“We’re on a mission from God,” stolidly maintain the two FBI-looking musicians Jake (John Belushi) and Elwood (Dan Aykroyd) in John Landis’ 1980 classic The Blues Brothers. God, indeed, seemed to have blessed this musical/comedy/cat and mouse chase, plus massive car pileups, that Landis and company were able to concoct.

The film became a cult classic and made a legend of everyone involved (especially Belushi, who died two years later of a drug overdose).

On screen, the story goes like this: paroled convict Jake and his brother Elwood are determined to prevent the foreclosure of the Catholic orphanage in which they were raised. To do so, they try to reunite their R&B band and organize a performance to earn the $5,000 needed to pay the orphanage’s back taxes bill. Along the way, they are targeted by a homicidal “mystery woman” (Carrie Fisher), a group of fanatical “Illinois Nazis,” a country-western band, the police, the sheriff, the Army! – you name it. 

Between one chase and other risky maneuverings, the audience bumps into great musical numbers, from “Shake a Tail Feather” in the initial church scenes (with James Brown), to Aretha Franklin’s “Think,” to “Minnie the Moocher,” “Gimme Some Lovin’,” “Rawhide,” “Sweet Home Chicago.” The infectious “Jailhouse Rock” closes the musical banquet.

The soundtrack contributed grandly to the film’s international success. Written by Landis and Aykroyd, The Blues Brothers was based on Belushi and Aykroyd’s skit on NBC’s comedy weekly show Saturday Night Live.

Landis, born in Chicago on August 3, 1950, had already made a splash as a director in 1978, with Animal House. He followed The Blues Brothers with a string of hits such as Trading Places (1983), Spies Like Us (1985), Three Amigos (1986), and Coming to America. In 1983 he directed what is considered to be the greatest music video of all time, Michael Jackson‘s Thriller, making him one of the most influential Hollywood directors and authors.

Landis was bestowed a Special Award at the Italian Magna Graecia Film Festival, where The Blues Brothers screened to an audience of 2,000 people. Landis, presenting, reminisced about the making of his film with his natural dynamism, easy manners, and good spirits.

“I saw the movie a few weeks ago, in Bologna, for the first time in over ten years,” Landis said in our interview in person last August 7. “And my initial reaction was, ‘What a strange movie!’ (laughter). It really is nuts. But it has wonderful music.”

He went on to recall that Belushi, and especially Aykroyd, had a real love and passion for rhythm & blues music. When they shot it, in 1979, disco was the thing at that time. “The biggest acts in the world were Abba and The Bee Gees,” Landis said. “I think it was impossible to get wider than Abba and The Bee Gees. But Danny really wanted to focus on this great Black American music. They did something unusual: they exploited their own celebrity at that moment to bring attention to these great American artists. They created Jake and Elwood as characters so they could sing and dance and perform. They had performed already with Delbert McLinton’s band, The Band, and The Beach Boys. They would perform with anybody!”

Landis had a strong bond with Belushi at that time – even though, by many accounts, he was overly annoyed and worried by Belushi’s evident use of drugs during filming. “When I wanted to get John Belushi for Animal House, one of the ways that Universal seduced him was: we made a development deal to make a movie about Jake and Elwood, eventually,” he recounts. “So, John was happy. We made Animal House and it was a big success. Then, Jake and Elwood performed on Saturday Night Live, with the Saturday Night Live band led by Paul Shaffer. Then, Steve Martin asked them to be the opening act when he performed at the Universal Amphitheater, in Los Angeles.”

And just like at the end of the movie, a record company executive named Michael Klenfner proposed that they make an album. Klenfner was invited by Landis for the cameo role of the record company guy who shows up with the cash and makes a deal with the Blues Brothers. He was, basically, playing himself. “So, we put together a band for the movie, The Blues Brothers Band,” Landis explains. “We needed it to be great. We called Steve Cropper, Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn, Matt ‘Guitar’ Murphy, and all these great artists. They did the show and it was recorded. The album went triple platinum, which shocked everybody. We went into production, basically, with no script!” [laughter].

Jake and Elwood’s outfits in the film were also an inevitable subject of discussion at the event in Calabria. They wore black, white shirts, black ties, dark Ray-Bans, black hats, and coats. It’s the FBI! That is the ongoing joke in the film (“No Ma’am, we are musicians.”)  Landis recalled how all that came about. “Deborah Nadoolman, my wife, the costume designer, said to me, ‘John, I have to straighten their suits. I have to make their suits better.’” The husband director replied “Really? They are supposed to be such lowlifes! Who cares about ironing?” Somewhere in the vast audience, Deborah Nadoolman smiled the amusing smile of those who know they were right all along.