 movies you can learn from. One of our favorite shows is one of our favorite guys, George Cason. Today we're going to review the Blues Brothers movie, which was made in 1980 by Dan Ackroyd and guess who, John Belushi. So this is a cult movie. This movie has stood the test of time. This movie, despite all beliefs to the contrary, made a lot of money and it had a huge budget. It's twice the original budget, twice the original expectation. It actually didn't have a budget. And wow, what a job they did. So let's get the plot. Let's get the general dimensions of this movie, the Blues Brothers, from our co-host George Cason. George. Now this is an interesting movie and a lot of fun. And the plus, the main plot is that these two guys, brothers, right, Elwood and Jake, they had blood brothers. Blood brothers. Blood brothers. They were not actual brothers. They were not actual. They cut themselves with a guitar string. Okay. And they were in an orphanage together and they got to be close when they were young, right? And it was a Catholic orphanage. So Jake had been in jail and he, after three years, because he was armed robbery, you know, so basically he got out and they decided they were going to do good, right? You know, resurrect their souls and they go to this orphanage where they were, you know, war-wrestled children, right? And the mother superior is there, right? And she, they talk to her. Mother Mary Stigmata. You have the humor there. You have the humor. Mother Mary Stigmata. Stigmata. Yeah, precisely. And they start talking and, you know, they're wild and crazy guys and they're doing it. She gets really angry with them because of some of the Jake, you know, John Belushi's character starts saying shit and things like that. So she gets out her stick that my mother well knew, you know, about on the hands and hit them with the stick, right? And then they, they're talking and she says, you know, they have to close down the orphanage because then the city of Chicago, of course, why Chicago of all places? But that's always, and they did Chicago and they're going to close because there's back taxes that they've never paid, right? And the city wants to tear it down and build something there, right? So, so they decide for the resurrection of their souls, they're going to go, right? And they're going to get $5,000 and give it to the Mother Stigmata, right? And then they're going to, you know, save the, save the, the, the orphanage from, from being closed, right? So they figured they used to have a band, Blues Brothers Band, right? And all the different members are pretty much scattered five of them have gotten together and still doing another band. But the others, one was a maitre d at a famous fancy restaurant and a few others that scattered here and there. So they started gathering, right? And in the meantime, Elwood had a Cadillac, but he sold it. I guess he needed the money and he bought this old police car, right? Real rattletrap, right? At least on the surface it looks like a rattletrap, right? So they're in this police car, you know, still has the police thing on it. They don't, they don't usually let you do that to keep the police insignia, but this has the insignia, it's a late model Dutch, right? So they, they're going around trying to gather, you know, they don't have any money. So they're, they're crooks, you know, they're dishonest, right? So they find ways to get around, get gas into their car, blah, blah, blah, trying to gather all these people. And the maitre d was something Ruben, I think these guys were all part of a band that they were in Saturday Night Live, right? This was a Saturday Night Live. Actually Ruben actually played in the band in Saturday Night Live. Yes, yes. And I think some of the others probably did too, you know? So, so, so Ruben was the maitre d, you know, and they go and they go with him and us into a sauna, right? And he says, no, I'm making good money. I don't want to get back in the band. So Jake, son of a bitch, SOB, he, he threatens him with exposing him to his wife. I mean, maybe he's stupid, playing on the side or whatever, right? So, so, so he breaks that. Okay, I'll do it. I'll do it because he doesn't, you know, threatens him and, you know, what, wait, you don't remember the scene, but so it's Shay Paul. It was a very fancy restaurant in Chicago. Oh, yeah, that's okay. And he's maitre d, Ruben is the maitre d. And these guys come in, the blue brothers come in, tell them they wanted to join the band and he said, look, I'm here as a straight restaurant. I'm the maitre d. And now then they began to destroy the restaurant. They made completely inappropriate comments to the people at the next table and the table behind that. And they said, they said to Ruben that, you know, hey, if you don't join the band, it's okay, we're going to come here every day. And Ruben said, no, no, okay, okay, I'll join the band. One of it was out of Eddie Murphy, you know, the incredible restaurant scene. But I think that was after the sonnish scene. Maybe I'm getting my sequencing mixed up. But these people in the restaurant, all stiff upper lip, you know, you