All language subtitles for BLUES BROTHERS - The Making Of Blues Brothers MKV (2000)

Ladies and gentlemen

"Joliet Jake" Blues--
John Belushi

Here,s Elwood-- Dan Aykroyd.

Some people say that...

going to college
and going on in life...

and doing something different
from what one studied in college...

means that you wasted
your college years.

Well, I studied criminology,
sociology...

deviant psychology,
abnormal psychology...

and I went into show business.

All I,m saying is we gotta figure out
some way to get that money honestly.

Well, that could be a problem.

It,s like the Penguin says. we gotta
make that move towards redemption.

We gotta go to church.

"You gotta make that move toward
redemption. You gotta go to church."

Bullshit.

Come on.

'Alleluia

Amen

The band.

The band.

Do you see the light?

The band!

Do you see the light?

What light?

Have you seen the light?

Yes! Yes!

Jesus H. Tap-Dancin, Christ!

I have seen the light!

The cíub where we
came up wíth the Blues Brothers...

was a speakeasy that I had in Toronto
called the 5O5 Club...

and John was up recruiting
The Natíonal Lampoon Radío Hour...

trying to steal talent from Second City
and bring them to New York.

He managed to grab Gilda Radner.

I didn't wanna go 'cause I was on
a children's TV show.

I had Second City. I was making more
money than the prime minister of Canada.

Plus, I had my speakeasy.
I had walls ofcash--

Literally, cash in the walls from
this after-hours, illegal booze can...

called the 5O5 Club.

The night John came up to recruit...

we came back to the booze can and
we started to play old blues records.

And I had a Downchild Blues Band.
Put them on. he said, "Who's this?"

I said, "Downchild Blues Band
a local blues band.

You,re from Chicago.
You should know about the blues."

He said, "I'm into Grand Funk
and Allman Brothers."

I said, "Well, that's all blues."

And I reacquainted him with blues...

and he reacquainted me
with sort of heavy metal...

and howard Shore
was in the place that night.

He eventually became musical director
of Saturday Night Live...

and we were saying,
"We should put a band together."

And he said, "Yeah, you could
call yourselves The Blues Brothers."

Subsequently, that,s what we did.

Belushi was very into heavy metal.

He had his head-banging room in--

They had a town house
in the Village in New York...

and he had this padded room,
and you'd go in there--

Only Michael Jackson.
he's the only other person I know...

who plays music that loud.

They,d crank up this hea metal stuff
and your fillings would hurt.

It was like, "Aaah!"

When I was working at Saturday Night
Live as an arranger in 1978...

Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi came back
from a weekend in San Francisco...

and they had stayed up all night
with Curtis Salgado...

listening to blues records.

Curtis Salgado is the harmonica player
with the Robert Cray Blues Band.

On the way back on the aeroplane,
John and Danny...

came up with the idea
of these two characters...

that later became called
the Blues Brothers.

Back then ít was just to sort of
explore the music have fun wíth ít...

make the audience laugh
in the warm-ups--

Pull off our appearances
on Saturday Night Live...

and kind of come off
to sell these characters.

But as it evolved,
the mission was to...

reacquaint people, or acquaint people
for the first time...

with this tremendous form
of American music.

We rehearsed
the Saturday Night Live band...

and we were hoping to get
this routine on the show.

The fact that John and Danny
were so popular--

They were heroes already
with the public.

We wore the suits
for a couple ofoccasions.

Then we took the act to the show
as a warm-up act.

The timing was right. The public
was behind these kids from the get-go.

Once we got the show, we started
to play around on weekends.

We played at the Lone Star Cafe.

Our backup bands at one time were like
Willie Nelson's band...

and Room Full of Blues,
Duke Robellard's band.

We got letters and cards
and phone calls...

which led to another appearance
ofthe Blues Brothers.

Then we put it on the show with
Carrie Fisher's guest host appearance...

and with Steve Martin subsequently.

Then Steve Martin asked us to open
for him at the Universal Amphitheatre.

When we looked into the crowd
at the beginning ofthe show...

there's Jack Nicholson.

It was like the who,s who of hollywood,
all with their dark glasses on.

Nicholson was right in the first seat,
and he had his shades on.

I looked over, and he caught my eye...

and he lifted up his shades and--

"Wow!" Lowered his shades.
Cool.

No one was prepared
for the phenomenal success...

that Jake and Elwood
suddenly had...

because they opened for Steve Martin
at the Universal Amphitheatre...

and then an album
was made of that.

'And that album was--
l thínk to thís day..

It like the highest-selling
blues album...

which is pretty bizarre.

We came along at a time
when there was a real lull...

and a dip
in American music tastes...

and one fad was going out...

and people weren't really sure
what the next fad was going to be.

It was black music
it was blues and rhythm and blues...

and at that time, black music
was Nile Rodgers and Chic...

singing "Le Freak."

It was all disco.

It was the discolnew wave cusp...

and in there we were able
to slot in...

and do the song
that a lot of people knew...

but with a different kind
oftwist to it...

and with the image associated
with who the Blues Brothers were.

The album went on to sell
three and a half million copies...

and we had a viable
entertainment act after that.

We put the band back together,
we do a few gigs...

we get some bread, bang,
five thousand bucks.

Yeah, well, getting the band
back together...

might not be that easy, Jake.

The band itself had basically
been assembled already..

By Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi
and really by Paul Shaffer.

Įohn Belushi and I
handpicked this band...

2O years ago.

We started to play with
the Saturday Night Live band...

and "Bones" Malone was there
and Paul Shaffer...

and Bones said, "have you ever heard
of Steve Cropper and 'Duck' Dunn?"

I hadn't really heard of them,
but I knew ofthe Stax-Volt movement...

in the ,6Os in Memphis.

A buddy of mine used to call me...

and usually if I was in the middle
of mixing or overdubbing...

they'd say, "Steve is busy. he can't
come to the phone. Leave a message."

