Review: The Blues Brothers

After his release from Joliet (prison), Jake Blues (John Belushi) and his loyal brother Elwood (Dan Aykroyd) attempt to reunite their blues band for enough money-making gigs to help out the struggling orphanage they were raised in. Along the way they seemingly piss off the entire state of Illinois, including state troopers, the local Nazi faction (headed by Henry Gibson), a country and western band (led by the intimidating Charles Napier), and a mystery woman on a violent vengeance streak (Carrie Fisher). Steve Lawrence plays an agent, Ben Piazza a snobby restaurant patron, Steven Williams is an angry cop, Twiggy plays a motorist Elwood gets sweet on, and Cab Calloway plays Jake and Elwood’s father figure and blues mentor Curtis. The Blues Brothers Band is comprised of the likes of Steve Cropper, Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn, Willie ‘Too Big’ Hall, Matt ‘Guitar’ Murphy, Murphy Dunne,  Alan ‘Mr. Fabulous’ Rubin, Tom ‘Bones’ Malone, and ‘Blue’ Lou Marini.

 

People might think it’s strange that I say “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” is the funniest movie ever made, but this 1980 John Landis (“Trading Places”, “Three Amigos!”, “Spies Like Us”, “Coming to America” – all terrific 80s comedies) film is my favourite comedy of all-time. However, the reason for the distinction is quite simple: In addition to being the best comedy of all-time, “The Blues Brothers” is also a musical. Given how much a fan of musicals I’m…er…not, it should tell you just how damn great this is. The film is full of great R&B music, with star/co-writer Dan Aykroyd of course being a long-time blues fan. So with the added bonus of the music, therefore it deserves a higher place in my all-time favourites list, and it’s still a great comedy too, for that matter. This movie’s got just about everything. In fact, there might even be a kitchen sink in there somewhere, too. At least, it wouldn’t surprise me. There’s definitely a lot of music history in the film: Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Steve Cropper, James Brown, John Lee Hooker, etc. It’s an amazing line-up of musicians, comedians, and character actors overall.

 

It may be questionable as to whether Mr. Landis is a good human being or not (we all know what happened on “Twilight Zone: The Movie”, it shouldn’t have happened and Mr. Landis was the head honcho on set and ultimately completely responsible), but I think the reason why this movie works so much better than any “SNL” comedy since is because Landis knows a heck of a lot about making a good (and in this case great) comedy. At least in his prime he did, ‘1992-Present Day’ Landis seems to have been a very different and less funny guy, unfortunately. This is in my view his masterpiece, but he also gave us the aforementioned good-to-very good comedies as well. You can throw in “An American Werewolf in London” if you like, as I’m not a fan of it as a horror film at all (I prefer “The Howling”) but the comedy scenes with Griffin Dunne are pretty amusing. This film features several different styles of comedy throughout, including the best pun-related name for a beauty salon ever: Curl Up and Dye. In the beginning we get a great deadpan comedy scene featuring a very droll Frank Oz (who was even funnier in Landis’ later “Spies Like Us”) as a prison clerk, and of course the very deadpan Dan Aykroyd as Elwood Blues. For my money, Aykroyd is at his best when he plays it deadpan, just look at his dead-on Jack Webb impersonation in the otherwise forgettable “Dragnet”, or his ability to recite all manner of scientific jargon in “Ghostbusters” or “Spies Like Us”. Hell, he even did it on “SNL” with that matter-of-fact Bass-o-Matic sales pitch sketch. He’s the perfect straight man here. However, this isn’t exactly a subtle comedy, it’s a John Landis movie after all. So there’s plenty of slapstick, car crashes, profanity, and John Belushi being sleazy and uncouth. Even the celebrated Bluesmobile is a gag in itself, being a repurposed police car! Kathleen Freeman is hilarious as the strict Penguin, who was the Blues Brothers’ religious instructor/disciplinarian as kids at the orphanage. Growing up, her big scene was one of two main scenes that I busted a gut over as a kid (I’ll get to the other one later), as she physically scolds the brothers for profanity, the pain from which merely causes them to exclaim more profanities. It’s not high-brow humour obviously, but I laughed at age 40 just as hard as I laughed at age 10 or so when I first saw the film. I’m pretty sure she hits the wrong brother at one point too, a detail I’ve only noticed on maybe my 20^th time watching the film. There’s also a great running gag featuring a woman with a grudge eventually revealed. Played by Carrie Fisher she even takes a flame-thrower to a phone booth at one point. The film has several hilarious comic set-pieces, rather than just witty one-liners. We get at least two classic car/destruction bits in the film, 1) The funny bit where the brothers drive through a shopping mall and break a shitload of windows etc., and 2) The celebrated extended police car pile-up, one of the funniest moments in cinematic history in my opinion, with John Candy’s idiot department of corrections guy delivering the immortal line ‘This is car 55, uh…we’re in a truck!’ cracking me up every single time. James Brown’s preacher character presides over another classic, quotable scene with John Belushi’s Jake having felt a calling from God: ‘Jesus H. Jive-dancin’ Christ, I have seen the light!’ is one I’ve repeated ad nauseum for decades. Hell, if it was a profane line, I probably quoted it ad nauseum (Willie Hall’s ‘You got the money you owe us, motherfucker?’ and Charles Napier’s classic ‘You’re gonna look pretty funny tryin’ to eat corn on the cob with no fuckin’ teeth!’ being my personal profane favourites).

 

The scenes where Jake and Elwood attempt to put the band back together contain some of the best moments in the film, even if none of the Blues Brothers Band are what I’d call great actors (Murphy Dunne and Willie ‘Too Big’ Hall are probably the best of the lot). With Matt ‘Guitar’ Murphy we get Aretha Franklin as his pissed off wife belting out ‘Think’. I normally hate musical moments that spring forth from dialogue, but Franklin is such a powerhouse it’s one of the two most joyous moments in the film alongside Ray Charles’ ‘Shake a Tail Feather’. Murphy Dunne (a ringer brought in for an unavailable Paul Shaffer) has an hilarious first scene as his character is now relegated to being a third-rate lounge performer. The late Alan Rubin’s trumpet player turned classy maître d ‘Mr. Fabulous’ gets to be involved in the best of the scenes though, as Jake and Elwood coerce ‘Mr. Fabulous’ into re-joining the band by embarrassing him with their uncouth antics at the restaurant. Again, I quoted this one endlessly. The set-piece at Bob’s Country Bunker (with a perfectly cast Jeff Morris as Bob) is an all-time classic, culminating in The Blues Brothers and their Band performing two western classics – The theme from “Rawhide” and Tammy Wynette’s ‘Stand By Your Man’, which is sold in wonderfully deadpan fashion by Aykroyd and Belushi. On the musical front, special mention must go to John Lee Hooker busting out his signature ‘Boom Boom’, and the amazingly enduring Cab Calloway classing up the joint with the immortal ‘Minnie the Moocher’, a song he was performing as far back as 1931! Helluva guy, great fun moment in the film.

 

A classic comedy-musical in which everyone involved was firing on all cylinders, and despite being 2 hours long there isn’t a dull spot to be found. Even the climactic extended car chase (103 cars were wrecked!) is wonderfully inventive throughout. Comedy at its finest, music at its finest. Must-see, and must buy the soundtrack too.

 

Rating: A+