‘The Blues Brothers’ At 40: Why It’s The Rare Successful ‘Saturday Night Live’ Movie

When “The Blues Brothers” landed in theaters 40 years ago this week, it was something of a novelty – the first feature film based on characters from “Saturday Night Live,” which had, at that point, only been on the air for five years. And though it was a hit, no one would try again for 12 years, with “Wayne’s World,” after which the floodgates opened. There was one key difference between “Blues Brothers” and the bulk of the “SNL”-inspired films that followed: the show’s creator and longtime producer, Lorne Michaels, was not involved in any way. And that, frankly, may be one of the reasons it’s any good.

The differences are clear from the beginning. Director John Landis opens “The Blues Brothers” with a series of downright ominous shots of Chicago at night, before taking his cameras to Joliet Correctional Center, where Jake Elwood (John Belushi) is being paroled for good behavior. In the long, evocative Joliet sequence that opens the movie, Landis gives Belushi – then a big name, thanks to their collaboration on “Animal House” – an honest-to-God movie star entrance, shooting him only from behind, from a distance, and from oblique angles. In fact, neither Belushi nor co-star/co-writer Dan Aykroyd are seen in full close-up until their above-the-title actor credits, which don’t come until six minutes into the picture.

What’s striking about this entire opening is, quite simply, how cinematic it is. There is, to put it mildly, plenty to say about Landis (as an artist and a human being), but at this point in his career, he knew how to put a movie together. The Lorne Michaels movies that would follow, on the other hand, always feel like television, and for good reason; he’s a television producer.

But the peculiar, specific, and probably irreplicable circumstance of “The Blues Brothers” is that it can treat these characters, in that moment and throughout the two-plus hours that follow, as mythological figures – because in writing the film, Aykroyd was building that mythology. His original screenplay (much like his first pass at “Ghostbusters” not long after) was a legendary behemoth, 324 pages (according to Bob Woodward’s Belushi biography “Wired”), or roughly three times the length of a normal screenplay, less a point-A-to-point-B narrative than a freewheeling Bible to the Blues Brothers universe. (Landis was taxed with turning this monstrosity into a workable screenplay, and barely got the job done.) But Aykroyd had the freedom to build that mythology because the characters weren’t at the mercy of “SNL” fan service – Jake and Elwood Blues had appeared on the show, several times, but only in musical performances. There were no Blues Brothers “sketches” to build from (or bullshit catchphrases) and no interpersonal dynamics beyond the energy that Belushi and Aykroyd generated while performing blues and R&B standards.

There was, to be sure, a tradition to step into; most pointedly in the Chez Paul set piece, “The Blues Brothers” works the “slobs vs. snobs” dynamic present in “Animal House” and on “Saturday Night Live,” and also, a year later, in fellow “SNL” alums Chevy Chase and Bill Murray’s “Caddyshack.” But the key cultural heritage of the film is one almost entirely disconnected from “SNL” and its big-screen spinoffs; at its best, it’s a good old-fashioned movie musical. This was a peculiar time for the genre, veering from mindless exercises like “Grease” and “Sgt. Pepper” to thrilling subversions like “All That Jazz” and “New York, New York.” “The Blues Brothers” falls somewhere in between, mounting the band’s songs and the special guest appearances as big, bold production numbers (often prompted, in that grand movie musical tradition, by the thinnest of excuses).

Landis’ staging and camera blocking aren’t always up to the task, but the performers are so electrifying, it doesn’t much matter. Subsequent critics would accuse Aykroyd and crew of cultural appropriation, homogenizing and commercializing the idea of the blues to line their (white) pockets, and there’s undeniable truth to that charge. But it’s also worth commending the filmmakers for boosting these acts, at a moment when mainstream pop audiences had mostly forgotten them (and studio execs were reportedly pressing for the inclusion of more marketable performers). Unsurprisingly, they take over the movie. When we think about the best scenes in “The Blues Brothers,” we think of James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and Cab Calloway – scenes where Belushi and Aykroyd are bystanders or, at the most, backup.

Those weren’t the only battles they fought. The shoot was a notorious boondoggle, going weeks over schedule and millions over budget, pushed into production (on the strength of a telephone pitch) before it was ready because Universal wanted another “Animal House” as quickly as possible. Some of that frenetic quality translates on screen – particularly in the gigantic, thrilling car chase sequences, (though the joy of those scenes is drained considerably if you know anything about Landis’ conduct on the “Twilight Zone” set three years later).

Considering those scenes – and the scale of the movie overall – it’s not surprising that Michaels wasn’t involved (at that point, he’d not yet produced a feature film). But the idea apparently wasn’t even considered, by either party; by that point in the show’s run, according to Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad’s excellent history “Saturday Night,” there was “some jealousy and some disdain for the Blues Brothers” in the halls of 8H, and particularly by Michaels, “because the Blues Brothers existed outside his sphere of influence, and because John didn’t give him credit for having provided the platform that launched them in the first place.” Aykroyd and especially Belushi became so focused on the weekly Blues Brothers numbers that they began to lose patience with the “Lorne Michaels show” surrounding it, and “the fighting between [Belushi and Michaels] grew more vehement.” And Belushi was doing so much coke by then, Michaels might not have wanted to deal with him outside of the show anyway.

Instead, he focused on a rival project – a solo Gilda Radner showcase, following the Blues Brothers template of live performance, live album, and film (in this case, a filmed record of “Gilda Live” on Broadway). The tension between the two projects, both of which were in production during the 1979 hiatus of “SNL,” grew so fierce that Belushi told Paul Shaffer and Bob Tischler—who had agreed to co-produce “Gilda Live” and were, respectively, musical director and album producer for the Blues Brothers—that they could not do both. They refused to choose sides. And then, once “Gilda Live” opened on Broadway and clearly needed more work, Michaels forced Shaffer to stay in New York and drop out of “The Blues Brothers,” mere days before shooting was to begin.

But Michaels learned his lesson. “Gilda Live” was a commercial failure, but “The Blues Brothers” overcame its mixed reviews and grossed over $100 million worldwide, and he didn’t get a cent. But he attempted to mount an anthology film, “The Saturday Night Live Movie,” in 1990; it never made it past the screenplay stage, but two years later, “Wayne’s World” grossed over $100 million in the United States alone. That film, like “The Blues Brothers,” had the advantage of an honest-to-goodness director at its helm; several of the subsequent “SNL” spin-offs had no such luck, and films like “Coneheads,” “A Night at the Roxbury,” “Superstar,” and “Ladies’ Man” proved that as a film producer, Michaels was a great television producer. The few “Saturday Night Live movies” that genuinely work do so because they’re treated as movies – not just extensions of a TV show.