Well, we had this thing that he would
call and pretend he was somebody...

and he,d say, "This is President Nixon"
or "This is Stevie Wonder"...

or this is da-da-da-da-da-da.

I get this call, and they say
John Belushi's on the phone.

I go, "Oh, yeah, my buddy.
hey, Alan, what's goin' on?"

He said, "Who?"
I said, "Alan, this isn't you?"

He said, "No, this is John Belushi."

One night I got a call,
long ago, from John Belushi.

It was about 3:OO in the morning,
and I thought it was a friend of mine...

putting me on, and he said,
"This is John Belushi.

We're gonna put this band together.
I like your bass playing.

Would you come to New York
and rehearse?"

I hung up. Five minutes later,
he calls back and says...

"This is not a joke.
It's John Belushi."

Anyway, I told him,
"I'll have to get back to you."

So, in talking to Robben Ford
a little bit later, he said...

"Who was that?" I said,
"Believe it or not, it was John Belushi.

He wants me to come to New York...

and start rehearsing
for some shows next week."

He says, "You gonna do it?"
I said, "I don't know if I can."

He said, "Well, I,ll do it."
So--

When my artist said he'd do it,
I said, "We'll work something out."

Having them come along,
Duck and Steve...

because they were real
R&B guitar players...

and real men of soul...

legitimized what we were up to
and gave us...

sort of a whole purpose
and a meaning there...

just beyond doing
kind of a comedy act...

and we started to revive
some of these songs.

It was very important
to John Belushi...

to have a hot lead guitar player.

I kept saying to him,
"We can get somebody good."

He wanted to jump and get that spot
in the band filled.

I was swappin, licks
with Johnny Winter...

and this guy named Doc Palmers,
I think it was...

had told them about me.

So they come up and they
introduced themselves.

"Hi, my name is John,
and this is Dan.

We're thinkin, about
makin' an album.

Would you like to help us make it?,,

And I said, "I would be glad
to help you make it."

We saw him playing at a club
on Columbus Avenue.

He played wíth James Cotton.
i'had seen hím before.

I'd known of his work,
and we approached him.

When I was talkin, to 'em, and we
were supposed to be negotiatin'...

he goes, "Well, Matt.

Yes, that,s good, then.
You're gonna help us.

So I think your figure,s
gonna be like...

65O."

I go, "Oh, no, man.
I think that should be more."

And he goes, "Oh, no!
I'm sorry. I meant 6,5OO."

And I almost fell offthe chair.

F6,5OO!
Jesus, I couldn't believe that.

I didn,t think it was gonna be
near that much.

So the band was pretty much intact...

although there was this very political,
it's a long, involved story...

like "Rashomon"-- lots ofsides--

But Paul was prevented from being
in the first movie...

by unnamed people.

But he couldn't be
in the first movie.

There were some problems
with Paul Shaffer's availability...

owing to a contractual dispute
with Saturday Níght Líve...

and all sorts of difficulties.

So he couldn't
get out of his contract...

and so John Landis had seen this film
where I played the piano...

and John Belushi knew
I played piano...

so, voilá, I was on the plane.

And then Willie hall--
Duck and Steve recommended Willie.

They knew hím from Memphís. They played
wíth hím ín Memphís wíth lsaac Hayes.

Some people that we hired were in
the original Saturday Night Live band.

Most notably,
the three horn players.

Our friend Lou Delgado
from the Saturday Night Live show...

played the fourth horn part...

but there was no fourth horn player
in the movie...

so that's one ofthe anomalies
ofthe movie.

You're hearing four horns playing,
but there's only three of us on-stage.

The Blues Band has amazing musicians.

It's a Memphis rhythm section...

with a New York horn section...

and the ídea of takíng
that kínd of fatback rhythm...

and putting slick New York horns
on top of ít...

combíned wíth the specíaí vocals
and harpp playing of Dan'Aykroyd..

Was really amazing.

The're a great band
and great to listen to.

If you listen to the records,
you can hear them doing great stuff.

The guys in the band are some of
the most accomplished musicians...

you'll ever come across
in your life.

We recognized their talent,
their abilities.

They recognized that although
we were not the greatest...

vocalists/harp players...

we weren't the greatest front men...

we provided an energy
and a package for the band...

and sort ofan enclosure
to reintroduce the world...

to a lot of this music.

Danny's a maven.
I mean, he's a real--

Not only a true fan but an expert
in blues and rhythm and blues...

and has a real passion for it.

I used to get more people,
interviewers and fans as well, goin'...

"What's the thing
on Belushi and Aykroyd?

They really can't sing, can they?,,

I said, as far as I'm concerned--

I think I'm a fairly
well-qualified musician.

I'd been a producer
for so many years.

I said, "I think he sings better
than some artists that are out there."

If you heard John Belushi
at rehearsals like we did--

I have some cassettes at home
ofthe original rehearsals...

little pieces of it.

He was good. This guy had great time.
I think he was a drummer.

He had such a love for it,
and he played drums in a band.

He kept decent time.
he had his rhythm down.

He never missed a step or a cue.

We tried to pick blues songs
that weren't Delta blues.

We've never been
a Delta blues band...

and Delta blues
is the primitive rural blues.

We were always a Chicago,
electrified urban blues band...

fused with
the Memphis Stax-Volt movement.

I thínk what we tríed to do ís represent
that ín the movíe as best we couíd

The creatíon of
the mythology of these characters...

has been very strong,
versuccessful..

To the point where it
kind of scary.

I meet people who tell me
that Jake and Elwood Blues...

are these legendary blues artists,
and I think, "Uh-oh."

We put together
what I like to call...

the third-greatest
rhythm and blues revue in the world...

the first being James Brown,
the second being Tina Turner's...

and the third being us.

First you trade the Cadillac
for a microphone.

Then you lie to me
about the band.

Now you're gonna put me
right back in the joint.

