The Blues Brothers (1980)

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General		Extras
Category	Musical	Featurette-Making Of-55 mins Gallery-Photo Production Notes Web Links Biographies-Cast Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1980
Running Time	141:43
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (89:32)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	John Landis
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	John Belushi Dan Aykroyd James Brown Cab Calloway Ray Charles Carrie Fisher Aretha Franklin Henry Gibson The Blues Brothers Band
Case	Brackley-Trans-No Lip
RPI	$36.95	Music	The Blues Brothers Band Elmer Bernstein

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 French Dolby Digital 2.0 Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 Spanish Dolby Digital 1.0 German Dolby Digital 1.0
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French German Polish Czech Hungarian Turkish Swedish Finnish Dutch Norwegian Portuguese Danish Bulgarian	Smoking	Yes, copiously
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, Placement: Yes. Annoying: No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, music and captions in the beginning of the credits

    Before I begin, I must state that I felt that I should not sully this immortal classic by only providing a review in conjunction with its remarkably poor sequel. One other reason why I recommend the individual disc over the dual-disc set is that the brief notes provided on the inside of the slick for The Blues Brothers give great insight into the restoration of this 142-minute (once the PAL speedup is taken into account) Special Edition. According to these notes, Universal attempted to locate the print that was shown as a preview at the Picwood Theatre on Pico Boulevard in West Los Angeles. Unfortunately, nobody knows exactly where this print is at this point in time, and to make matters worse, Universal threw out all the footage that was cut from the commercial print in 1985. On the good side, this means that numbers such as The Old Landmark and Minnie The Moocher are now more complete. On the bad side, an additional number performed in Bob's Country Bunker, Sink The Bismarck, is still missing.
 

    Words cannot express how keenly I have been waiting for the release of this particular DVD. The number of times I remember viewing a TV-Truncated version of The Blues Brothers, which was simulcast on 2Day-FM at the time we videotaped it, as a boy is exceeded only by the number of times I have viewed Star Wars and Robocop, so I was especially happy to get this disc into my grubby little paws. Both as a film, and as a monument to a time when musical talent was necessary to get a record deal, The Blues Brothers is a righteous classic that not only warrants, but demands multiple viewings. Given that this is more or less a Saturday Night Live skit-to-screen translation, it could have come off a lot worse. It has granted virtual screen immortality to many of the musicians who make cameo appearances during some of the best-integrated musical numbers in the history of the genre.

    Yet, for such an exceedingly successful film that remains in the memory of many a film buff, the premise that drives the film is an exceedingly simple one. "Joliet" Jake Blues (the late, great John Belushi) is the lead vocalist of a blues band that disbanded after he was arrested several years before the film's opening, which basically picks up on the day of his release. After being handed back his personal effects by a corrections officer (Frank Oz), he is met at the gates by his harmonica-playing, backing-vocalist brother, Elwood (Dan Ackroyd). After a demonstration of their new car's potential, the brothers go back to the old Chicago orphanage where they were raised in order to visit Sister Mary Stigmata (Kathleen Freeman), or The Penguin, as they call her. In a sequence that ends with a hilarious caning, we learn that the orphanage is about to be closed down for not paying its property taxes, a slight blunder on the part of the screenwriters since churches and church-run orphanages in America are tax-exempt. After a chat with their old mentor, Curtis (Cab Calloway) and a sermon with Reverend Cleophus James (James Brown), Jake sees the light in one of the most referenced sequences of this type ever to be committed to celluloid.

    Jake has decided that his mission, as appointed by God during the light-seeing sequence, is to reform the band and play a few gigs in order to make the money they need to save the orphanage. Unfortunately, it might not be so easy since the men who used to make up the band have since found themselves more stable jobs, and the brothers soon run afoul of the Chicago police in one of the most hilarious car chases ever filmed ("Do you have a Miss Piggy?"). Also pursuing the brothers are Camille Dzunda, an enraged woman whom Jake left at the altar (Carrie Fisher), and the Illinois Nazi Party (headed by Henry Gibson). Eventually, the band, consisting of Steve Cropper, Donald Dunn, Murphy Dunne, Willie Hall, Tom Malone, Lou Marini, Matt Murphy, and Alan Rubin, are brought back together and dragged through a series of misadventures with the brothers. This is where I'll stop the plot summary for the benefit of those who haven't seen the film already (where have you people been?), but be warned: showing this film to small children may well make them want to grow up to be professional musicians.

    This film held (and in all probability still holds) the world record for the highest number of cars crashed, including a total of thirteen new Bluesmobiles, all built for different destructive functions. Other musicians who make appearances in the film include Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and John Lee Hooker, so even if you dislike some of the actual musical numbers like I do, you will still be blown away by the musicianship on display. Grab a box of popcorn and dive right in, because no matter what appeals to you, The Blues Brothers will have something that can sustain your interest for a hundred and forty minutes.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. It is 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is surprisingly sharp, with plenty of details on offer in both the foreground and the background. Occasionally, some backgrounds became fuzzy and indistinct, but this appears to be inherent in the original photography. The shadow detail is consistently below average, with a lot of the dark sections of the image having little discernable detail, but this is another problem inherent in the original photography, which is mostly quite well-lit, anyway. There is no low-level noise. Grain, however, is occasionally a problem, with the backgrounds of Chapter 30 containing enough grain to make me wonder if this part of the film had maybe been sourced from a different interpositive. Thankfully, the rest of the film only shows this problem to a very mild extent, when the problem is shown at all.

