwood and taken to the Catholic orphanage where the two were raised, run by Sister Mary Stigmata. The place faces closure unless a substantial tax bill is paid within a matter of days, so the brothers set out to raise the money the only way they know: by getting their old blues band back together and staging a benefit concert. Their mission puts them on the wrong side of the law and draws a growing crowd of pursuers, among them the police, a band of Illinois Nazis and others with grudges against them.
John Landis directed, working from a screenplay he wrote with Dan Aykroyd, and the film was produced by Robert K. Weiss for Universal Pictures. It was Landis's third feature as director, following Animal House and preceding An American Werewolf in London. Aykroyd and John Belushi star as Elwood and Jake, backed by musicians including James Brown, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin.
The film runs 133 minutes. Against a budget of about 27 million dollars, it took roughly 115 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds 7.9 out of 10 from around 228,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.7 out of 10 from 4,685 votes. A critics' rating of 7.5 out of 10 from 91 reviews is close to the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- During the filming of the prison breakout scene, a helicopter from the film crew was shot at by a real prison guard who thought they were spies.
- Permission to film in downtown Chicago was granted only after John Belushi (1949-1982) and Dan Aykroyd promised to donate $50,000 to charity.
- John Belushi earned the nickname "Black Hole" because he required hundreds of pairs of sunglasses during filming. He usually wore sunglasses in one scene, and by the time the next scene began, he had already managed to lose them.
- After the concert, police cars chase the Blues Brothers all the way to Chicago. The crash scene involving multiple police cars was filmed on a closed section of highway in Illinois.
- Dixie Square Mall in Harvey, Illinois, was rented for the scenes of the car chase through the shopping mall. The mall was closed for a year; rumors circulated around the city that it would reopen after repairs following the completion of filming. The company Universal was subsequently sued for over $87,000 for failing to return the mall to the condition it was in before filming began, although this had never even been discussed. About a year later, part of the mall was demolished, and the demolition was finally completed in 2012.
- According to Dan Aykroyd, some of the film's budget was spent on cocaine to help the actors and crew cope with overnight shoots. Aykroyd also said that John Belushi was particularly pleased about this.
- A significant portion of the car chase scenes had to be filmed twice. During the first take, all pedestrians were removed from the area for safety reasons, but this made the scenes look unconvincing. The scenes then had to be reshot with extras.
- The Blues Brothers' car (dubbed the “Bluesmobile”) is a 1974 Dodge Monaco. The police cars used in the filming were purchased from the California Highway Patrol. A total of 12 “Bluesmobiles” were used in the shooting.
- 103 cars were destroyed during filming – a world record at the time. This record was broken two years later when 150 cars (and an airplane) were wrecked for the film “The Junkman” (1982). That record, in turn, lasted for two decades, until over 300 cars were destroyed during the filming of “The Matrix Reloaded.”
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