They're not gonna catch us.
We're on a mission from God.

Me and the Lord...

we got an understanding.

We're on a mission from God.

Would it make you feel better
if you knew...

that what we're asking Matt here
to do is a holy thing?

You see, we're on
a mission from God.

- We need this gig.
- We're on a mission from God.

Judy Belushi and John and I
come up with...

sort ofthe back story and the concept
of the Blues Brothers...

as sort of filling in
our own conceptions...

of who they were and where they came
from after the first album came out.

I remembered all that stuff
from crim...

and sat down
and kind of used...

used it in creating the profile...

of two guys who start out,
basically, ín an orphanage...

and homeless...

and end up in a life of crime
because they never really had a famlly

Most of your criminals...

have that as an origin.

Danny had said--

Thinking up all these adventures
for the Blues Brothers.

They had a big life,
and it sounded great.

So we made the deal
at Universal Studios...

and Danny went away to write.

I really didn't know
how to write movies.

I don't think I'd ever
even seen a screenplay.

I was told that most screenplays
were 12O to 15O pages long...

but when I sat down
to write The Blues Brothers...

there were so many
descriptive passages in there--

Paragraphs and paragraphs
of shots, of concept...

of ideas, of descriptions,
and eventually...

it just kind of ballooned up.

The thing about Dan Aykroyd--
he's a marvellous writer.

What he has
that's really great are ideas.

His conceptions are so strong.

I had the idea that since
there was no way...

I could get it all into one movie
or one script...

I figured I might as well get
the knowledge that I have...

about the Blues Brothers--
all ofthe conceptions...

John's input, my input,
Judy's input--

And put it all in one volume--

Even though it would be
prohibitively long--

And, I figured,
devise the method ofwriting...

actually two scripts at one time.

Dan Aykroyd had written, actually,
a 324-page script...

that actually had a story...

for recruiting each member
of the band individually.

Now, that script, which, by the way,
was delivered to me...

in the covers
of the Valley Yellow Pages...

,cause it was
as big as a phone book--

Dan tried to take
the sting out of it...

with humour, making it
look like a phone book.

Dan Aykroyd wrote an incredible tome...

about these two guys...

and John then took it
and edited it...

and tried to make it into a screenplay
for him that he could shoot.

I thought,
"There's no way to shoot this."

It was pretty incoherent,
but it had great ideas...

and epic characters...

and a real respect
for the music...

and it was pretty--
it was big!

I didn't know what Landis
was gonna do with it...

but he was an accomplished film-maker.

He had written scripts before, and he
was able to take it and distil it...

down to an actual form
of screenplay at 12O pages.

We started shooting before we had
a finished screenplay, really.

Won,t you welcome,
from Calumet City, Illinois...

the show band of Joliet Jake
and Elwood Blues--

The Blues Brothers!

All blues music
has great humour in ít...

and just the rhythms
and the feellng of joy..

That comes from singing it
and playing it, I think--

We viewed all of it...

as being able to be
relatively easily...

transmitted out there
to the audience.

The songs were chosen
by Danny and me and John...

and it's just what we liked
or what was interesting...

or what was appropriate
to the scene.

I remember going to his apartment in
the Village where he and Judy lived...

and this was during the period
when he was selecting music.

He had this incredible shelf
of 45s.

And he'd put something on
for about four measures.

"Nah." Snap it.

Put another one on,
listen to it.

He'd throw it on the floor
and stomp on it.

It was like Blutarsky
in Anímal House.

I said, "What are you wasting them--
Give 'em away to somebody."

He said, "I hate this crap."

Personally, I wasn't a big fan
ofthis music all along.

I mean, when it,s good, any music
is great-- when it's really good.

But I learned to appreciate it by being
exposed to it through these guys.

John really knew the stuff,
and so did Danny.

If the music didn't work,
throw it out. They didn't care.

We would rehearse it three times.
Boom! Out.

If it wasn't fun,
we didn't do it.

It's always frustrated me
that many people...

don't consider the movie a musical,
which makes me nuts...

,cause it has more music
than most musicals.

Because to him it's a musical.

It's almost non-stop music.
There's always music in the background.

There's all these musical numbers.

He really felt that
he was directing a musical.

I have a great love
for the classic hollywood musical.

Musical comedy
is an American theatrical form.

It's ours.

I knew the action part of it...

but to me, loving old hollywood
and old hollywood musicals...

that's what I kept visualizing.

It's almost like a camouflaged musical.

Musical usually means...

that main characters break into song
to express emotion...

and that doesn't happen in this.

It was a new kind of musical.

It was absolutely. It was
catching rhythms of life...

in the city and the times.

The musical numbers in the movie...

were kind ofthe crown jewels
ofthe piece.

The shoe leather that got you
from one musical number to another...

was something that we always tried
to keep to a minimum...

so that we could get into
the great musical numbers...

that were the set pieces,
if you will, in the movie.

There was an attempt
to do every kind of performance.

By that I mean like operetta--

Traditional musical comedy,
which is the American form...

where people are talking,
and then they burst into song...

but the song furthers the plot.

I wanted to do that.
l did

Then there's performance numbers
when they're on a stage performíng.

So I did that too.

I díd every kínd of number
that had been done in a film.

That was the intention.

He not denyíng
that there are carchases.

Qf course there are car chases,
but there was a rhythm to them.

They were musical numbers.
They were production numbers.

If you listen to the scoring
and look at the screen...

those cars were dancing, baby.

Those cars were dancing.

The hard thing in a musical is getting
a number that feels organic--

That doesn't feel like
a sudden departure in the picture.

I think we were very successful...

with most of the numbers
in The Blues Brothers.

Musicals are inherently expensive
because of the recording and the music.

It's much more expensive now
because of what's happened to the--

To buy a song now
is much more costly.

I mean, in 'Animal House
I paid $2,OOO for a Sam Cooke tune.