    The colours in most of the film are muted and drab, reflecting the gritty environment of urban Chicago, but occasionally, there would also be a display of bright, vivid colours. The best example of this can be found in Chapter 32, titled The Opening Act (Minnie The Moocher). The costumes worn by Cab Calloway and The Blues Brothers Band during most of this number are predominantly black and white, with both the photography and the transfer impeccably capturing each and every shade in the environment. The contrast with the costumes worn during the rest of this stage performance, combined with the lack of dot crawl, colour bleed, or especially cross-colouration, drives home an important reminder of how big a compromise the VHS format really is.

    MPEG artefacts were not a problem in this transfer, with yet another display of near-transparent compression for the viewer to behold. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of some minor aliasing that was so occasional as to be virtually non-existent, although there is also a little camera wobble in some aerial shots that looks like it was introduced in the photography stage. Film artefacts are a slight problem, with the occasional sprinkle of black and white marks on the image, but the restoration effort kept these to an absolute minimum. There isn't much more I can tell you about the quality of the transfer, except maybe that this is one more piece of video and audio that I will never bother to watch on any analogue formats again.

    This disc uses the RSDL format, with the layer change taking place in the middle of Chapter 31, just as the tanker truck pulls up at 89:32. Although the layer change is noticeable, it doesn't last very long and certainly doesn't disrupt the flow of the movie, especially considering other places where it could have been put.

Audio

    There are five soundtracks included in this audio transfer: the original English dialogue in Dolby Digital 5.1, with a bitrate of 384 kilobits per second; a French dub in Dolby Digital 2.0 surround, with a bitrate of 192 kilobits a second; a German dub in Dolby Digital 1.0, with a bitrate of 96 kilobits a second; an Italian dub in Dolby Digital 2.0 surround, with a bitrate of 192 kilobits a second; and a Spanish dub in Dolby Digital 1.0, with a bitrate of 96 kilobits a second. I listened to the English soundtrack, while comparing selected passages in German and Spanish for some fun.

    The dialogue in this film is mostly clear and easy to understand, even from James Brown (although his vocals in The Old Landmark still require a lot of effort). Occasionally, someone would utter something that was a little difficult to understand, although these utterances were generally one or two words that didn't really have a lot of significance. Joe Cuttone's voice is still just as amusingly craggy as before, but this new remix makes him sound a lot clearer than was the case with any previous format I have seen the film in. John Lee Hooker's post-song address to the audience outside the Soul Food Cafe, which is exclusive to this DVD edition of the film, came across as slightly muffled and distorted, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this is inherent in the source material, and possibly even how it was intended to sound. There were no discernable problems with audio sync, save for occasional moments where the musical performances seemed slightly out, but this is quite usual for all films of this type, at least when we're talking about real music.

    The music in this film can be divided into three parts: the music contributed by Elmer Bernstein during the "see the light" sequence, the blues numbers by the Blues Brothers and their band, and finally, the numerous numbers contributed by other musicians such as Ray Charles and John Lee Hooker. The highlight of this film, in my humble opinion derived from seventeen years of repeated viewings, is The Blues Brothers Band and Cab Calloway performing Minnie The Moocher. This number is quite simply the best piece of contemporary music that has ever been inserted into a film. The music is, to a large extent, the point of the film in spite of the fact that the film manages to become something more than just a music video. This is reflected in the way that the music is perfectly integrated into the action, with the characters breaking into songs for reasons that make perfect sense in context of the story (a sad omission from the sequel). It also bodes well for the future of multichannel music if the music of this film can sound so great in 5.1 when it was originally presented in mono.

    The only disappointment, and a relatively minor one at that, with this audio transfer is that the surround channels are only utilised in moderate amounts to support the music and such sounds as passing cars. Numerous opportunities for more creative surround channel usage, such as Camille's numerous attacks upon Jake and Elwood, go begging. Having said all that, however, the front channels are used quite effectively, giving far better separation between the instruments and vocals in musical numbers than was the case with previous home video formats. You will almost certainly find sounds on this disc that you never even knew were in the film, thanks to this remix. The subwoofer was also used to support sound effects and music, giving the plethora of car crashes and explosions in this film a major boost without calling attention to itself.

Menu

Featurette - Stories Behind the Making of The Blues Brothers

Production Notes

Web Links

Cast & Crew Biographies

Theatrical Trailer

    The video transfer is amazing given the film's age, with only minor faults denying it reference status.

    The audio transfer breathes a whole new lease of life into both the story and the musical numbers.

    The extras are fairly comprehensive, although a commentary from Dan Ackroyd or Carrie Fisher (who was apparently so drunk during one shooting day that she got John Belushi to hit her in order to stop her becoming ill while sleeping) would have pushed this package into reference status.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall