Yes.. the band members were actually real musicians. The band was actually formed and called "The American Band" by Belushi and Aykroyd to be able to perform based on the skit they did on SNL. The actually opened for The Grateful Dead. The band and the skit on SNL actually led to the movie.
Also most black future TV and movies stars were in this , Mr T , as random guy on sidewalk at some point , dancing scene on front of that music shop . Spielberg at end as office clerk and trashing a mall (that was already closed) and bunch of cop cars , why not , it's a bit of spoof of all those 1970s chase movies .
One of the best parts of both BB movies (yes, even the much maligned 2000) is how many musical greats they get together on screen. And Robert K. Weiss...
@@LordVolkov As a huge BB fan (Since the late 80s) I would say that malignation of BB 2000 was well deserved (Never was I so disappointed in a film...although I had such high hopes, it likely seems worse than it probably was) but I do agree, the music they highlighted in both films, and stellar soundtracks are to commended (My thoughts, Enjoy this film, ignore the second, but listen to both soundtracks)
This movie actually held the record for most cars destroyed in a film. I believe it was only passed by Smokey and the Bandit 2, which was specifically out to break the record.
Landis showed the speedometer in the Bluesmobile hitting 100 not because it's a movie stunt cliche that they're driving at 39 and showing a speedometer cranking into triple digits, but because they were really driving in Chicago at over a hundred miles per hour
It is true that The Blues Brothers held the Guinness record for most cars crashed on film with 103 cars, but the record wasn't broken until they filmed Blues Brothers 2000, where they purposely crashed 104. 😂
The shining.. 'Here's Johnny" on a drive-in screen in Twister, s it smashed through the screen. Such a great film, especially being from Chicago and having been to most of the locations in the film. Yes they are real musicians, my dad knew them quite from the Blues scene in Chicago... this movie got played A L LOT in our household.... and such great driving music as a rep on the road! Moved to Australia only to have a 'Blues Mobile" parked on my street. It used to show up to a monthly screening at a local cinema/theater where the crowd always got dressed up and danced on stage along with the movie. A MUST have soundtrack in any music collection, right alongside Pulp Fiction, Good Morning Vietnam and Reality Bites. Fun Fact: The mall was meant to be renovated, but through a series of events it wasn't and eventually demolished... so yeah, they destroyed a real mall for this movie
I got to see the Blues Brothers perform live. All the members of the band where there and the crowd was on their feet and everyone was dancing. It was great. The next day a friend of mine saw the Blues Mobile diving down the street doing a promotion for the concert. He even got photos (this was before smart phones but he had his camera with him).
The Blues Brothers - Dan Akroyd and John Belushi, began as a segment on SNL in the early 70s. While meant to be comedic, the band was the house band at SNL, lead by Paul Schaffer and started because of Dan's love of Blues music. THE HOUSE OF BLUES is an off-shoot of The Blues Brothers. The movie itself is a "diegetic musical" and was directed by John Landis. The budget (a record at the time) was $22,000,000. It helped revive the careers of Aretha Franklin and Cab Calloway. It holds the record for the most cars crashed in a movie.
The American Nazi Party famously wanted to hold a march in Skokie Illinois (where many Jews, including Holocaust survivors, lived in relatively high numbers) in the late 70s, so the Nazi reference is to that. The Skokie march was national news and was tangled up in court cases for years, though I believe in the end they were legally allowed to march there, but ultimately moved the march to Chicago in the late 70s.
"Not the drums!" Exactly, Simone....exactly. You guys watched one of my two favorite movies!! (Monty Python and the Holy Grail is the other one.) This movie is iconic, and included SO many music legends. I played the drums in a Blues Brothers band in high school, and then I was Elwood in another BB band in college, and tried my best to emulate Dan Aykroyd's dance moves. 😆 A few other things: *Aykroyd is a huge blues music fan, and he's primarily responsible for getting all those legends into this movie. Also, the guys in the band were indeed actual, extremely talented blues musicians. *John Belushi did his own singing, and the vast majority of his dance moves. He was very agile for a guy his size. *It was indeed destruction for destruction's sake. I believe they trashed over 130 police cars, along with the mall and everything else. *The clerk at the very end, when they paid the taxes? Steven Spielberg. Thanks again, you two! This made me very happy!! 😎
I worked in a financial institution and i can confirm illiterate individuals usually sign with an X or some kind of symbol they choose, just have to verify 2 forms of picture ID every time. Yes, that's John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd singing and the band musicials are some of the best musicians of their time and they actually toured together for couple years. You can find some grainy clips of their concerts on youtube.
I have seen this film more times than I can remember - I have NEVER noticed the photos of Carrie Fisher and Jake in the salon scene! That was a good spot...!