Now I'd pay $6O,OOO,
$7O,OOO for the same piece of music.

I only remember one problem,
and that was with a song...

called "Sweet home Chicago."

Come on

Baby don't you wanna go

Back to that same old place

Sweet home Chicago

l was waiting to hear
from the studío...

who owned that song so we could
negotíate the publishing rights...

and I'wasn't hearing anything.

Then I'got a memo from a guy here at
Universal that said they weren't sure.

So I did a little research of myown
and it turned out that MCA...

owned the ríghts to that music

And so I let the guy know.

After an embarrassed phone call,
we had the rights to that song.

But, pretty much, it all
was fairly easy to get.

I hired this man,
Carlton Johnson...

who used to choreograph
The Carol Burnett Show for years.

Very talented choreographer.
He 's passed away

Carlton was a very tradítíonal..

Kind of corny--
da-da-dada-- you know.

He was great, because he had to work
with a variety of acts...

the different guest talent
that we had in the movie...

and work with John Belushi
and Dan Aykroyd

John and Danny
aren't real dancers...

therefore l won't use real dancers.

So Carlton Johnson, our choreographer,
was told, " I want amateurs only "

And so I shot
several numbers ín Chicago...

and by the time I put them together,
I thought, "Ooh, that was a mistake."

So when we did the church scene,
we brought in professional dancers...

unlike "Shake Your Tail Feather,"
all amateurs in Chicago.

The Ray Charles number
was bíg ín that...

we were out on
the streets of Chicago.

We even had people dancing
up on the elevated, up on the train.

So that was tough.

All right
Do the Twíst

When we shot the outside
of Ray's Musíc Exchange...

with the hundreds of people
in the streets dancing...

it was freezing cold

It was freezingy and yet,
the sequence take splace in the summer.

So we had all these poor dancers
out there...

wearíng short-sleeve shirts
and thíngs, dancing away

It was like 25 degrees.

Ow!

Cut! Yes!

Essentially, all of
the moves in the movie are Carlton's...

and some of the moves that we used
subsequently in the act...

when we went on tour
were Carlton's...

and as I do "Everybody Needs Somebody
To Love" today and "Soul Man"...

We still do some of the moves
that Carlton taught us today.

Then it came about who we wanted.

Aretha Franklin, we wanted
John Lee Hooker, we knew we wanted

Ray Charles.
We wanted James Brown.

Unfortunately-- Fortunately for us,
but unfortunately at the time...

except for Ray Charles,
most ofthese people weren't working.

It was easy to get 'em. You called up
and said, "hey, you want a job?"

They went, "Please!"
So that was not the hard part.

It was great. We were getting
to work with our heroes.

And it was fantastic to be going
to the likes of Aretha Franklin...

and Ray Charles and James Brown
to ask them to participate.

No one had really done anything
like this before.

So it was really very exciting
for all of us.

There are certain singers--
B.B. King, Aretha Franklin...

who have trouble with lip sync
to playback...

and the reason for that
is interesting.

It's because they never sing a song
the same way twice.

So it's quite great
if you're seeing them live...

but if you're trying to shoot them
to playback, it's a pain in the ass.

,Cause it's like,
"What is your mouth doing?"

The only problem that you have
editing musical numbers...

is do performers
do it the same way take after take?

'And can they lip-sync
their dialogue--

Theír song, especially if they're
the ones who made the song famous?

I'm not gonna mention any names.

- You better think
- Think

Think about what you're tryin'
to do to me

- Yeah, think
- Think, think

Let your mínd go
Let yourself be free

Let's go back, let's go back
Let's go way on to way back when

I dídn't even know ya

You couldn't have been
too much more than ten

I ain't no psychiatrist
I ain't no doctor with degrees

It don't take too much hígh I. Q.
to see what you're doin' to me

- You better think
- Think

Think about what you're tryin'
to do to me

- Now, now, now think
- Thinky think

Let your mind go
Let yourself be free

- Oh, freedom
- Freedom

- Freedom
- Freedom

Freedom

Yeah, freedom

Right now
Freedom

- Freedom
- Freedom

Freedom

Oh, freedom

They were not
easy numbers to cut.

Lots of takes. Lots of different
camera angles to choose from.

Performance variations. Those are
hard days, to shoot those scenes.

And I think they looked--
I think they looked pretty good.

One ofthe reasons it's so choppy...

was because Aretha
couldn't lip-sync correctly.

And the other was my fault.

I was doing jokes that were not amusing
to anyone but me.

I have a shot...

where you see "Blue Lou" Maríní
ín the background..

And he's framed so that
you're cutting hím here...

whích I found terribly funny,
but everyone else went, "That's weird"

I remember
getting criticized in a review..

By Janet Maslin that in a coupie
of the shots I picked In the diner...

"Blue Lou," the saxophone player...

you only see his legs ,cause he's
jumped up on top of the counter.

And they complained about--
She complained...

about how badly this was done
and we shouldn't have used this shot.

It seemed to work
when we were doing it...

but I guess everybody
has his opinion.

So I go to see the Aretha scene,
and half the scene...

I'm dancing and I'm cut off
from like here.

You don't see
the top of my head.

And so, when I came back, Landis says,
"how'd you like the scene?"

I said, "It sucked!"
he said, "What are you talkin' about?"

I said, "It sucked. I busted my ass
to learn this dance sequence...

and to play at the same time,
half the time you can't see my head."

So Stephen Katz says...

"You signed up for a lot of money and
a little head, and that's what you got."

- And now, people.
- All right, Reverend!

When I woke up this morning...

I heard a disturbin, sound.

The James Brown scene
that takes place in the church...

you know, we found that James
couldn't sing the same way twice.

And so what we did, we took the track,
the music itself...

and that was done to playback,
and people sang to playback...

except for James Brown,
and we recorded his lead vocal live.

Let us preach
To the old

We'll constitute it
In the old

I preach

Feel it, tell it and live

lt will, ít will

When you shoot someone live,
lip-sync's not a problem...

