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The Blues Brothers was filmed, of course, around Chicago The new Bluesmobile demonstrates its prowess by leaping across the East 95th Street Bridge over the Calumet River at Calumet Harbor, south Chicago, down near the Indiana border. The 19741977 Monacos received star treatment as the Bluesmobile in the 1980 feature film The Blues Brothers, directed by John Landis. In it, a 1974 Monaco which was formerly a Mount Prospect, Illinois police cruiser is purchased by Elwood Blues (Dan Aykroyd) and used as the brothers’ transportation. Jake (John Belushi). Monacos from 1975 to 1977 are also featured as Illinois State Trooper cars and Chicago city police cars.
The Blues Brothers is a 1980 American musical comedy film directed by John Landis. It stars John Belushi as “Joliet” Jake Blues and Dan Aykroyd as his brother Elwood, characters developed from the recurring musical sketch “The Blues Brothers” on NBC variety series Saturday Night Live. The film is set in and around Chicago, Illinois, where it was filmed, and the screenplay was written by Aykroyd and Landis. It features musical numbers by rhythm and blues (R&B), soul, and blues singers James Brown, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Chaka Khan, and John Lee Hooker. It features non-musical supporting performances by Carrie Fisher, Henry Gibson, Charles Napier and John Candy.
The story is a tale of redemption for paroled convict Jake and his blood brother Elwood, who set out on “a mission from God” to save from foreclosure the Roman Catholic orphanage in which they were raised. To do so, they must reunite their R&B band and organize a performance to earn $5,000 needed to pay the orphanage’s property tax bill. Along the way, they are targeted by a homicidal “mystery woman”, Neo-Nazis, and a country and western band—all while being relentlessly pursued by the police.
Universal Studios, which had won the bidding war for the film, was hoping to take advantage of Belushi’s popularity in the wake of Saturday Night Live, the film Animal House, and The Blues Brothers’ musical success; it soon found itself unable to control production costs. The start of filming was delayed when Aykroyd, who was new to film screenwriting, took six months to deliver a long and unconventional script that Landis had to rewrite before production, which began without a final budget. On location in Chicago, Belushi’s partying and drug use caused lengthy and costly delays that, along with the destructive car chases depicted onscreen, made the final film one of the most expensive comedies ever produced.
Due to concerns that the film would fail, its initial bookings were less than half of those similar films normally received. Released in the United States on June 20, 1980, it received mostly positive reviews from critics and grossed over $115 million in theaters worldwide before its release on home video, and has become a cult classic over the years. A sequel, Blues Brothers 2000, was released in 1998 to critical and commercial failure.
In 2020, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
The Blues Brothers are an American blues and soul revivalist band founded in 1978 by comedians Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi as part of a musical sketch on Saturday Night Live. Belushi and Aykroyd fronted the band, in character, respectively, as lead vocalist 'Joliet' Jake Blues and harmonica player/vocalist Elwood Blues. The band was composed of well-known musicians, and debuted as the musical guest in a 1978 episode of Saturday Night Live, opening the show performing "Hey Bartender", and later "Soul Man".
In 1978, the band released their debut album, Briefcase Full of Blues, and opened for the Grateful Dead at the closing of Winterland Arena in San Francisco. They gained further notoriety after spawning a Hollywood comedy film in 1980, The Blues Brothers.
After Belushi's death in 1982, the Blues Brothers continued to perform with a rotation of guest singers and other band members. The band reformed in 1988 for a world tour and again in 1998 for a sequel film, Blues Brothers 2000.
The genesis of the Blues Brothers was a January 17, 1976, Saturday Night Live sketch. In it, "Howard Shore and his All-Bee Band" play the Slim Harpo song "I'm a King Bee", with Belushi singing and Aykroyd playing harmonica, dressed in the bee costumes they wore for "The Killer Bees" sketches. In 1978, guitarist Arlen Roth was performing on SNL with Art Garfunkel who was that week's host of the show. Before the actual live show, Belushi and Aykroyd asked Roth and others to join them onstage in the outfits that would later become the Blues Brothers' look. Roth taught Belushi the lyrics to "Rocket 88" so they could perform it that night. This was also discussed on Aykroyd's "Elwood's Bluesmobile" radio show, when Roth was interviewed about his Slide Guitar Summit album, and the song "Rocket 88".
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