Forty Years Ago - The Blues Brothers

I hadn’t realised it until recently but 1980 was a pretty good year for films that I happen to think are great. A lot of these films are generally regarded as great too but one or two might very well just be my opinion. Let’s kick off with one that, for some people, sits a little in Column A and a little in Column B.

The Blues Brothers (1980 - well, duh…)
Dir. John Landis / Dur. 133 mins

What’s It About? Jake Blues, newly released from prison, and his brother Elwood race to put their band back together in order to save the orphanage where they grew up from demolition.

Why’s It Any Good? Because that economical plot description above really is all there is to the film. Spinning out of the characters that John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd used to perform on Saturday Night Live, it’s a loose collection of set pieces and musical numbers strung together around a road movie framework and really exists as an excuse for them to play with as many celebrity cameos as possible and sing a load of soul classics with their musical heroes. Given that those heroes include Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, James Brown, Cab Calloway and John Lee Hooker, I’d say that’s reason enough.
Yes, the plot is paper thin but how many musicals do you watch for the plot? Be thankful that it’s as short as it is - Aykroyd’s first draft was around 320 pages (that’s about three times longer than an average draft) which Landis then whittled down into something more manageable.*
It’s definitely not a film that’s about plot though - it’s about fun, silliness, songs and absolutely ludicrous spectacle - it held the record for Most Cars Destroyed Onscreen for 18 years until Blues Brothers 2000** surpassed it by one.
It was a reasonable success at the time but, like many others, found a place on the midnight cinema circuit and made its way into the realm of cult movies that pretty much assured its place for posterity.

There was a big fuss about it being released on VHS for the first time and my copy came with a pair of cheap knock-off Blues Brothers shades which I wore until they broke. It’s a film that’s carried by its great musical numbers, its overwhelming charm and a good selection of immensely quotable lines and that’s where we start with our look back to the films of forty years ago...


* That said, the initial cut was still longer than the version released to cinemas. That extended cut has since been released on DVD/BluRay and contains the full performance of John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom” so, for my money, this is the version worth watching (the bit at the start where Elwood gets the glue spray he uses later on doesn’t really add much, though…) 
** A film which I started to watch but just couldn’t bring myself to slog my way through. It’s just...wrong.