,cause they're live.

In the first movie,
John Lee hooker is live.

James Brown was live.

Ray Charles was playback,
Aretha was playback..

And all the Blues Brothers stuff.
was playback

But it really makes no difference,
because the artists are the ones...

who perform it regardless.

It's for technical reasons
whether it's live or not.

Dan Aykroyd ís a motor-head

The character of D-Day
ín Animal house...

was actuaíbasedon
Danny'Aykroyd..

By Harold Ramis and Chris Miller
and Doug Kenney...

and I didn,t know Danny
at that time.

I learned later that,
"hey, this is this guy."

He likes bikes
he likes motorcycles.

Danny's idea of a good tíme ís to get
in his car in Los Angeles...

and dríve to New York, straíght.

He enjoys that.

I've always liked cars...

but I was really wrítíng--

The whole concept of the Blues Mobile
and why it was an old police car...

was basically Flwood's concept.

It was sort of livíng
ínsíde the character.

Elwood is a genius driver.

He does extraordinary things
with this car.

She caught Katy

And left me a mule to ride

She caught Katy

And left me a mule to ride

Car's got a lot of pick-up.

It's got a cop motor,
a 44O-cubic-inch plant.

It's cop tyres, cop suspension,
cop shocks.

It's a model made
before catalytic converters...

so it'll run good
on regular gas.

Whattaya say?
Is it the new Blues Mobile or what?

Fix the cigarette lighter.

At that tíme,
the hottest police car in Ameríca...

was the Dodge Monaco
wíth the 440 cubic-inch engine...

and that became the Blues Mobile
because Elwood...

knew that he had to stay, at least,
íf not one jump ahead of the law..

On the same kind
of technological footing with them.

That's really Flwood's call.

Aykroyd decorated the thing.

That's why you saw
all those cigarette packs.

They were Chesterfield King packs.

Had to be matches, gum wrappers.

There were lots of different
Blues Mobiles.

There were Blues Mobiles...

that were specífically
for hígh-performance driving--

Stunt driving.

Basically, the idea ofthe magic car
came from me.

I finally just said-- Danny tends
to want to explain this stuff.

In fact, in the new movie...

at one point
the car goes underwater...

and Danny wanted to show
propellers coming out.

I said, "That's James Bond.
We don't have Q. It's a magic car.

It does it ,cause I said so.,,

That's one of the things about film.
You show people: there it is.

You want a giant bug?
There's your giant bug.

You don't have to explain
your giant bug.

A couple of scenes that were omitted
from the first movie:

One was, which I--
One of my favourite was--

Sort ofexplained how the Blues Mobile
got imbued with special powers...

to do back flips and that,
and it was that we parked it...

in a secret hiding place under
the El train in Chicago...

in a transformer room
to which I had a key

The room opened up
with these big steel-plate doors...

and inside were
these humming transformers...

and the Blues Mobile
parked in there every night...

and sort of absorbed the power
of the electrical transformers...

under the El train.

We actuali shot a scene...

where you saw it
stored under thís transformer...

and the big eíectrícal hum.

It was part
of the "Peter Gunn" thing and..

I cut it out.

The movie was too long. I had to
cut stuff, and quite honestly..

I think I saíd to Danny:

"Are you gonna go with each print
and explain to people...

,See how we're parked
near this transformer?

That's why the car
can do this stuff."'

That makes no sense!

In Danny's head, it made sense.

The Blues Mobile that was
supposed to tumble end over end--

And originally the notion
was to launch the miniature...

and the miniature it self was about
four and a half feet long.

There were all these novel ways
that the effects guys...

were proposing to do that, and we
started going out to see some tests...

which really fizzled,
one after the other.

We finally decided to get a bunch
of guys and throw it in the air...

and I thínk
that's the way we did it.

'And then cut to
the Nazis' station wagon...

being dropped over
the Lower Wacker area-- a vacant lot--

And we had a target zone
of 5O by 5O feet--

I remember there was a specific thing
where we wanted to drop the Pinto...

belonging to the Illinois Nazis
past the--

You wanted to see it fall
past the skyline.

How we were gonna do that was actually
drop the Pinto from a helicopter.

We had to have the Ford Pínto
certífied by the F.A.A.

They actually wanted to know
about íts un-airworthiness.

Cause they were afraid it might be
like an airfoil..

And somehow in the middle of the drop
go sailing off over Lake Shore Drive.

So we had to do drop tests where we
dropped the Pinto from the helicopter...

had to hit a specific place.

We were using the area
where they store salt...

that gets spread during
the snowstorms oft he winter.

It has nothing on it
during the summer...

and it's away
from a populated area.

Although, it is within the city.

We proved to the F.A.A. and the city
that we could hit a mark.

We dropped this Pinto, and it fell
right on the X where we wanted it...

and flattened it.

It was this high when we got done
with it. That's how we did that shot.

I've always loved you.

We were fortunate enough to find
the Dixie Mall in harvey, Illinois.

An abandoned mall.

It was a one-in-a-million.

You don't go around
finding these things abandoned

ln fact, we felt like archaeologists
from the 31st century or somethíng...

going into this place
with our flashlights.

'All the power was off,
dust flying everywhere...

and the place had been closed
for over a year.

I'm proud to say we were
the first movie to trash a mall.

Because I thought, "Mmm, mmm."

That sequence came out
of a location scout.

It was perfect for what we wanted, and
we ended up shooting there for a week.

Before they go in the mall,
there's this giant parking lot...

that they drive around,
and it's like...

"how we gonna fill
this parking lot?"

So we made a deal
to get brand-new cars--

Every car in that parkíng lot
is a brand-new car--

That's just there
to fill up the parking lot.

Qtherwíse we couldn't
fill the parking lot.

I remember
the productíon manager sayíng...

"Don't hít any of those cars"

You got us into
this parking lot, pal.

