A tribute to our friend and loved one, Wendy Posson, who left us at the age of 50 last month. The Blues Brothers was hands down her favorite film, and we are celebrating one of cinema’s most outrageous, most diverse and most amazing musical movies in her memory.

NOTE: This program contains language some may find objectionable.

On paper, it looks so ridiculous that it is a miracle the film was made at all. Take two white television actors, one of them from Canada, both whom had performed on a comedic sketch show and moonlighted as Blues musicians. The story was written by star Dan Aykroyd, a man with no script writing experience, and many of the actors were not well-known. Adding to this, it featured Black musicians who’s careers had been sidelined by the Disco, Adult Contemporary and Hard Rock genres.

Cab Calloway singing his Jazz classic Minnie The Moocher, which was the oldest song in the film.

By the way, it is a buddy flick about ex-cons who have a religious epiphany along the way; they’re also chased by the police, a psychotic ex-girlfriend, a touring music group and Nazis. They would also wreck more cars than any other film in history and destroy many of the glass windows in an entire indoor mall. Making it even more ridiculous: the film would feature not just Blues music, but 1960’s Soul, early Rock and Roll, 1930’s Jazz, TV themes, Muzak, 1950’s Italian Romantic Pop songs, Gospel, Classical, Opera, and of course, both kinds: Country and Western.

Aretha Franklin, who not only sang and danced in the film, she also had an extended speaking part.

Filmed over much of the summer of 1979 and released in the spring of 1980, the flick had everything working against it, including cost-overruns and delays due to the drug habits of many involved. Now considered one of the greatest comedies and buddy flicks in history, it took a great deal of time to build its audience to the classic status it holds today.

It did perform well at the time, but wasn’t the blockbuster the studio, Universal, had hoped for. Not only did it carry an “R” rating due to language and violent scenes, limiting its viewership, one major west coast theatre chain, Mann, refused to show it. According to a 2013 article in Vanity Fair, the chain did not want Black people coming into white neighborhoods to see it, and they also didn’t believe white audiences would want to see a film with so many older Black performers.

(l-r) Actors Dan Aykroyd and John Belishi as Elwood and Jake respectively. They led the Blues Brothers band in actual singing parts.

So, to review: The Blues Brothers was a religious buddy comedy road flick with R rated dialogue and numerous car chases, the few named stars high on cocaine, gun violence, a script that had to be edited to a third of its length and completely reformatted, a soundtrack with older Black performers out of step with current musical trends that also features Nazis as characters and a major theatre chain that won’t show it due to systemic racism. It’s a miracle, seriously, we are even talking about this release at all.

Ray Charles was the only veteran performer in the film who at the time had a recent charted single.

According to director John Landis, it was the first U.S. film to outperform overseas than it did at home. Box office receipts bear this out, as The Blues Brothers did more than twice its domestic take in international markets. The film received a second life in heavily edited television broadcasts, home video and via midnight showings where the audience would participate, much like The Rocky Horror Picture Show.