The Blues Brothers (1980) on Netflix
Paroled from Joliet Prison, Jake Blues is met by his brother Elwood. To save the orphanage that raised them from a tax bill, the brothers get their old band back together.
- Netflix4.0/5
- IMDb7.9/10231,866 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes72%
Trailer
Plot summary
Jake Blues leaves Joliet Prison on parole after serving part of a sentence for armed robbery, and his brother Elwood collects him in a battered former police car. At the Catholic orphanage where the two were raised, Sister Mary Stigmata tells them the home will be sold unless $5,000 in property taxes is paid. Their friend Curtis suggests they visit the Triple Rock Baptist Church, where a sermon by the Reverend Cleophus James gives Jake an idea: the brothers can put their rhythm and blues band back together and stage a concert to raise the money. They begin tracking down the former members, who have scattered into other jobs, while a police pursuit over Elwood's unpaid tickets and other pursuers complicate the search.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Blues Brothers (1980)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Aykroyd had never written a screenplay before, or even read one. His final draft ran 324 pages, three times longer than a standard screenplay and written more like free verse; to soften the impact he had it bound with the cover of the Los Angeles Yellow Pages and credited it to "Scriptatron GL-9000".
- On set Belushi's drug use worsened, and a crew member was hired to clear drugs from the places he visited off-camera. Landis still found him with what he described as a "mountain" of cocaine on a table in his trailer, leading to a tearful confrontation in which Belushi admitted his addiction and feared it could kill him.
- Just before the final sequence at the Hollywood Palladium was shot, Belushi fell off a borrowed skateboard and seriously injured his knee, though the scene required him to sing, dance and do cartwheels. Wasserman persuaded the city's top orthopedic surgeon to postpone his weekend plans and anesthetize the knee.
- For the final car chase the production really did drop a Ford Pinto, representing the one driven by the Illinois Nazis, from a helicopter at about 1,200 feet, and needed a Special Airworthiness Certificate from the FAA, which feared the falling car could threaten nearby buildings.
- Costs for the largest scene in the city's history totalled $3.5 million, and permission came only after Belushi and Aykroyd offered to donate $50,000 to a charity. Driving the Bluesmobile through the Daley Center lobby caused $7,650 in damage to 35 granite paver stones and a bronze air grille.
- Ted Mann, head of the Mann Theatres chain that dominated film exhibition in the Western United States, told Landis he would not book the film in predominantly white neighborhoods such as Westwood, surmising white viewers were unlikely to see a film featuring older black musical stars.