This movie set the world record of number of cars destroyed, at 104. This record stood until 1998, when it was bested by its own sequel, "Blues Brothers 2000", which destroyed 105 cars. :)
And, that is Steven Spielberg, as the tax clerk, at the end. And Frank Oz, of the Muppets and Yoda as the prison clerk, at the start. A few other cameos...
I have a Blues Brothers book that reads like a dossier of collected papers and files on Jake and Elwood, it has their schoolwork from the orphanage and psychologists' notes.
I was attending music college in Chicago when this film came out. My friends and I knew every line, every song, and every location! In the pantheon of running gags that have lasted between us all these years later, quotes from this movie come in second only to quotes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. --- "Are you the police?" "No, ma'am. We're musicians." LOL You asked too many for me to answer here but there is a "making of" documentary that you should really check out! Anyway, here's a few quick answers for you... Yes, this was Dan & John singing and dancing. And yes, lots and lots of peripheral damage!! Finally, not long before this movie was filmed, the National Socialist Party of America won a lawsuit that allowed them to march through the village of Skokie, located just north of Chicago. Skokie was home to a large population of holocaust survivors, which made the idea of Neo-Nazi's having the right to march there truly vile. When Jake and Elwood drive across the park bridge and make the Illinois Nazis dive into the water many theater crowds erupted into cheers and applause!
They were 100% making fun of over the top action movies. They were making fun of everything. This all started as a Saturday Night Live sketch, after all. Btw, did you catch the Steven Spielberg cameo at the end. He was the County Assessor who took the money and gave them the receipt. As for Belushi's voice, yeah that was him alright. The Blues Brothers toured for real at the end of the '70s, just like Spinal Tap did. They even had a very successful live album at the time. Iirc, they had a song from that album that got a lot of radio play called Rubber Biscuit
My favorite is Elwood: It's 106 miles to Chicago, we have a tank full of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses. Jake: Hit it!
The changes of visual tone in the film is because you watched an extended cut with additional scenes inserted. While I love the movie, I find the extended cut really slows down the pace of the movie. The theatrical cut is better.
You watched the extended cut which is from an inferior print which is why the visuals change. This is one of the movies where the extended cut isn’t as good.
The one bit of deleted scene I like is parking the Blues Mobile in the electrical transfer station and the car starts to glow. It's a fun explanation why the car is able to do everything in the movie.
Dan and John were actually singing. Dan Aykroyd was actually playing the harmonica. These two weren’t just comedic actors. They were both actually fans of the blues and R&B such as Sam and Dave The original singers of soul man
RIP Alan Rubin, Aretha Franklin, Cab Calloway, Carrie Fisher, Charles Napier, Donald Dunn, Henry Gibson, James Brown, Jeff Morris, John Belushi, John Candy, Kathleen Freeman, Matt Murphy, and Ray Charles.
All of the musicians (James Brown, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Lee Hooker, Ray Charles, etc) ended up getting career resurgences once this film came out. And it was truly deserved.
Aretha was the woman in the diner singing her iconic song "R.E.S.P. E. C. T." Simone said Danny has good knees ( dancing ), that was 1980, he'd be a bit less lively dancing now. BTW Danny is originally a Canadian.
@@treetopjones737 Aretha is definitely the woman! That scene is one of my favorites. The song is "Think" -- though "R.E.S.P.E.C.T." would definitley have fit too.
George, you are not too far off with your “cartoony source material” theory. The Blues Brothers is actually the first (of many) movie that was adapted/based on characters from a recurring Saturday Night Live sketch. Belushi and Akroyd created the characters for SNL and wrote and performed all of the sketches together.
I think the success of the album Briefcase Full Of Blues they put out after the SNL bits may have had something to do with getting this film a green light also.
The Blues Brothers act was "inspired by" Curtis Salgado and the Stilletos. They were a club band that performed up the road from where Belushi filmed Animal House.
@@curtismartin2866 yes and the other main influence was The Downchild Blues Band! It was Dan that got John into the blues groove, then John voraciously ate it up.
I got to see these guys at the Universal Amphitheater, opening for Steve Martin. That was a hell of a night. They performed just as they do in the movie, with an amazing amount of physical movement. Ackroyd really did dance like that, and Belushi did flips onstage. Fantastic band.
The American Nazis sued the village of Skokie, IL. The case went to the Supreme Court and it became a landmark case on free speech (decided in 1977). The scene was included because it was timely.
