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. which took him about two weeks. Other musicians in the cast include
Big Walter Horton,
Pinetop Perkins and
John Lee Hooker (who performs "
Boom Boom" during the
Maxwell Street scene). The members of the Blues Brothers Band were themselves notable.
Steve Cropper and Donald Dunn are architects of the
Stax Records sound (Cropper plays guitar at the start of the
Sam & Dave song "
Soul Man") and were half of
Booker T. & the M.G.'s. Horn players
Lou Marini,
Tom Malone and
Alan Rubin had all played in
Blood, Sweat & Tears and the
house band on
Saturday Night Live. Drummer
Willie Hall had played in
the Bar-Kays and backed
Isaac Hayes.
Matt "Guitar" Murphy was a veteran blues guitarist who played with
Memphis Slim and
Howlin' Wolf. As the band developed at
Saturday Night Live, pianist
Paul Shaffer was part of the act and cast in the film, but owing to contractual obligations with
SNL, he was unable to participate, so actor-musician
Murphy Dunne (whose father,
George Dunne, was the
President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners) was hired to take his role.
Cameos and minor appearances The film has a number of cameo appearances by established celebrities and entertainment industry figures, including
Steve Lawrence as booking agent Maury Sline,
Twiggy as a "chic lady" in a
Jaguar convertible whom Elwood propositions at a gas station,
Steven Spielberg as the
Cook County Assessor's clerk, Landis as a state trooper in the mall chase,
Joe Walsh as the first prisoner to jump up on a table in the final scene and
Chaka Khan as the soloist in the Triple Rock choir.
Muppet performer
Frank Oz plays a
corrections officer, and in the scene where the brothers crash into
Toys "R" Us, the customer who asks for a
Miss Piggy doll is played by stunt coordinator
Gary McLarty. Singer/songwriter
Stephen Bishop is an Illinois state trooper who complains that Jake and Elwood broke his watch (a result of the car chase in the mall). Makeup artist
Layne "Shotgun" Britton is the old card player who asks Elwood, "Did you get me my
Cheez Whiz, boy?" Prior to becoming well known for the character
Pee-wee Herman,
Paul Reubens had a role as a Chez Paul waiter with one spoken line ("We have a
Dom Pérignon '71 at $120.")
Filming Principal photography began in July 1979, with the film's budget still not settled. For the first month, things ran smoothly on and off the set. When Weiss saw the supposedly final $17.5 million budget, he reportedly joked, "I think we've spent that much already." Made with the cooperation of Mayor
Jane M. Byrne, it is credited for putting Chicago on the map as a venue for filmmaking. In an article written to mark the film's 25th anniversary DVD release, Aykroyd told the
Chicago Sun-Times: "Chicago is one of the stars of the movie. We wrote it as a tribute." The first traffic stop was in
Park Ridge, Illinois. The shopping mall car chase was filmed in the real, albeit shuttered,
Dixie Square Mall, in
Harvey, Illinois. The bridge jump was filmed on an actual drawbridge, the 95th Street bridge over the
Calumet River, on Chicago's southeast side. The main entrance to
Wrigley Field (and its sign reading "Save lives Drive safely Prevent fires") makes a brief appearance when the Illinois Nazis visit it after Elwood registers the ballpark's address, 1060 West Addison, as his home address on his driver's license. (Elwood's Illinois driver's license number is an almost-valid encoded number, with Aykroyd's own birth date embedded.) Jake's final confrontation with his girlfriend was filmed in a replica of a section of the
abandoned Chicago freight tunnel system. The other chase scenes included lower
Wacker Drive,
Lake Street and Richard J. Daley Center. In the final car chase scene, the production actually dropped a
Ford Pinto, representing the one driven by the Illinois Nazis, from a helicopter at an altitude of about 1,200 feet—and had to gain a
Special Airworthiness Certificate from the
Federal Aviation Administration to do it. The FAA was concerned that the car could prove too
aerodynamic in a high-altitude drop and pose a threat to nearby buildings. The shot leading up to the car drop, where the Illinois Nazis drive off a freeway ramp, was shot in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, near the
Hoan Bridge on
Interstate 794. The
Lake Freeway (North) was a planned but not completed six-lane freeway and I-794 contained an unfinished ramp off which the Nazis drove. Several Milwaukee skyscrapers are visible in the background as the
Bluesmobile flips over, notably the
U.S. Bank Center. . The Palace Hotel Ballroom, where the band performs their climactic concert, was at the time of filming a country club, but later became the
South Shore Cultural Center, named after the Chicago neighborhood where it is located. The interior concert scenes were filmed in the Hollywood Palladium. The filming in
downtown Chicago was conducted on Sundays during the summer of 1979, and much of downtown was cordoned off from the public. Costs for filming the largest scene in the city's history totaled $3.5 million. Permission was given after Belushi and Aykroyd offered to donate $50,000 to a charity after filming. The speeding car caused $7,650 in damage to 35 granite paver stones and a bronze air grille in the building. More than 40 stunt drivers were hired, and the crew kept a 24-hour body shop to repair cars. For the scene when the brothers finally arrive at the Richard J. Daley Center, a mechanic took several months to rig the car to fall apart. At the time of its release,
The Blues Brothers held the world record for the most cars destroyed in one film.
Post-production Landis' difficulties continued even after principal photography ended. The first cut of
The Blues Brothers lasted two and a half hours, with an intermission. After one early screening, Wasserman demanded it be shortened and 20 minutes were cut. The film's final budget was $27.5 million (equivalent to $ million in ), $10 million over its original budget. Prospects for a successful release did not look good. Aykroyd and Belushi had left
SNL at the end of
the fourth season, reducing their
bankability. Belushi's fame had taken a further hit after the critical failure of Spielberg's film
1941 at the end of the year. One day after the editing was done, Wasserman invited Landis up to his office to speak with
Ted Mann, head of the
Mann Theatres chain, which dominated film exhibition in the
Western United States. He told Landis that he would not book the film at any theaters in predominantly white neighborhoods, such as
Westwood. Not only did Mann not want black patrons going there to see the film, but he also surmised that white viewers were unlikely to see a film featuring older black musical stars. Ultimately, the film got less than half the bookings nationwide for its initial release than a typical big-budget studio film of the era, which did not bode well for its box-office success. ==Reception==