know, conservative kind of people. And here are these two wild guys. Jay goes to this couple and he's got a young daughter and he starts saying, I want to mess around with your daughter. And these people just insanely get insanely angry. But the scene is hilarious, right? So let me try to remember that after that. So they got Ruben on their side. And then they got a lot of people that are famous. Ray Charles, they have him in it. He has a shop here. He rents, you know, musical instruments and components, right? And then you have a Cap Calloway, who was some kind of a position at the orphanage. And he still has it maybe after 20 years, right? And then James Brown, who's a preacher in a church that they decided they're going to go into a church and, you know, they go into James Brown church. So all these people, one thing, I didn't recognize Aretha Franklin because they also, Aretha and her boyfriend or husband are running a soul food restaurant in Chicago. So they're all doing different things. And he's able, wily as he is Jake mostly, but also Elwood, they're able to get this band back together again. And then they're going to be on the road. And meantime, there's a mystery woman played by Carrie Fisher. And at first, you don't know why she's got this flamethrower. And everywhere they are, you know, it's the flame that explodes the buildings, right? So you don't know at first what, but then you find out later that Jake left her at the altar. And she talks about that parents spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on this wedding. And he just left her at the way, you know, left her at the altar. So she's really angry, you know, and she's just a lot of hilarious scenes. You know, one last thing, and then I can get 105 automobiles were wrecked in order to produce this movie. That's a, I think it's the second most number of automobiles for any movie ever produced in the United States. So that was, and you see that all that wrecking. And I have some comments about the wrecking and how these guys get away, you know, no way are they going to be unscathed after 600 policemen after them, plus some Nazis after them, plus who else was after them. But I think the Nazis that, oh, this band that they played games with at this Jake and Erwin around the road and Elvis says, well, where are we going? Where are we going to try to have a gig? And Jake just sees this, this country Western place. So he says, okay, here. And then they go in and the owner gives them a list of country Western songs that they don't know country Western blues, blues, blues band, right? So they try doing one of their blues and all the people in the, you know, the customers, right? Pistol, I mean, angry, they don't like this, right? So then they decide there was one song from a raw hide, which is a country Western kind of thing. And then something about some women's leaving her man or man's leaving her woman, many something that's a cab Callaway is singing, you know, they got all these famous African American singers, you know, and I didn't recognize and Lisa Franklin at all. She's so young in this picture, you know. So it, so basically they do that, right? And I'll be quiet a minute. And they do raw hide and then they do this other song and the clientele love it because this is country Western, right? And then they're drinking too much. So when they go to get their money for their gig, the owner says, no, I'll give you 200, but you owe 300 because you have a bill and Jake says, well, I thought that was comp or Elvis says, I thought it was complimentary. The guy says, no, no. So they know they got they don't have money money, they got to get the hell out of there. So they do all kind of shenanigans to get them, you know, they lie to the owner and then they hit the police car, which has really got really good power because it's it's it was a police car, you know, you can hit the gas and it just goes so so and then they're on a bridge and the Nazis are having a demonstration blocking their way to some to some site they want to go to. So they decide screw you and they take the car, Elwood takes the cars, hits the gas and just to barrel through them and all these Nazis jump off the bridge and then they're after that this Nazi leader tries to find out where they are and can't find them because Elwood had given a false address, right? Where he lives. So they gave the address of the ball field. Exactly. Exactly. They got they get to the ball field. They can't live here. So it just it gets more and more hilarious as you go on. But I'll let you fill in. That's enough enough of me talking, Jay. I'm sure you saw this movie monster twice. So well, I saw it back in the 80s and I didn't think too much of it. I thought it was silly. It's but looking back now and let me count the years for you. It's 45 years ago, 45 from 1980 till now. And for that matter, you know, they came off Saturday Night Live 45 years since they came off Saturday Night Live. It was it was an extraordinary movie in the sense that the expectations but not the budget was something below 15 million that cost 27 million. And it cost a fortune to have these scenes with