The year is 1979. The hottest show on TV is Saturday Night Live and two of its brightest stars set out on their first joint venture in cinema. After a lengthy script-writing process and a bidding war between several big studios, The Blues Brothers is born.
The Blues Brothers is the hilarious rough-and-tumble story of black suit-clad brothers Jake and Elwood Blues in their mission from God to find $5000 to pay the back taxes on the orphanage where they were raised. Along the way, they are pursued by Neo-Nazis, overzealous police, a homicidal ex-fiancee and a disgruntled country and western band. Their quest is punctuated by performances by the greatest rhythm and blues performers that have ever lived and some of the most ambitious car chases and stunts ever executed.
THE EDGE
The Blues Brothers is a lot of fun to watch, but it doesn't offer a lot more than that. It has great car chases, more music than most musicals and some very clever, if not hilarious, but the humour is very, very dry. For example:
Honestly, this sort of humour works for this reviewer but would certainly leave other viewers wanting and keeps Blues Brothers from the top slot in 1980s comedy.
It should be noted that The Blues Brothers was Dan Ackroyd's first outing as a feature screenwriter, and as such his first draft was more than 300 pages and resembled more of a free stream of consciousness than a screenplay. It was up to Director John Landis to trim and format the script into the movie you see today. This also left the script as episodic rather than a cohesive and fluid story. The final product is musical numbers broken up by epic lines and car chases. However, despite all its detractions, Blues Brothers is a darn good movie.
THE LOWDOWN
In his book, "The Blues Brothers: An Epic Friendship, the Rise of Improv and the Making of an American Movie Classic" author Daniel De Visé shed new light on the events of shooting Blues Brothers. It's hardly a secret that show business was rife with cocaine at the time when The Blues Brothers was shot. De Visé's book reveals just how much was around during the shoot. Members of the band can be seen using while on camera. Check the video below from our YouTube channel:
In addition to cocaine, there was also a bar built off-set so that the cast and crew could easily indulge during the day. While it seems that this wasn't a problem on this set, it very well could have been. Movie sets are dangerous places in the most mundane times. You work long hours, you have lots of heavy equipment and there are thousands of volts of electricity powering it all. To add readily accessible alcohol and narcotics into the mix is a recipe for disaster. Fortunately, for the production of Blues Brothers, there doesn't seem to be any injuries or mishaps that occurred, but there very easily could have been.
It's also well-documented that John Belushi had a substance abuse problem that hit new heights during the shoot. Ackroyd recalls this in a recent interview with Seth Meyers:
While it is fun to recall this 40+ years later it would have been hell to put up with on the day. Especially, if you're the poor soul that is tasked with keeping track of Belushi. I've worked on sets with actors who had problems like this. It is nerve-wracking to deal with somebody who has to perform through a hangover or while they are tweaked on blow. Not to mention, a whole crew had to wait around while Belushi wandered off to somebody's house to sleep off a hangover and not tell anybody where he was going. Days are long enough for crew, but when you have to wait around for that kind of stuff, it's very frustrating. It means you're away from friends and family even longer. Not to mention it costs the production a lot of money for everybody to just sit around doing nothing.
As we talked about before, some of the most ambitious car chases ever shot are in Blues Brothers. The film held the world record for the most cars crashed in a movie, a feat that was only surpassed by the sequel in 1998. We've already talked about the casual and occasionally excessive cocaine use on set, but Blues Brothers also had a director who had a very cavalier attitude towards safety.
Two years after Blues Brothers was released 3 performers were killed during the filming of the Twilight Zone movie in the segment that John Landis was directing. Two of the performers were children aged 6 and 7 whom Landis hired knowing it was a violation of child labour laws in California at the time. Members of the crew testified that Landis was dismissive when safety issues were raised. He was also known to yell and scream at the crew.
This is not to say that people didn't have a memorable time working on this movie, but when you put these facts together, I'm ok I missed this one.
THE JIST
The Blues Brothers is a very entertaining movie with some incredible car chases, better music and humour thats as dry as Elwood's plain white toast. Everyone involved can also count their lucky stars that they were able to make it out with their skin intact and a few stories to tell.
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