Now you get us out.

You want out of this parking lot?
Okay.

- Would there be anything else?
- Yes. Do you have a Miss Piggy?

It had, I thinky
a 130, 140stores originally

Actually we did them all over.

We went in there and remodelled
the whole works, put in breakaways...

and decorated all those stores.

We hadstores
that were being dressed..

By people that had franchises
that were there.

There were two types of stores: Ones we
could wreck, and ones we couldn't wreck.

There's pants and burgers.

Yeah. Lots of space in this mall.

We had híred--
l won't say their names--

But the most famous private
security police force in the country.

And we had hired them to guard--

Cause we had millions of dollars
of merchandise in there.

We made a deal wíth suppliers.

Anything we didn't break
we didn't have to pay for.

So we had guards there,
and things were being stolen...

and called the police, and it turned out
the guards were doing the stealing.

We had to get guards
to watch the guards.

And background action.
Enjoying yourself.

And car!

In the mall,
all those stunt guys weren't drivers.

Those stunt guys were--

Everyone on foot in the mall
are stunt people.

So that's where
the huge numbers came in.

I do remember that
Danny Aykroyd...

thought that shooting at that mall...

was just one of the greatest things
he'd ever seen--

That he'd thought this up,
and here it was...

this bizarre carchase combining
consumer goods and police cars...

in his own mail

I'll never forget
the sheer delight...

that this idea he'd had
late one night...

was now being played out
ín a very big way

Cut! Stop!

Part of the joke of the first
Blues Brothers is size.

Everything's gigantic. Everything's
exaggerated to such a huge extent.

It was interesting.
People were going, "Car crash? Song?

Gee, that doesn't compute?,,

I just couldn't describe events
without...

getting into trouble and without
people looking at me like...

"What have you got us into?"

Yeah, well, we did run over...

but the footage
is gonna be excellent.

It's movie history.

I know, I know.

No, I think, in this sequence,
we're gonna be two days over.

It'll all be on the screen.
I promise. Okay. I'll see you in L.A.

Qbviously, one couldn't duplicate
the first movie.

It would cost too much.
It cost $27 million then...

which is much more
than what we got now, actually.

But that was a huge amount then.
That was probably like 6O now.

We did this epic--

We had 34 cars going 11O miles an hour
in downtown Chicago.

I don't think
you could do that again.

Ten-seven-niner still engaged.

Vehicle travelling southbound
approaching Chicago city limits.

Commander advises will contact
Chicago precincts for local intercept.

Maintain pursuit.

Use of unnecessary violence...

in the apprehension
of the Blues Brothers...

has been approved.

Just the fact...

of what it took
to film that in Chicago...

tying off blocks and blocks
of city streets...

and multiple days of filming
for really seconds of film--

We would shut down the city
on weekends, I guess on Sundays...

when there wasn't
a lot oftraffic or people out...

so no one would, hopefully,
cross in front of us.

We had I don't know how many
hundreds of P.A.s...

at every intersection,
every alley, every doorway...

so that no one would walk out
and get hit.

This is definitely
Lower Wacker Drive.

If my estimations are correct...

we should be very close to
the honourable Richard J. Daley Plaza.

- That's where they got that Picasso.
- Yep.

We had great drivers.

The doubles
for Belushi and Aykroyd...

were Tommy Huff and Eddie Donno...

and Tom Huff
was a brilliant driver.

And what we were doing in that movie
that was unusual...

is they were going that fast
we were going 1OO miles an hour.

So there's one shot in the movie,
when I shot it...

I looked at it in dailies
and said...

"People are gonna think
I sped this up."

So we reshot it
with pedestrians on the sidewalk.

It was probably a wasted effort...

but there's a shot where you see
the Blues Mobile coming towards us...

then arounda corner
andunder the El traín...

followed by
these twenty-some police cars.

They're going 100 miles an hour.

We put people on the sidewalk
so you could see they were going...

100 miles an hour.

And what was complicated about that
was that on a city street...

you have to make sure
that all traffic is stopped

So we were shooting very early
Saturday and Sunday mornings...

on a lot of this stuff.

And to make sure all traffic
was stopped meant you had to have...

a P.A. with a walkie-talkie at every
alley and street and lots of cops...

for half a mile or a mile.

These were big undertakíngs,
thís stuff. We díd bíg stuff.

Lots of effects--
mechanical and visual effects...

that made that happen, and really one
of the classic chases of all time.

The Blues Brothers was really
the first big picture...

allowed to shoot in Chicago
since Daley had passed away

You may have heard that Daley had--
this is Mayor Daley--

Had come up with an edict that there
would be no filming in Chicago.

He wasn't gonna allow it.

Partly because
ofan old MSquad episode...

with Lee Marvin, where it showed
a Chicago cop accepting a bribe.

You know, and Mayor Daley's,
"That's it."

One of the big issues,
given what we were planning, was...

how would we get permission
to get the city of Chicago...

to let us film all of this.

We met wíth Mayor Jane Byrne.

We had met with her to say how happy
we were to be shooting in Chicago...

and so forth, and she asked was there
anything that she could do for us.

It was so Chicago--
Mayor Byrne was very instrumental.

And then other people--
high-placed--

These kind of people--
helped us too.

Because, for instance,
shooting in Daley Plaza.

You knowy Cook County Board said,
"No, no, no."

We went above them...

to the people
who owned the Cook County Board.

This is no longer true
in Chicago.

And we were able--
But it was amazing...

the cooperation we got
from the city and the police.

Good news.

The mayor of Chicago
is gonna allow us...

to take over Daley Plaza
and drive the Blues Mobile...

through the lobby
ofthe state office building.

Good news: We got the permission.
Bad news: We got the permission.

Background action!

Action!

They got what they wanted. It was slick.

It worked terrific. Brakes worked good.

- How'd it look?
- Looked terrific.

I couldn't see it.
I had my eyes closed.