Some cameo appearances you may not have known: At the beginning you see the Police guard who gives Jake his belongings back before leaving Joliet. That was Frank OZ: Voice of Yoda, many muppets and was in Trading Places (as another police man). The police officer who says, "They broke my watch" is John Landis. When they go to Chez Paul restaurant, the waiter who suggests the Dom Parigon is Pee Wee Herman. The owner of Bobs Country Bunker is Jeff Morris, and is Cowboy in Kelly's Heroes. The girl at the gas station is Twiggy. The guy eating his sandwich to give them their receipt, is Stephen Speilburg. Enjoy your movie reactions.
Dan Aykroyd's original script was actually massive. Like, Lord Of The Rings scale epic. He wrote up full back stories for every single member of the band, fully developing where they had been prior to the band's reunion.
It was 324 pages long. John Landis had to trim it down. If you notice any film Dan has written, it's always with a co-writer or two. He has a wild imagination.
And there was even a story-line explaining why the car seemed to have magical powers. It had to do with it being stored beneath some kind of power plant.
The music played as the Blues Brothers climb out of the rubble and resume their mission is the theme from the old Peter Gunn TV series, by Henry Mancini. The Dixie Square mall was located in a Chicago suburb, closed when it was only about 15 years old due to high crime in the area, and left abandoned after filming for over 30 years until it was demolished just a few years ago. Oh, and the Illinois Nazis thing was based on a real event where a Nazi group wanted permission to march in Skokie, Illinois. The local people were not pleased. Apparently neither were The Blues Brothers.
I remember it well: they did, in fact, win a court case over free speech, and promptly went on the march. Nowadays, their form of free speech is considered hate speech - but in the States, the Constitution makes no exceptions for that. Private platforms can decide what can and cannot be said but the government cannot...doesn't mean people have to listen, though.
@Britcarjunkie I was ten years old that summer. It was scary when I was told they were coming. When they won their case, they never came back. Instead, it opened the door for them to hold their demonstration downtown Chicago, which previous blocks had led them to try out Skokie. Our pushback was just as strong, though. I think winning the constitutional right was the main goal, and they didn't care much about Skokie at all. The film Skokie is here on RU-vid for free.
The mall was an actual mall called "Dixie Square Mall," which closed down in November, 1978. John Landis rented the mall for 8 weeks to shoot the scene of destruction. After filming, the production crew just left everything as it was and the mall was completely abandoned and shuttered shortly after. The mall was finally demolished in 2012.
The mall was actually a blight on the city for quite a while. Prior to the movie it was used as a temporary school while new buildings were built. After this it became a haven for homeless, drug dealers, and it multiple dead bodies were found in it over the years. In 2010-2012 the Abandoned places video trend was just kicking off, and several people were able to capture the state on video before it was finally bulldozed. Really worth watching.
The clerk at the end was Steven Spielberg, the director. I think this movie holds the record for the most crashed cars. The Blue Brothers was an SNL skit. They did a couple of albums. Pretty good music! Great blues classics. The movie was filled with musicians (the band was made up of all musicians). Crazy movie!
Jane Byrne the mayor of Chicago at the time and the state of IL gave the production a huge tax break and let them trash all the squad cars for the production to buy the city new ones.
"There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts! It wasn't my fault I swear to god!!!" Jake begging for his life is my favorite scene in a movie full of hilarity. The way his voice breaks at the end 🤣🤣🤣 and then the eyebrow tip to see if it worked is perfect. Combined with Carrie Fisher having no dialogue until she confronts Jake 🤣🤣🤣 Reading the manual while her nails dry is iconic. RIP to Belushi and Fisher.
Never underestimate locusts. I didnt do my assignment, didnt mow the lawn, ate too much KFC, smoked too much marijuana and forgot to do the dishes because of those goddamn pesky locusts.
@@fredfinks This time of year, parts of Nevada, Utah, Oregon, and Colorado, suffer from massive swarms of "Mormon Crickets: kinda strange to drive down a highway, and all of a sudden the pavement changes color & almost appears to be moving - because it is!
Not just musicians, legendary ones. And yes, Belushi sang everything. The movie is the first built off of a Saturday Night Live bit, that turned into a monster. A hit on television, the movie screen and the album was a big seller that they toured on. John Belushi was a rare talent.
When this movie was being made, Chicago PD was in the process of replacing its entire fleet of police cruisers. Landis bought the entire fleet, for the sole purpose of making the best chase scene since BULLITT.
My vote for "best chase scene since Bullitt" would go to The French Connection. I'm pretty sure one of the scenes in this film (when they're under the elevated tracks) is a direct nod to that film.
Dan Ackroyd was (is) a massive blurs fan and turned Belushi onto it. They worked hard to convince the artists to be in the movie but everyone playing it singing in the movie was an absolute giant. Even the guys in the Blues Brothers Band, many of whom played in the SNL house band, were famous studio musicians on platinum albums. James Brown has credited this movie as bringing blues back to a new generation and reviving the careers for himself and many others.