all these police cars crashing, turning upside down. It was the most cars crashing in any movie up to that point, and maybe since and it was all kind of outrageous. Everything in the movie was outrageous. But it made 115 million or something. That's right. That's what it means. Even though when way over budget, they still were able to gross enough to well over cover that that differential. Yeah. Well, part of the expense was they had all these appearances by famous musicians and the like, which were really good. You know, Aretha Franklin was fabulous in that it was called Think Before You Act sort of song. There were like 20 songs in there that were really catchy. All good songs. Major hits. Yeah. Major hits. And I, you know, I second time, which was a couple days ago in preparation for the show, I watched the movie and I was laughing. My wife wanted to go to sleep. I was laughing hysterically. There was so many gags in there. It was so funny. So the lines were terrific. The script was excellent. And of course, Belushi is out of his mind completely out of his mind. And he fits perfectly with Ackroyd. The two of them really are blood brothers. I mean, they worked so well. It was magical. And they worked so well with all the cast around them. That was magical. It was it was really a thrill, great entertainment. I had forgotten what a movie of that, you know, vintage can be. It was a statement of Americana. It was a statement of Chicago. Ackroyd was later interviewed and he said, we made this movie about Chicago. And indeed, there hadn't been a lot of movies made in Chicago. This was the perfect venue. And it was about Chicago. You know, you mentioned soul food restaurant and the stadium and the police. The police were hysterical in this movie. I was going to say, of course, the Nazis, you have to have Nazis in Chicago. I was going to say the same thing that this is actually something very much about Chicago. Every a lot of that is Chicago. Yeah, precisely Chicago. Yeah, that it was. Yeah. I mean, there were so many iconic things about Chicago and about America at that time. And I couldn't help but in my mind to compare with the way America was at that time and the way America is now. This was a very diverse movie. A lot of black people in the movie. It was a movie where everyone was, you know, friendly, where they all engaged each other, where they were happy together. It was an example, you know, of a time gone by where it was a multi racial movie and it was a happy movie. And he was the center and Belushi was the center. It's really terrible tragedy that we lost him. But let me say that on the set and every day, every night, they had cocaine. And this movie, if you look at it carefully, you will realize that that movie is made under the influence. And maybe that's why it's so funny at the time cocaine was very popular. I don't know if it's popular today. And Belushi was a user, an active, all day, all night kind of user. And he got into trouble with that. But it made him funny. And the glasses and the black suits they wore and their whole thing about being so serious. It was sort of the notion of being serious in a funny circumstance. And they've created persona, which are still funny today. It doesn't lose its charm. This movie, 45 years later, is great entertainment. My wife couldn't believe how funny it was for me. She was trying to sleep. Anyway, I thought this was a statement of American history, American society at a time. And if you want to know what we can learn from this movie is, I'd like to go back there. I'd like to go back to these guys all having terrific fun together, all making great American music. The funny thing too, is that as much money as it made, yes, 115 million. Fact is, most of that, most of that was from overseas. As much as it was gathering popularity in the 80s and so forth, its real gate was in Europe. And in Japan, I find that extraordinary that this was actually an exportation, an exporting of comedy and the American scene and so many American icons in this movie. The second time around, I found it much more interesting, much more educational than I did in 1980. So all I can say is I loved it. I loved this movie because it was funny, because it was historical, because you could learn from it. And you could learn about the people, the way they made movies in those days, American society, Chicago. I mean, the church with the funny names, their promoter was played by Steve Lawrence, another cameo. Steve Lawrence, yeah, yes. Steve Lawrence, and his name was Maurice Sline, S-L-I-N-E, Tigmata Sline. It didn't stop. The thing had such a pace. And one of the reviewers said that the really interesting thing about it, all these car crashes with hundreds of cars, how did they ever do that? It must have caused them a fortune. They were punctuated with moments of wisdom, moments of quiet, moments of, you know, tight integration where they would talk to each other. The other thing is, you know, there was a, I forget his name, I think it was a man, and who owned a bunch of movie theaters on the West Coast, like 500 movie theaters in 1980. And the producers approached