The first thing I thought about
was those Sam Fuller movies.

I thought I was going to be making
this great war movie.

That's what went into my mind.
I saw it as a battle sequence.

And it really excited me,
because we had the tanks...

we had the army--
we had so much stuff going on.

We had conversatíons-- How many I.S.P.s?

Illinois State Police cars.
We got like 6O I.S.P.s...

and 42 Chicago city cop cars
and 17 ambulances.

15O National Guardsmen,
6O Chicago cops.

35O guns.

There's 15O batons.

Four Sherman tanks, three helicopters.

7OO pounds of prime rib.

And 4OO troops. Well,
ifwe've got the 4OO troops...

then what about the SWAT team?

Įohn Landis directs--
directed this movie...

as General Westmoreland
might prepare a battle.

Come on, men! Screaming!
hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle!

Go, go, go, go, go, go, go!

Get those weapons ready, mister!

Hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle!

We had a place
called "the warroom"...

And in the warroom were maps
of Chícago and aerial views...

and this was where
all the planníng was done.

If you're gonna tie off major sections
of Lower Wacker Drive...

or Lake Shore Drive, these things
had to be carefully coordinated...

and with the assistant directors and
Chicago police and fire departments...

we staged some very, very big gags.

Get your arms up in the air, people!

From a logistics standpoint,
I think the hardest number...

was the Cab Calloway number...

which was a giant,
live, large concert...

that we actually shot here in Hollywood
at the Palladium.

There were thousands of extras,
ín fact, so many..

That we had promoted the audience
through a local radio station.

Faster!

In between the set-upsy
we're entertaining them...

with local disc jockeys
and giving away prizes and so forth.

And there were wardrobe changes
and lightíng effects and so on.

I think that wasy logistically..

As far as anything inside
was concerned, the most difficult.

You guys know
"Minnie the Moocher"?

I knew a hooker
named Minnie Mazola.

No, the song
"Minnie the Moocher."

- Yeah. So what?
- hit it!

I had a rough start wíth Cab.

He came to Chicago
to prerecord "Minnie"..

And he was quite taken aback
by the tracks.

He listened to them and said, "That's
the way it sounded 50 years ago."

Cause we were recording 50 years
to the day he had written it.

'And I said,
"Yeah, that what I want"

He wanted to do it disco.
He had just cut a disco version.

He told me he'd done "Minnie" cha-cha,
"Minnie" twist, "Minnie",polka...

"Minnie",rumba--
done all the major dance crazes...

and he didn't understand why we
wanted to do it this old-fogy way..

And I told him, "Because that's great,
and that's what I want."

He was very unhappy about it
and in a very bad mood..

This old guy and he went
into the recording studio...

and went in and did a take...

and afterward said,
"how was that?"

And I said,
"I was unhappy with that, Cab."

And his eyes got narrow.
he said, "What was wrong with it?"

So I said,
"Well, it was mediocre.

And you're Cab Calloway,
so it should be great."

And he said, "Oh, great? I'm sorry.
You didn't tell me you wanted it great."

Really angry.
So it was like real quiet.

So he goes back in,
he puts on the headphones...

and we do another take,
and it was great.

It,s the one that,s in the movie.
It was great.

But he finishes, and he takes off
his headset and says, "how was that?"

And I said, "That was great."

And he said, "You gotta tell me
what you want!" and stormed out.

And I thought, "Oh, shit."

But then when he showed up
on location...

he was lovely, and he had
a really good time on the movie...

and so there were no problems.

But it was a rocky start.
I thought, "Uh-oh."

John Landis is something else.
he is the greatest.

He loved sharing his experiences,
and I don't know of anybody...

other than Duke Fllington,
who would have more stories.

The fact that he warmed up to us,
and wanted to--

There was no aloofness,
no distance--

That made us feel
very warm towards him.

He was a sweet man,
and what a performer, man.

We used to sit down and talk.

He used to talk about the times that,
you know, the early days...

when he was shootin, in Hollywood,
the things that happened to him.

And he was
a very friendly dude.

I told Cab that one thing
that got me was that...

he just went absolutely
straight ahead, you know?

And he says, "Well, Lou,
I learned something a long time ago.

When you got good musicians,
you don't have to say anything.

And if you don't have good musicians,
there's nothing you can say."

- Got any fried chicken?
- Best damn chicken in the state.

Bring me four fried chickens
and a Coke.

You want chicken wings
or chicken legs?

Four fried chickens and a Coke.

It's a good movie. It's--

It's about Chicago,
it's about music, it's about--

It's about two hours.

There's no sex and drugs
in the movie.

I had a funny story happen with John
that I've told before...

but it wasn't funny at the time.

We were having quite a big fight.
We were over here at Universal...

shooting the interior ofthe church
on stage 29...

and it involved drugs.

I was extremely angry
about this cocaine.

I'd thrown away a bunch of cocaine,
and John was furious.

We had a big fight,
and we went out on Lankershim.

So there's Jake Blues,
in complete-- he's in drag.

And I'm out there,
and we're yelling.

We're really mad,
and we're having an argument.

And he finally said,
"Fuck this, and fuck you!"

And he sort ofsticks
his thumb out.

I don't even-- But this car
coming the opposite way goes--

Makes a huge U-turn,
this convertible...

and there's this kid,
a real stoner, goes...

"hey, John Belushi, man!"

John jumps in the front and says,
"Take me to the Chateau Marmont!"

Off. Gone. Like that.

At the time it was not amusing,
but in retrospect, it's pretty funny.

Over there is Alan Rubin.

Over that side. That way.

- Alan Rubin.
- hi. how are you?

We all know John
as a "bad boy"...

but a giving, wonderful soul.

You go to his house and open
his refrigerator...

like you were at your friend's.

He would kill for his friends.

John was the type of person...

that if he decided you were
his friend, then he...

more oríess íookedafteryou
from then on.