Mayor of Chicago Jane Byrne allowed dozens of crazy scenes involving cops, firefighters and the National Guard to be filmed in her city, helping to create an iconic film and opened the way for other film makers to operate there. There are more cameos in this film than you would probably catch. Everybody wanted to get in on the action - why? Because the Blues Brothers was already an iconic recurring skit from Saturday Night Live, which was going strong in 1979, and everybody knew about Jake and Elwood. Car chase and crash movies were extremely popular in the 70's, many of them involving huge casts. Sometimes the stunt man credits went on for several minutes.
@@treetopjones737 What the fuck are you talking about? He doesn't rape her. She fall asleep drunk and then there is the all ''angel vs devil'' scene, he choose not to do anything and brings her home.
@@treetopjones737 He doesn't rape her, but he does have an angel/devil on each shoulder debating whether he should while she's passed out drunk. The angel wins out. Later she reveals herself to be 13 as well. A LOT of 70s/80s movies have this real rape culture thing going on for sure, including this one. They also mention a guy getting raped in jail at the end.
@@treetopjones737 I don't think you're accurately remembering the movie. She passes out while she's straddling him making out; he's tempted, yes, but doesn't touch her after that except to get her home.
Well... not quite. It was a failed and closed mall, hoping to re-open at some point. The film production had a deal with the owners to do some basic filming but no destruction. Of course, what you see in the movie is what happened instead. They dressed it up and crashed it instead. The mall never reopened and was only demolished as late as in late 2010's finally after many attempts and some repurposing as other businesses. Now scheduled to be replaced with some housing units I think, or might have already been built already.
The song you are hearing is called "Peter Gunn by Henry Mancini, and it was the theme song for a tv show about a private investigator. The music means that they are hunting down the band members.
I've always thought the "over the top" obstacles (the police, ex-girlfriend, Nazis, etc) the Brothers faced was to emphasize their "mission from God" and how they had divine protection. Awesome reaction! Love you two! 🤗
This divine protection angle is also supported by the fact that the car made it through so much, then fell to pieces the moment it had gotten them where they needed to go.
The 'Cheese Whiz' line is not reference afaik, it's just an odd line that i think is supposed to show an aspect of Jake's character: that he is thoughtful and helpful and keeps his word. It is one of my favourite lines and character details. Such a funny and silly little touch that would not have been missed if it hadn't been added, but is all the more glorious for its oddity. There are several little touches in the movie that are memorable but ultimately trivial. If a movies greatness is measured in memorable lines, this ranks as an all time great musical classic
The man who requested the Cheese Whiz was 'Shotgun' Britton, the makeup artist for this movie and many many others (his Hollywood career started in 1939). An odd bit of extra texture for the film, and a nod of respect to another legend. 😎
If your question about recognizing someone from the bar scene is about the leader of the Good Ol' Boys, that's Charles Napier. He was a prolific character actor but you probably recognize him as one of the guards that Hannibal Lecter kills when he escapes in Silence of the Lambs.
The "oh we have both kinds of music" line has literally stuck with me my entire life. Watched it with my dad at 10 and that line pops into my head at least once a month.
@@garrhettroebuck8402 Another great line that they didn't bother to include in the reaction. Hmm, maybe this movie is more well written than I give it credit for.
My brother and his college roommate were the exact same height and weight as Belushi and Aykroyd, which led them to cosplay and perform as the Blues Brothers on multiple occasions. They won one scifi con costume contest by performing the full choreography of the two songs from the concert while lipsyncing, including leaving the room and then crawling across the stage in the background during another person's presentation (with that person's knowledge that it was going to happen)
When I first saw this movie, I thought it was very weird that there was no music over the opening. But when the song kicked in as they came face-to-face, I realized it was brilliant, because it made the music all the more in-your-face.
FYI, yes, George is correct. The changes in picture quality denote the additional footage added for the Extended Version. The Extended Version is not complete; the movie was originally envisioned as a full three-hour movie with an intermission. Sometime during the video era, they discovered a print that had some of the deleted footage in it and released it on VHS and DVD. A later DVD, the Blu-ray, and 4K UHD versions have all included both the tighter theatrical cut alongside the Extended Version. I think the theatrical version is probably a better movie, but I also grew up watching this version so there's definitely some additional bits that I love. All the members in the band aside from Aykroyd and Belushi are real musicians, and the Blues Brothers, including Aykroyd and Belushi, did a successful tour and album (recorded when they opened for Steve Martin). Between the hit album and the national stardom that "SNL" granted its cast in those early years, that's what got the movie made. Aykroyd is Canadian, so his real accent is whenever he says "sorry" and you can hear the Canadian "o" in it. He had never written a movie when he wrote this. The traditional rule of thumb is that one page is roughly equivalent to one minute of screen time, but Aykroyd's first draft was over 300 pages and featured a complete backstory for every member of the band. As a self-deprecating joke about the length of what he'd written, he took the cover off a copy of a phone book and put the script into it. The "Who are you going to call, Jake?" line is pretty funny because Ghostbusters wasn't made until 1984. It was originally conceived as another vehicle for Aykroyd and Belushi, but Belushi died in 1982, and it took Aykroyd a few years to come back to it and try and configure it with someone else in mind. The characters came about because Aykroyd and Belushi were both genuine fans of blues. The movie provided sort of an excuse for them to meet and work with artists they idolized, like James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Cab Calloway, and many others. It turned out to be a mutually beneficial project, as all of the artists, who were struggling at the time, had their sales revitalized by the movie introducing their music to a new generation, and they all cited the movie as a key turning point in the later half of their careers. Aykroyd and Fisher were engaged to be married for awhile, and she spent a good portion of the period between Star Wars in 1977 and Empire Strikes Back in 1980 hanging out with the "SNL" crowd. Elwood just works at a general canning factory that produces aerosol cans. So the glue, the stuff he puts in the tires, and the Cheez Whiz his neighbor asks for are all from his job, as they all come in spray cans. The kid who tries to steal from Ray's Music Exchange, De'voreaux White, would go onto play limo driver Argyle in Die Hard. There are definitely lots of examples of movies appearing as a joke in another movie. One that comes to mind is Halloween III, which is the one entry in the series that is more like a spin-off than a sequel. Since it takes place in a world where Michael Myers doesn't exist, they play the Halloween trailer on TV at one point. Pretty sure it really is Aykroyd and Belushi doing all of their own dancing. It might even be Belushi doing the backflips. The Cook County Assessor at the end is played by Steven Spielberg. Also, you're thinking of John Lasseter, not John Landis (re: Pixar). You previously watched the next Landis/Aykroyd collaboration, Trading Places, on the channel. There is a sequel to The Blues Brothers, and it is quite bad, and I don't think anyone will recommend you watch it.
I would only recommend that they watch Blues Brothers 2000 for the music, and only if they actually know who the musicians involved are. It’s definitely not a movie for everyone.
I recommend everyone see bad movies along side of good movies to round out one's cultural palate, running the full sequel gamut, as well as having a reference for to compare good movies to.. (also, us older folk who lived through the good ol' days also had to live through the drivel-films, and why should we be the only ones to 'suffer'?)
@@misterno-ice-guy8082 I think there are interesting sequels that had a mixed and/or negative reception (Terminator 3, for example). Blues Brothers 2000 just stinks in the most unremarkable way, which doesn't seem particularly enriching.
@@tylerfoster6267 I always rank movies on a scale from -5 points to 100.. partially because anything below -5 is a must see BECAUSE it's so bad, and becomes a positive number again. I can relate to your claim of "unremarkably bad", and I fully support it. However, I say watch, but don't react/post on yt, (bc of Blues Bros iconicness)
"All the members in the band aside from Aykroyd and Belushi are real musicians". Aykroyd is actually a good harmonica player, so... (He also was part of the chor in We Are The World, FWIW lol)
The Illinois nazi thing was a reference to a rally they tried to have in 1978 in Skokie, Illinois that turned into a major court case. A neo-nazi group wanted to hold a rally, but the local government blocked them. The nazis sued and it went all the way to the supreme court where they ruled that the government could not prevent any group from exercising free speech. They got the permit to have their rally, but there were so many protesters (outnumbering the nazis many times over) that they decided to have their meeting in a building in Chicago instead. It was national news at the time and pretty much everyone hated them. The scene in the movie was written at a time when the idea of white supremacists holding a public meeting was ridiculous. It hits different now.
In 1980 I was a 13 year old boy obsessed with John Belushi and saw this theatrically on day one…. I walked out in love with a genre of music I never knew existed. So many wonderful artists are in this film.
@@goldenageofdinosaurs7192 There were quite a lot of us, weren't there? :) It would be interesting to note which blues artists we all got into in the ensuing years. For me, it was SRV, John Lee Hooker, Lightnin Hopkins, and Albert King. And I can trace most of that budding fanaticism for blues back to this movie, and to Led Zeppelin.
This movie was such a big part of my teens. It came out the summer before I started high school in my home town of Joliet, Illinois. Since it was a locally set film, I was already going to love it, but the music and comedy made it a multiply-viewed movie that summer. That September, my Catholic high school’s homecoming theme was “We’re on a mission from God,” and we had a “Dress Like a Blues Brother Day” that week. When I went to college in Milwaukee four years later, my roommate’s father was a Mt. Prospect police officer and his old car had been one of the Bluesmobiles. Also, my drama professor had played the shorter of the two guards escorting Jake across the Collins Street prison in the start of the film-his name, Gerald Walling, SJ, is right above John Belushi’s in the closing credits.
