The Blues Brothers is a 1980 American musical action comedy film directed by John Landis. It stars John Belushi as "Joliet" Jake Blues and Dan Aykroyd as his brother Elwood, characters developed from the recurring musical sketch "The Blues Brothers" on NBC's variety series Saturday Night Live. The script is set in and around Chicago, Illinois, where it was filmed, and the screenplay is by Aykroyd and Landis. It features musical numbers by singers James Brown, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and John Lee Hooker. It features non-musical supporting performances by Carrie Fisher and Henry Gibson.
The story is a tale of redemption for paroled convict Jake and his brother Elwood, who set out on "a mission from God" to prevent the foreclosure of the Roman Catholic orphanage in which they were raised. To do so, they must reunite their rhythm and blues (R&B) band and organize a performance to earn the $5,000 needed to pay the orphanage's property tax bill. Along the way, they are targeted by a homicidal "mystery woman", neo-Nazis and a country and western band—all while being relentlessly pursued by the police.
Universal Pictures, which won the bidding war for the film, was hoping to take advantage of Belushi's popularity in the wake of Saturday Night Live, the film Animal House, and the Blues Brothers' musical success; it soon found itself unable to control production costs. The start of filming was delayed when Aykroyd, who was new to film screenwriting, took six months to deliver a long and unconventional script that Landis had to rewrite before production, which began without a final budget. On location in Chicago, Belushi's partying and drug use caused lengthy and costly delays that, along with the destructive car chases depicted onscreen, made the film one of the most expensive comedies ever produced.
Owing to concerns that the film would fail, its initial bookings were less than half of those similar films normally received. Released in the United States on June 20, 1980, it received mostly positive reviews from critics and grossed over $115 million in theaters worldwide before its release on home video, and has become a cult classic over the years. A sequel, Blues Brothers 2000, was released in 1998 and failed to match the critical and commercial success of the original film. In 2020, The Blues Brothers was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot
Jake Blues, a blues vocalist and petty criminal, is paroled from Joliet Prison after serving three years of a five-year sentence for armed robbery and is picked up by his brother Elwood in a battered former police car. Jake complains that Elwood is driving a police car, and Elwood demonstrates its capabilities by jumping an open drawbridge. They visit the Catholic orphanage where they were raised, and learn from Sister Mary Stigmata that it will be closed unless it pays $5,000 in property taxes. At the suggestion of their friend Curtis, they attend a sermon by the Reverend Cleophus James at the Triple Rock Baptist Church, where Jake has an epiphany: they can reform their band, the Blues Brothers, which disbanded while Jake was in prison, and raise the money to save the orphanage.
That night, state troopers attempt to arrest Elwood for driving with a suspended license due to dozens of parking tickets and moving violations. The brothers escape after a car chase through the Dixie Square Mall. As they arrive at the flophouse where Elwood lives, a mysterious woman fires a rocket launcher at them but misses. The next morning, as the police arrive at the flophouse, the same woman detonates a bomb that demolishes the building but leaves Jake and Elwood unharmed, saving them from arrest.
Jake and Elwood begin tracking down members of the band. Five of them are performing as Murph and the Magic Tones at a deserted Holiday Inn lounge and quickly rejoin. Their trumpeter Mr. Fabulous turns them down as he is the maître d' at an expensive restaurant but relents when the brothers dine with poor manners and threaten to become regular patrons. On their way to meet the final two members, the brothers find the road through Jackson Park blocked by a neo-Nazi demonstration on a bridge; Elwood runs them off the bridge into the East Lagoon. The neo-Nazis swear revenge. The brothers find Matt "Guitar" Murphy, who now runs a soul food restaurant on Maxwell Street with his wife and "Blue Lou" Marini. Murphy's wife advises him against rejoining the band, to no avail. The group obtains instruments and equipment from Ray's Music Exchange, and Ray, "as usual", takes an IOU.
As Jake attempts to book a gig, the mystery woman blows up his phone booth; once again, he is miraculously unhurt. The band stumbles onto a gig at Bob's Country Bunker, a honky-tonk in Kokomo, Indiana, by impersonating the country and western band booked. They win over the rowdy crowd, but run up a bar tab higher than their pay, and infuriate the Good Ole Boys, the band they impersonated.
Realizing they need a big show to raise the necessary money, the brothers manage to book the Palace Hotel Ballroom, north of Chicago. They drive around Chicago promoting the concert, alerting the police, the neo-Nazis and the Good Ole Boys of their whereabouts. The ballroom is packed with fans, police officers and the Good Ole Boys. Jake and Elwood perform two songs, then sneak offstage, as the tax deadline rapidly approaches. A record company executive offers them a $10,000 cash advance on a recording contract - more than enough to pay off the orphanage's taxes and the IOU - and tells them how to slip out of the building unnoticed. As they escape through a service tunnel, they are confronted by the mystery woman: Jake's vengeful ex-fiancée. After her volley of M16 rifle bullets leaves them once again miraculously unharmed, Jake offers a series of ridiculous excuses that she rejects. When she looks into his eyes, though, she takes interest in him again and becomes distracted long enough for the brothers to escape in their car.