him and said, you know, we'd like to use your movie chain as, you know, a starting point for rolling out this movie. And he said, no, no, no. The blacks won't like it, because it has too many whites, and the whites won't like it because it has too many blacks. And he refused. You know, that's really an interesting moment in American history, where 500 movie theaters wouldn't play a movie like this with such quality, such humor, such intensity, reached your heart, is what it did. And in other words, it didn't have to make that 115 million. There were people who didn't like it, for one reason or the other. But suffice to say, this is a movie that is just as good today as it was then. This is the movie that touches so many elements of American life. It just goes on and on. So I must say that I'm going to watch it again, George. That's how good it was every moment, you know, in preparation for the show. I also watched the trailer today. And you know what? I'm laughing all the way through the trailer. And then I go and I read Wikipedia, where it recites the thought just as you did. And you know, all the circumstances about the making of this movie and all that. And I'm reading Wikipedia, and I'm laughing while I'm reading Wikipedia. That's how funny this movie is. It is cult. It's in my cult anyway. Mediac relief. You know, I studied Japan. I have friends from Japan, right? And I know the culture. And Europe, I studied in Europe. Actually, I actually physically lived in Europe. And I remember my uncle in their house, you know, how strict, you know, he had his four daughters and him and the wife on the ends of this long table and everything when he stepped it was on right angles, right? And Japanese culture, people are sort of very, sort of stressed, you know, in Japan, because everything is very, very... I think you've hit something. I think this was iconoclastic in the finest, most expansive definition of that word. This broke down all the barriers. You know, you're not afraid of the police. You make fun of the police. You're not afraid of the competing country band, the country western band. Because, you know, they're stereotype and then Belushi makes fun of them. You know, they love sister stigmata because she cares about orphans and their orphans. And so that's another thing where you could love it. And I mean, each one of the icons that they broke into this crazy plot is a journey of a plot. You know what I said? We kept saying, we're in a mission from God. And that's only one line of so many funny lines. I mean, for me, I mean, I try not to get into personal things, but my dad left the Catholic, they were Catholics, not Orthodox, left the Catholic church, dragged my mother with him. And my mother, as I said, the sisters used to hit her left hand because it was supposed to be evil. And that's, you know, there's a lot of rigidity in that Catholic, you know, those Catholic schools. My dad in Germany, when he was living there, you know, and he went to Catholic school. And you remember the scene with the sister stigmata, she would beat him up. Yes. That's what I'm saying. Those were unforgettable characters. And she was only on the screen, like for two or three minutes, that's all. And yet she was unforgettable. And Carrie Fischer was unforgettable when he approached her after she was shooting, you know, fire bombs, have them in the rockets. Exactly. And then, and he said, you know, it took his glasses off, because you couldn't see him. And she was such a big part of that movie. Glasses off, and he looked deeply in her eyes. And I still care about you. And she says, oh, yeah, and I still care about you, even though I try to kid you 10 times. And then he drops her. He drops her. He says, we got to go. Now we're on a mission from God. She was so pretty back then. I mean, fortunately, she died too young. She was really pretty. And, you know, sort of, you know, you'd think he, John Belushi was no prize, you know, at least to look at, he might have had a great personality. But she had doubles. They had stunt doubles. Remember, he was giving this concert, trying to raise money with the concert. It was a great concert. I would have paid for that. And he had the room full of people on this sort of this rampway. He's doing the flips. John Belushi can't do that. But what they did is they got a stunt man who could do flips and then they dressed them up fat. Exactly. And he could do the dancing. One interesting story about it is that on the night before that scene and the palace, I think they called it the palace ballroom, he was skateboarding on Belushi, a movie actor in a major, 27 million dollar production that had a lot of problems in terms of getting off the ground. They had to move their venue and it was all kinds of arguments. Lots of problems. Lots of problems. But it was all around Belushi, you know. So the night before the palace ballroom scene, he was skateboarding. Are you kidding me? This is true. He was skateboarding. The star of the show was skateboarding. And he twisted his ankle, something awful. Now he is supposed to be dancing. Remember that he and Akroyd were dancing in that