That was a real prison there. The Joliet penitentiary is now closed to prisoners and I think is now open for tours. This movie was pretty notorious for destroying portions of the city - like Daley Plaza near the end. I think the city of Chicago sued to get some money back saying they wrecked more than they said it would. Also, John Belushi was known for being incredibly athletic for being sort of a large man. In Chicago, at about this time the movie came out, there was a Nazi organization that sued to hold a parade in Skokie, IL, a very heavily Jewish suburb. So, that Nazi stuff was pretty timely when this came out. Also, Rawhide was a TV show from late 50s - mid 60s, and got Clint Eastwood his start. And, finally, the clerk at the end - Stephen Spielberg because he was friends with director John Landis.
The Blues Brothers were actually a thing back then. They created the act for Saturday Night Live, but legitimately cut albums and did live performances. Their first album went double platinum, and they once opened for the Grateful Dead. Even after Belushi died, the band lived on in different formulations. They were influential on pop culture in many ways. One example, an imitation of them appeared in the Super Nintendo game Earthbound (Mother 2) from Japan, as the Runaway Five, even though there were six in all. Two frontmen (clones of Jake and Elwood) and four musicians, and they play a key role in the plot, along with a stranded bus. At one point in the game you attend one of their concerts, and there's no mistaking the Blues Brothers-type performance. And of course they've been endlessly imitated in commercials, Halloween costumes, etc.
Also, another favorite of mine, which also stars the Candy-Belushi-Akroid trio, is the WW II comedy 1941, done by Spielberg and considered to be the loudest movie ever made. It has the same manic energy as this movie, so it makes little sense, but you will laugh all the way through it.
Steven Spielberg is the Chicago court room officer who gives them the received for the 5000$ so they already knew each others in 1980. didnt remember of this cameo.
I so hope you guys recognized the Queen herself, Aretha Franklin in the diner scene,.. "You Better Think!" 🙌😃 One of the greatest collaborative soundtracks ever!
Aretha was spontaneous and couldn't lip sync to the recorded song, so they had to set up a series of overhead microphones to record her live as she danced around.
Great reaction guys! FUN FACT: the fact Carrie Fisher's character was hunting down the Blues Brothers solely for her own personal vendetta against Jake, the funny irony is.. She was dating and engaged to... Dan Aykroyd (Elwood Blues) during the movies production.. After the production wrapped up.. they broke it off while on a trip to Martha's Vineyard
Whenever you are feeling down watch this movie, the jokes may run dry but the music will always lift you up. Outrageously fun movie with a stellar cast (sadly most of whom have passed on)
This movie is just brilliant. If you just let your analytical self go, and accept what's happening is insanity, it's an amazing ride. There are so many hilarious parts to this film, and the cameos are unmatched Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Carrie Fisher, Frank Oz, John Candy, Henry Gibson - the head n*zi, and countless famous musicians. A total classic.
I have this film on blu-ray and was very confused by your comments about the changing look of the film, but then I noticed you watched the extended cut. I've never seen this version but this would explain why the film changed in quality throughout, especially if they didn't have the original negatives for the extra footage. The extended cut is 13 minutes longer and includes a longer version the James Brown song, which is when you first noticed the film quality change.
I looked it up when I got the digital version and later releases outside of the anniversary edition dvd the extra scenes were not cleaned up to match the visual quality of the rest of the movie.
The Blues Brothers was a comedy bit done on SNL back in the early days of the show's run. The show was fairly avant-garde back in its early days, and people who had broader talents took on many roles such as John and Dan both being able to sing and dance. Yes, they both sang and did their own bits in the film, they're just that good. The band is also played by the actual SNL band who would perform with them live on stage during filming of the show and broadcast. You could sort of consider this movie the precursor to what would become the traditional Saturday Night Live-inspired movie. As a followup to the film, John Belushi was slated to play Dr. Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters but would die from complications due to drug and alcohol use before he could fulfill the role. Bill Murray was given the role instead so one must wonder what the world might have been like with John Belushi as a Ghostbuster. Something cut from the film but explained by the writers was how the Blues Mobile had its inexplicable supernatural ability to drive. The high voltage room Elwood parked it in at night was going to be given some more depth as an explanation to what gave the car its power, but it didn't make the cut. Some notable and missed "Oh my gosh that's..." moments were missing Frank Oz, aka Fozzy Bear, aka Yoda, aka Ms. Piggy, played the prison quartermaster at Jake's release. You also have the legendary screen director himself Steven Spielberg playing the role of the county clerk at the end of the film. I got to be part of one of the coolest marching bands during my high school days. I already know how that sounds, but shut up, it's true. We played some of the jazziest sets and had some wild times. Jungle Boogie, Vehicle, 25 or 6 to 4, Let's Groove, way more than the boring fare other bands played. In my Junior year the teacher approached with a conundrum having not been able to come up with an idea for the show that year and we settled on doing The Blues Brothers as our theme, we already knew all the songs anyway.
