What Did the Blues Brothers Have to Do in the Movie
5 Things You Didn't Know About 'The Blues Brothers' (Hint: SO! MUCH! COCAINE!)
Photo: Universal Pictures; Courtesy Everett Collection
Today marks the 35th anniversary of The Blues Brothers, the very first movie to star Saturday Night Live performers in characters they originated on the show. John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd created their alter egos, Jake and Elwood Blues, in 1976 for a musical segment on the long-running sketch program's first season. During the original cast's run on SNL, many would end up at the Holland Tunnel Blues bar, an establishment Aykroyd rented after he joined the show. It was there that the Canadian comedian introduced Belushi to rhythm and blues; the pair went on to record an album, Briefcase Full of Blues, as their Blues Brothers counterparts.
Aykroyd thought up the wise idea to turn these characters in the subject of a movie, and John Landis, fresh off his success with National Lampoon's Animal House (also starring John Belushi), came on board as director and co-screenwriter. After the Blues Brothers go back to their hometown of Chicago in order to save the orphanage where they grew up from foreclosure, the film follows them as they try to get their band back together — while also evading neo-Nazis, a gun-toting Carrie Fisher, and renegade country singers.
Think you know this comedy cult classic backward and forward? Here are some crazy facts about the film and its stars.
1
The movie set a world record for wrecked cars.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIdGxR-aU6o]
With plenty of car chases — and one scene in which the real-life Bluesmobile careened under the L train at speeds above 100 miles per hour — The Blues Brothers set a world record for car wrecks: 103 automobiles were destroyed during the shoot. (This was later surpassed by The Matrix Reloaded, during which over 300 cars were destroyed. BUT STILL!) At least one of those was a Bluesmobile; of the twelve built for the film, one was designed specifically to be destroyed.
2
Studio execs didn't want the famous R&B singers cast in the film.
There are plenty of celebrity cameos in the film, such as Twiggy, Steven Spielberg, John Lee Hooker, Chaka Khan, and John Walsh. The film incorporated speaking roles for R&B greats James Brown, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, and Aretha Franklin, but Universal tried to get them all cut from the film because they were too expensive (and their brand of soul music had fallen out of style). The studio was gunning for a performance from Rose Royce, who hit it big with their disco hit "Car Wash."
3
Legendary jazz singer Cab Calloway was asked to rerecord his famous "Minnie the Moocher" for the film.
Because of the time period when the movie was shot, Calloway expected the new recording to be a disco version of the song — an update he was excited to record. The film's producers nixed the ideas (disco and the Blues Brothers don't mix). But Calloway did sort of change the song; for the film's version, he sang "hody-hody-hody-ho" in the chorus rather than the original "ho-dee-hody" because, he confessed, he forgot the words. After the film, he continued to perform the song that way.
4
Yeah, there were a lot of drugs on the set.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHV0zs0kVGg]
In fact, Dan Aykroyd claims that there was room in the film's $30 million budget for cocaine in order to keep the crew awake during long shoots (and probably to keep John Belushi on his toes during those musical performances). Co-star Carrie Fisher described plenty of crew members serving as dealers, and director John Landis discovered "a mountain" of coke in Belushi's trailer. Producers, crew members, and even the actors tried their best to keep Belushi, who died from a cocaine and heroin overdose two years after The Blues Brothers hit theaters, from overdoing it with cocaine during filming.
5
Paul Shaffer was supposed to be in the movie.
The Late Show with David Letterman band leader was a part of Saturday Night Live's house band from 1975 to 1980, and it's there that he collaborated with Belushi and Aykroyd as the Blues Brothers' musical director. Shaffer was cast in the Blues Brothers film, but he was also working with Gilda Radner on her one-woman Broadway show at the same time. Shaffer told Time that he "had to make a choice between John and Gilda, and I chose to be loyal to Gilda," but other rumors surfaced that John Belushi was so offended by the idea of sharing Shaffer with another SNL's actor personal project that he had him fired from the film.
[Where to stream The Blues Brothers]
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Source: https://decider.com/2015/06/16/five-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-blues-brothers/