scene. And the really funny dancing, I mean it was well choreographed. But he couldn't because he had this problem with his ankle on the skateboard. So the producers put him together on the weekend, they put him together with an orthopedic doctor and gave him, they shot him up with steroids to make it less painful. And he did it. He did it even though he could not have done it without the steroids. And there's so many stories and tales about how this movie got thrown together. But it was thrown together with the cocaine and the injuries and all of the problems about him not showing up. You can assume that, right? It's John Belushi. He was for this movie as he is in life, as he was in life. Just a stark hysterical guy. And as much as his talent made the movie, Akroyd too, I mean I think he's great. And the two of them together. But as much as his talent made the movie, he was also a very difficult guy to work with because of that. I hesitate to think what other movies he might have made had he lived longer. But this one, this one, this was better than Animal House, you know. Animal House was just a, just a ramp up to this. And the guy who directed Animal House also directed this one. Yes, exactly. And as you said, there were a lot of issues. Even Akroyd had been really part of the script and he really wasn't familiar with how to do that. Well, he wrote a 300-page script. Akroyd wrote the original draft of the script. And they said, wait, that's three hours plus of movie. You can't do that. You know, it'll never work. So we have to rewrite it. And this director person I mentioned in his name right now, but he was in the movie. They were all in the movie. Everybody you could imagine. Steven Spielberg was in the movie. You know, they grabbed everybody they knew for the movie. Anyway, he rewrote that 300-page script down to where it was workable. And it took him two weeks. I mean, you can imagine the pressure. But the script is great. I judge movies. You and me are aligned that way. We judge movies by the quality of what they're saying and the intellectual property of where the thing is going. And the script was excellent. It was so funny. Where did they come up with that stuff? Yeah, the public doesn't realize how much sometimes behind the scenes problems that are arising, you know, to get this movie fine. There are a lot of movies to get it to find the final movie that they see. You know, there's issues right there about doing that. So yeah, it was very funny. My issues, Jay, I mean, I love this movie. It was hilarious. But you know, I always get into the bigger picture. And all that cars getting, you know, broken and stuff like that. I mean, I don't think it's good for the kids, you know, to see that, to get, you know, the police, you know, evading the police, doing dishonest things. You know, I know it's comedy, right? But there's a lot of very minds that are very, you know, could easily be. It was iconoclastic. What they were doing is taking all of the icons of our society at the time and making fun. I don't think they were spoiling anybody's morality. I don't think anything happened that was really immoral. Nobody died. Nobody was even wounded. It was all just crazy fun. And when those car crashes happened and there were so many of them, it would just take a deep breath. Oh my God, how did they do that? You know, the scene, the photography, I mean, when those Nazis went over the bridge, you know, and when Elwood, he gets right to the edge of that end of the freeway that, you know, it's ending and he just puts it in reverse. A lot of really hilarious scenes in this movie. I didn't laugh a lot and I needed some comedic relief. That's why I suggest let's do a funny movie. Oh yeah. Well, that was a good choice for the difficult times in which we live, the ugly times in which we live. This movie was not ugly. It was pure fun. I remember that last scene that was just over the top. It sort of built, it built to the last scene, which is where they deliver the check to the Richard Bailey City Hall over there. He's got the money, he's going to deliver it, and everybody's chasing him. Let's see now. The National Guard was chasing him, the police was chasing him, the Rhythm and Blues band, the country Western band was chasing him, the Nazis were chasing him, SWAT teams were chasing him, mounted policemen were chasing him. They had virtually hundreds of people in the plaza outside that building. I mean, I know what it cost them. To film that one scene, 3.5 million, that one scene. How did you find that information, Jay? That was pretty good. 3.5 million? Wikipedia has a big write-up on it, including the fact that they tried to do a sequel, back in around 2000, and it flubbed completely. It flubbed without Belushi. Exactly. Can't do Belushi without Belushi. Exactly. Precisely. That's exactly true. Because without Belushi, it just wasn't going to make it. Great. All right, are we near our car? I think we may disagree on our ratings here, you know? I gave it, I'll give it close to a 10, because of the comedic value. I'll give it like maybe a 9.75, because I have some, you know, a little bit of, you