John Belushi actually sang he also did the back flips too. Even though he looks out of shape he was very athletic. The scenes that were poorly visible are added recently this version must be a director cut. All the scenes that are visible good was the original movie cut or theatrical movie. The car chase at the end was for comic relief because a lot of studios at the time wanted some sort of car chase in movies much like Blazing Saddles was a western it’s making fun of how studios would pressure film makers to do things that had nothing to do with the movie. The county clerk was Stephen Spielberg and the officer who was given Jake his property back was Frank Oz.
TBF it wasn't just that he was athletic. He had a self-destructive nature that inspired him to literally throw himself into stunts, even if they'd hurt him, for the attention he'd get.
A few nerdy things… the band that are being recruited are actual top tier musicians. Mostly they played on a lot of Stax label records e.g. Sam and Dave Otis Redding and they also formed part of the band Booker T and the MGs who were the Stax house band. if you know you know.. Also along with James Briwn Ray Charles and Cab Calloway I am not sure you recognised Aretha Franklin when doing her song “Think” Finally as George said that the Blues Bros was fighting Nazis before Indiana Jones. A few scenes later Steven Spielberg appears later on in the film as the Cook County assessor who registers the money they made! How funny is that!
I've had the pleasure of introducing friends and family to this fantastic movie over the decades, there's so much music though... so I'm expecting lots of chatter from you :)
Yes, back in those days if you were illiterate and couldn't write your name, as long as you had a witness present who could verify your identity you could mark an X on documents instead of a signature. There were suprisingly quite a few places that allowed it. Because of standardized requirements in education nationwide nowadays however, that has long been done away with🤣👍
Cab Calloway recorded Minnie The Moocher in 1931, making the song 92 years old. As big fans of blues and R & B from the '50s and '60s, Ackroyd decided to honor those musicians by wearing the attire of many black bluesmen of that time, and well, of the general male black community, the black suit, tie, hat and Ray-Bans.
One of the weirdest experiences I ever had watching TV was hearing Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster singing "Minnie the Moocher" and realising that the guy who recorded it sang it in "The Blues Brothers" 50 years later.
Hudson Hawk is the ultimate "sing songs while you do crimes" movie. It's one of my favorites, and I think that, someday, it'll be considered a cult classic It's so weird, and funny, and weird. ❤
Okay, now I'm convinced this whole reaction thing is on a schedule of sorts. No way its coincidence movies keep matching up with other channels releases. Is there like a rooster teeth thing going on.
I take the opportunity to compare edits, versions and the like. No one has kept the Twiggy cameo yet, and this is the first extended version I’ve seen. I appreciate George recognizing Cab Calloway!
@@Divamarja_CA Extended cut doesn't really mean anything unless your paying for patreon stuff. Most gets cut anyway, esp on channels that have a smaller viewing time such as this one. Also, I don't get competing for the same audiences. Channels that get higher views and sub's are ones that branch out. Why watch this channel, if others are longer and offer a more variety of content besides what everyone else is doing. Its not wise to have patron only stuff esp in a day when most struggle to feed themselves. If one chsnnel or many put up, say... True Detective. Why would anyone pay to watch a cut up version with little discussion on the themes of the show when others offer a deeper discussion, longer viewing time, and its on RU-vid. From a business perspective, it makes no sense. Introducing content that many have no heard is also a good way to bring in new sub's and introduce those to new content. Preacher, Devs, Altered Carbon, Legion to name a few. Not very popular among plebs, but the quality is unmatched. Hot only would a new crowd be introduced to a new ip, you'll pull in those who did watch the show and gain two groups of watchers, rather than trying to pull from other channels either mirroring content. Edit: auto correct on this phone is something to behold. Won't be fixing mistakes it won't change or is too dumb to notice. Why it keeps changing whole words instead of fixing a single letter is beyond me.
Sometimes everyone's reacting to the same thing because it's relevant - like, a new movie related to an old one has been released, so everyone watches the old one. The rest of the time I imagine it makes sense to get views because someone who watches one reaction may want to watch others.
@@ColinTedford There's a new blues brothers movie? And copying others is not a great way to stand out. There's also the concept of market saturation. If you're like everyone else, what value do you really have?
