The "Blues Brothers" is a good comedy and a great musical, featuring James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and Cab Calloway as "guest" musicians (i.e., not members of the BB). The BB band is composed of excellent musicians such as Lou Marini, Alan Rubin and Donald "Duck" Dunn among others. One interesting aspect of the movie I haven't read about in other reviews (so far) concerns spoofs of other movies and TV shows. For instance, when Jake gets out of prison he walks through a blinding white light and out the gate, reminiscent of the kidnapped earthlings disembarking from the giant UFO near the end of "Close Encounters." The interview with the "Penguin" (walking up a long flight of stairs, and the Penguin floating back into the room) is a spoof on "The Exorcist." Jake and Elwod's interview with the landlady is a spoof on the old TV show "Dragnet." The car chase under the El spoofs "The French Connection" car chase and even uses several seconds of footage from the movie. The scene in which a police dispatcher authorizes "the use of excessive force to apprehend the Blue Brothers" spoofs the old TV show "Highway Patrol" and I believe the movie dispatcher was in the TV show as well. I'm not quite sure how the Nazis chasing our heroes is a spoof of "Apocalypse Now" but the music (Wagner's "Flight of the Valkyries") in this sequence was used in both films. I susect there are more spoofs of other movies and/or TV shows present that I'm missing; if anyone out there can name more I'd like to know about them as well.
Review of The Blues Brothers