know what I mentioned, right? But if it was a good movie, it was hilarious. It made me laugh, belly laughs, you know? And it was comedic relief. And just like I mentioned, you know, Europe and Japan, where people, you know, very strict societies, that it was relief for them too. And that's why they enjoyed this, you know? And even in America at that time, you know, the hinterland, you know, a lot of people, we were in a very transitional phase, you know, at that time, 1980. I mean, in the 60s, you know, we were all, early 60s, JFK, we were all, you know, conservative, sort of, in our clothing and stuff, you know? And then in the 70s, you know, my shoe and my army jacket. And then this was sort of the end of the 70s. And it was really, as you said, it's a window into 1980. It's a window into Chicago. It's a window in America, what was going on in America, you know? And black culture, right? And all these other cultures, the police culture, you know, and clashes. It's a classic, as you said. It's a classic. It's a cult classic, is what it is. And I am going to continue to enjoy this movie for the rest of my life. I'm telling you, I'm trying to figure out, George, why I liked it so much. You know, as you suggested a minute ago, the comedy is great. You don't see this kind of comedy now. You see, it's all, you know, like romance comedy. If you look at cable movies, it's all romance comedy. It is not pure comedy. Iconoclastic comedy. Like this is really letting go. That's what it is. I like that. I love the music. This is, I don't know how you feel about the music since then, but this is the music I really loved back in 1980. All the songs, every single song was a joy to listen to, joy to see it perform. Arita Franklin was out of this world. They all were. When they sang these songs and did these silly dances and everything, that concert was really terrific. And it brought back all of those songs to me that I, some of them I haven't heard in a while, you know? Because from that era, whenever a song came on, I said, oh, I remember that song. And I, you know, sometimes I didn't associate it with those initially who did it, right? Some other songs were written by Belushi and Akra, you know? I'm not kidding. But for some of them were, you know, written by the musicians that were in the movie and some of them from outside the movie, but there were a lot of great songs. I'm trying to figure out, trying to figure out why I liked it so much. And I think, I think it's something about the comparison between what life was in these United States in 1980, as opposed to what life is like now. Things are so serious and dreadful. Not only in the U.S., but in the world. We can talk about all of the issues that, where you have to question your future, the future of the country, the future of the world, the future of civil society around us. We have to question that. It's a very intimidating, threatening time we live in. This was not that. This was, you know, before anybody hated the police, before anybody hated one candidate or another, before the country was divided. This was a statement of the country coming together. You know, the black people and the white people in this movie, they loved each other. They got along well. And one of the reviewers said, I don't know why they didn't talk about the origins of the blood brother relationship and the orphanage. And he said, I don't understand why they didn't talk more about why Belushi and Accroy, those characters, Joliet Jake and, what was his name, Elwood, didn't explain, the movie did not explain why they had this affinity to black musicians and black people. And my reaction to that was, give me a break. Why do you have to explain it? That's what they were. Those characters were built on that kind of relationship. And, you know, you had to feel good about it. It was a statement that you can and should feel good about it. It was before we got angry at each other. So, I'm saying that's why I liked it because it wasn't angry. It was just simply fun. And so, I'll take your 975 and I'll go to 1025. Okay. Precisely. No problem. You know, we can't always agree. We've got to give a little bit of some leeway between our two. You know, in this case, there is a little bit of, and so, it's a 10 plus for you, 10.25 and minus a 9 plus. So, average is out to a 10. Good comedic relief. I'm under all kind of, you know, dealing with a lot of stuff right now. So, I needed the comedic relief. And sometimes make recommendations to our viewers to watch a movie because we liked it and we learned from it. Exactly. In this case, my recommendation, I think it's, I think it's mutual between us, is that this movie is actually therapeutic. If you're feeling, so if you're feeling that things aren't working out well in our world today, go have some of this and you'll feel better. That's why I liked it. Precisely. Well, thank you, George. Thank you, Jason. Co-host on movies you can learn from. And we learned not only about what was happening then, but about ourselves in this movie. Thanks very much. Thank you for your insights, Jay. Thank you. Enjoy, enjoy this review as well. Aloha.