How does one ultimately describe John Landis’ 1980 now-classic THE BLUES BROTHERS? Part action comedy, part road movie comedy, part musical-lets-get-a-band-together movie.
Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi had already established Jake and Elwood Blues via SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE and had a successful album, A BRIEFCASE FULL OF BLUES, in the charts and according to online reports when this movie was announced, there was a bidding war between Paramount and Universal to gain the rights to the film.
Forty years on, it is a movie that remains one of the definitive cinematic events of all time.
The plot, as it is, focuses on the recent parole of Jake (Belushi) who is met by brother Elwood (Aykroyd), but things aren’t great, not least in the fact that Elwood has traded their beloved ‘Bluesmobile’ in for a second-hand police car, based on Elwood’s love of the incredible speed.
They go and visit their old orphanage and head nun, who reveals the place is about to be closed down if they can’t come up with the money to keep it going. The Blues boys offer to get money illicitly, but are scolded both verbally and physically by the nun, who insists they come back ‘when you have redeemed yourself!’
They decide to get their band back together, but along the way they come into conflict with Nazi sympathisers, a country and western band they have stolen a gig from – and a mystery woman (Carrie Fisher) who is determined to use every major weapon to obliterate them at every opportunity.
From the opening credit sequence in which we watch Jake leave prison to the epic car chase and carnage climax, plus a dynamo of a chase through a mall (which in real-life was about to be knocked down, but which the film-makers purchased for this specific sequence), THE BLUES BROTHERS has it all – and somewhere along the way look out for a cameo from director legend Steven Spielberg.
Oh – and add the musical numbers from the likes of Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and Cab Calloway as well as the Blues Brothers covers as well – and a good time still remains for you to shake a tail feather or two. Shake Shake Shake people!!!