Episode 68

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Published on:

7th Mar 2022

Episode 68 - The Blues Brothers with Deadbeat Punk from WTFDYW

This week the boys are welcoming Deadbeat Punk from WTFDYW Podcast to discuss the only film he'll watch without being in that chair from A Clockwork Orange, it's The Blues Brothers. 

We include why John Landis is no longer allowed to hire a Helecoptor and what James Brown and Boris Johnson have in Common.

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The Blues Brothers is a 1980 American musical comedy film directed by John Landis.[4] 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 (in his final feature film role), 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."

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About the Podcast

100 Things we learned from film
Two friends take a light hearted deep dive in to film in an attempt to learn 100 things from a different movie each week. Expect trivia to impress your friends and nonsense from the start.

About your host

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Mark Plant