@@elusiveDEVIANT There isn't a new Blues Bros movie that I know of - this would be the "rest of the time" I mentioned (unless there is a new movie - I wouldn't necessarily know). Reacting to the same things gives the audience more reactions of the things they like to see reactions to, plus a handy way to compare who does the reactions you like the best. Of course reactors need to find a balance between standing out and more of the same, as in any other media (people love "the same, but different"). What's the rooster teeth thing?
The idea for the characters was inspired by a Toronto band that Akroyd used to like to see in Ottawa called the Downchild Blues Band. Akroyd took Belushi to see them and got him interested in the blues. Yes, that was actually Belushi singing as well as Akroyd. Also, that was really Belushi doing the backflips in the church. He was pretty agile and did them a few times on SNL. Downchild actually played a concert in my high school gymnasium one day after someone at the school had won the concert on a radio contest.
As for the movie reference within the movie, yes this one has that as well, which most younger reactors miss on this one: man in the toy store asks if they "have a Miss Piggy" and the officer who did the release papers was the puppeteer of Miss Piggy, Frank Oz.
Not only are the band real musicians, many of them were the musicians who played on the original versions of many of the songs in the show, back in the '60s. The bass player and the guitarist with the beard (Duck Dunn and Steve Cropper) were part of Booker T and the MGs, and as the house band at Stax records, played on all of Otis Redding's hits, among many others. Cab Calloway, who sings Minnie the Moocher, had the original hit with that song, back in the 1930s. The whole movie is a homage to classic blues and soul music. The characters of Jake and Elwood Blues began as recurring characters on Saturday Night Live. They went out and toured, until Belushi's death. They were the real deal.
A couple fun facts about this movie: That Dixie Square Mall was shut down, so they bought it to film that scene after renovating pieces of it and at the time this film set the record for most cars wrecked in a movie at 104. The sequel beat it by one, but now it is something ridiculous like 500+. Also this movie was based on an SNL skit originally. I think it was like 30M to film and made 115-120M in theaters.
The Blue Brothers band was made up of the best Blues and R&B musicians of the '60s and '70s. Belushi was actually a great vocalist, Aykroyd an exceptional harmonica player. As a musical act, they had one hell of a sound. They toured quite a bit in the late '70s and early '80s and recorded three albums: "Briefcase Full of Blues" (Live, 1978), "The Blues Brother's Soundtrack" (1980) and "Made in America" (Live, 1980). This of course came to an end with Belushi's death of a drug overdose in 1982. "Briefcase" was recorded live in 1978 when they opened for Steve Martin in LA. It was (and still is I believe) the top selling Blues album of all time and nearly single-handedly re-igniting a passion for the blues and R&B that was nearly extinct at the time. It also celebrated artists like John Lee Hooker, Aretha Franklin, Delbert McClinton, Ray Charles, Muddy Waters and many others. I highly recommended it for a listen if you want to hear just how good they actually were, especially live. The movie itself, while simultaneously a wacky SNL/SCTV ish comedy, is ultimately a musical and an honest love letter from Belushi and Aykroyd to the blues and the artists that made it so.
@taylorkeating6884 mine was the opposite. My copy was my Dad's...I was raised on it, damn near wore it out. It migrated to my collection. I actually own three. My parents copy, a nicer "listen" copy and a sealed unplayed copy. I also have mint copies of the soundtrack and "Made in America"
I remember going to see the Empire Strikes Back as a kid and this movie, Blues Brothers, was one of the previews in the theater. When it showed Carrie Fisher in the preview, everyone cheered. My parents took me to see it when it came out. It was the first R rated movie that I ever saw, haha
Yep, I remember my dad taking me to see this & The Shining in the same 2-3 week period. For the Shining, my baseball team had just won our little league championship (13-0, baby!) & my dad took me & a couple of my friends/teammates to Pizza Hut, then to the movies. Well, apparently my friends were a little less evolved, movie-wise, than me. They were completely freaked out by the movie & told their parents how scary it was. Those parents then called my dad, yelling at him for terrifying their children🤣🤣 That was a good summer!
One of the best musical films ever made! I mean, just the cast is amazing: Aretha, Cab, James, John and Ray. Yes, it is other the top, but man, so funny! I liked the music and performances so much, i still can't get enough of it. As a Metalhead! Unfortunealty the second one is not even close to this one, even with Erykah Badu in it...
I would argue the music is the one thing that redeems the second one, LOL!...and I like my fair share of Metal as well. It's nowhere near as good, true, but I have a bit of a soft spot for BB 2000 as I saw it in the theatre with friends in high anticipation, all of us having been too young to see the original on the big screen.
One of my favorite movies. I think even people who don't like musicals can enjoy The Blues Brothers. P.S. Theatrical version is definitely better than the Extended.