Jake and Elwood race back toward Chicago, with dozens of state and local police and the Good Ole Boys and the Nazis in pursuit. They elude them all with a series of improbable maneuvers, including a miraculous gravity-defying escape from the neo-Nazis. Finally arriving at the Chicago City Hall building, they rush inside, followed by hundreds of law enforcement officers, firefighters and the National Guard. The brothers find the Cook County Assessor's office and successfully pay the tax bill but are arrested by the mob of law officers immediately after. In prison, the band plays "Jailhouse Rock" for the inmates.
Cast
John Belushi as "Joliet" Jake Blues, a former blues singer, paroled from prison after three years Dan Aykroyd as Elwood J. Blues, Jake's blood brother, also a former blues singer James Brown as the Reverend Cleophus James, pastor of the Triple Rock Baptist Church. His musical sermon "The Old Landmark" causes Jake to have an epiphany Cab Calloway as Curtis, orphanage janitor and an old friend/father figure of the brothers, who suggests they visit the church, and helps them advertise the show and performs "Minnie the Moocher" for the audience Ray Charles as Ray, a blind music store owner, who performs "Shake a Tail Feather" to demonstrate the effectiveness of the instruments he sells Aretha Franklin as Mrs. Murphy, Matt Murphy's wife, who owns a soul food restaurant with him. She performs "Think" to persuade him not to join the band Steve "The Colonel" Cropper – lead guitar; a member of Murph and the Magic Tones Donald "Duck" Dunn – bass guitar; a member of Murph and the Magic Tones Murphy Dunne ("Murph") – keyboards; lead singer of Murph and the Magic Tones Willie "Too Big" Hall – drums; a member of Murph and the Magic Tones Tom "Bones" Malone – trombone, saxophone; a member of Murph and the Magic Tones "Blue Lou" Marini – saxophone; the dishwasher at the soul food restaurant Matt "Guitar" Murphy – lead guitar; the cook at the soul food restaurant "Mr. Fabulous" Alan Rubin – trumpet; the maitre d' at the Chez Paul restaurant Carrie Fisher as the Mystery Woman, Jake's former fiancée, who tries to kill him for leaving her at the altar John Candy as Burton Mercer, Jake's parole officer assisting the police in their hunt for the Blues Brothers Henry Gibson as the Head Nazi, the leader of a local American National Socialist White People's Party Twiggy as girl waiting at the gas station John Lee Hooker as Street Slim, a man singing "Boom Boom" together with a small band on Maxwell Street Kathleen Freeman as Sister Mary Stigmata, AKA "The Penguin", the nun who leads the orphanage where the brothers grew up Steve Lawrence as Maury Sline, the agent who organized and booked many of the Blues Brothers' performances before Jake was sent to jail Frank Oz as the corrections officer who returns Jake's possessions to him at the beginning of the film Jeff Morris as Bob, the owner of Bob's Country Bunker Charles Napier as Tucker McElroy, lead singer and Winnebago driver of the Good Ole Boys Steven Williams as Trooper Mount, one of the cops who follows Jake and Elwood from the start Armand Cerami as Trooper Daniel, one of the cops who follows Jake and Elwood from the start John Landis as Trooper La Fong, a cop who chases the Bluesmobile at the mall
Production
Origins
John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd created the characters Jake and Elwood Blues in performances on Saturday Night Live. The name The Blues Brothers was Howard Shore's idea. Aykroyd developed the Blues Brothers' backstory and character sketches in collaboration with Ron Gwynne, who is credited as a story consultant for the film. As related in the liner notes of the band's debut album, Briefcase Full of Blues, the brothers grew up in an orphanage, learned the blues from a janitor named Curtis, and sealed their brotherhood by cutting their middle fingers with a steel string said to have come from Elmore James's guitar.
Belushi had become a star in 1978 as a result of both the Blues Brothers' musical success and his role in National Lampoon's Animal House. At one point, he managed the triple feat of being the star of the week's top-grossing film and top-rated television series and singing on the Billboard 200 #1 album within a year. When Aykroyd and Belushi decided they could make a Blues Brothers film, the bidding war was intense. Universal Studios narrowly beat Paramount Pictures for the project. John Landis, who had directed Belushi in Animal House, was aboard as director.
The project had neither a budget nor a script. Universal head Lew Wasserman thought the film could be made for $12 million; the filmmakers wanted $20 million. It was impossible to settle on an amount without a screenplay to review, and after Mitch Glazer declined to help him, Aykroyd wrote one on his own. Aykroyd had never written a screenplay before, as he admitted in the 1998 documentary Stories Behind the Making of The Blues Brothers, or even read one, and he was unable to find a writing partner. He put together a very detailed volume that explained the characters' origins and how the band members were recruited. His final draft was 324 pages, three times longer than a standard screenplay, written not in a standard screenplay format, but more like free verse. To soften the impact, Aykroyd made a joke of the thick script and had it bound with the cover of the Los Angeles Yellow Pages directory when he turned it in to producer Robert K. Weiss. He titled it The Return of the Blues Brothers, and credited it to "Scriptatron GL-9000". Landis was tasked with editing the script into a usable screenplay,Stories Behind the Making of The Blues Brothers, documentary feature on 1998 DVD and 25th Anniversary DVD (2005). which took him about two weeks.
Casting