He was quite
a faithful friend to me.

The guys were always partying
and stuff.

I was, and still am,
sort of like a loner, you know.

But whenever he saw me sittin, over
in a corner anywhere...

he'd always come over
and says, "Matt"--

he says, "What's the matter?"
he says, "Are you okay?"

He was a serious individual,
but he was always clownin' around.

That was kind of
about the basic of it.

And he was just a great guy.

We hung out
he'd come by the house...

and sit there and clean out
my refrigerator.

When I'd run out of food,
he'd go somewhere else.

No, he was just a super guy,
a very giving guy and a lot of fun.

He also a person who might show up
at your house at 2:00 in the morning.

And I loved him very much
and still miss him.

John was kind of-- Like I say, you
wanted him as your next-door neighbour.

You wanna hug him.

John was a wonderful person.
I adored him.

In fact, everybody adored
John Belushi.

This is MrJohn "Be-lu-chee"...

- and Mr Dan Aykroyd.
- Polaroid.

Mr Dan Polaroid. I've been
callin' him everything like--

- "Be-lu-shee."
-Just a minute. I'll get you in.

- Stay back till I call you.
- Belushi. he's not Italian.

Now, I,ve compared these people,
and I may have to swallow all of this.

I'm figurin' on them
to take their places.

We,ll just say this:
Abbott and Costello, hope and Crosby...

and Martin and Lewis
and Sinatra and his little group...

and everything like that, but they
couldn't carry these guys' jockstrap.

One night nobody could find John.
We didn't know where he was.

We needed him for a shot...

and someone said, "I saw him
walking over across the street.

He crossed the street and went over
into that neighbourhood over there."

So we began to look for him, and we
went to a house in the neighbourhood...

sort of basically looking
for telltale signs of him...

and someone said, "Oh, yeah,
he went into that house there."

We knocked, and the guy
came to the door and said...

"Yes, Mr Belushi's
in on the couch. he's asleep."

Perfect stranger.

Turned out John
had walked off the set...

gone to somebody's house,
knocked on the door, said...

"You know who I am. John Belushi.
I'm tired, I'm hungry."

He walked in to the guy's fridge,
opened the fridge...

stood at the fridge, the guy said,
made himselfa sandwich...

had a glass of milk, and then said,
"Can I crash out on your couch?"

Perfect stranger,
crashed out on the couch.

John really was
America's guest, and...

that really crystallized it,
you know.

That was really a funny night.

Warden threw a party
ín the county jail

Prison band was there
and they began to wail

The band was jumpin'
and the joint began to swing

You should have heard
those knocked out jailbirds sing

- Let rock
- The Blues Brothers is a movie...

that for whatever reasons...

wherever I go all over the world,
people love that movie...

and these things take on
a life of their own.

I would have never imagined
that 17 years later...

I would still be playing
with the same guys.

Dan Aykroyd has helped blues
probably more than anybody--

And John Belushi,
if he hadn't have died--

I think from that first movie.

There was some criticism
given to John and Danny...

but they've done more for blues
than anybody in the last 2O years.

Dan Aykroyd's passion
for rhythm and blues--

It's basically
black American music.

One of the things the movie did
quite successfully...

was draw attention
back to these great artists.

And you can talk to James Brown
or Aretha Franklin...

or any of these people,
and they'll tell you...

their careers were revitalized,
and I really am proud of that.

It broadened my audience...

and it certainly
introduced people to me...

who were not aware of who I was.

As soon as I got
with The Blues Brothers Band...

and we did The Blues Brothers movie,
one...

I couldn,t believe
how I was accelerated, man.

I just knew we were
making a great movie.

In my heart, I knew.

And even though,
maybe the reviews weren't great...

and people said
it wasn't gonna do well...

I knew it was gonna last forever.

I know the fans were there.
Without question, the fans were there.

And they go crazy when we go open
a house of Blues...

and there's 2,OOO people,
and they're all goin' nuts.

They love this band.

My wife and I
were at EPCOT Centre...

and it was about 11:OO at night,
it was gettin' kind of dark.

And this guy goes,
"Man. Murphy Dunne, man.

I-It's-- Man, Mur--
It's Murphy. Is that you?"

And I said, "Yeah.
What are you gonna do?"

He said, "Oh, no, I'm not gonna--
I just-- Can I touch you?"

I said, "Yeah. It's okay.
hi, how are you?"

Yeah, it just knocks me out
when it happens.

It funny thoughy
thís one appearance...

when I hold up
that prophylactíc--

It's weird. People still talk
to me about it to this day.

They say it cracked 'em up.

Every now and again,
even on a street, somebody'll say...

"hey, it's the Penguin!"
which is great fun.

The movie is very much
like Dragnet.

Jack Webb, very straightforward.
"Thank you, ma'am."

Certainly I did something right,
because people love these characters.

There are wonderful things
in the movie.

I think he's one of
the great film-makers of our age.

He's certainly made some
of the best pictures of our time.

He's a great director.

He's like a directing animal.
he's like an animal.

If there was an animal called
"director," it would be John Landis.

It's 1O6 miles to Chicago,
we got a full tank of gas...

half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark,
and we're wearing sunglasses.

Hit it.

Ladies and gentlemen,
take a good look at these two kids...

because you're gonna see
a lot of 'em.

They're gonna say,
"here they come and yonder they go."

They come on like "We the people"
and go off like gangbusters.

- Shotgun Britton, ladies and gentlemen!
- God bless you, sir.

Shotgun Britton!

This production is happy people.

They are very professional people
and very alert people.

Sean Daniel, vice president
of Universal Pictures and good guy.

- But not for long.
- Bob, come here.

Look at this.

Robert K. Weiss,
of "Robert K. Weiss Presents."

The producer of the motion picture.
Thank you, Bob.

- Cut.
- Cut.

Cut. I've gotta clean up.

When in Hollywood,
visit Universal Studios.

Okay, cut.