|
Compare:
"Plot summary
Jake and Elwood are sent off by Sister Mary Stigmata of the orphanage to raise money. The money is needed to pay taxes, otherwise the orphanage will be shut down. They try to do this by getting their band back together again."
with
" "Joliet Jake" Blues is released from Joliet Prison into his brother Elwood's custody, having been paroled after serving three years of a five-year sentence for armed robbery. Jake is irritated at being picked up in a battered former Mt. Prospect police car (1974 Dodge Monaco with 440 c.i.d. V-8) instead of the Cadillac the brothers used to own, but is mollified when Elwood demonstrates the "new" Bluesmobile's powers by vaulting it over an open drawbridge.
Over Jake's protests, they visit their childhood home, a Roman Catholic orphanage. They learn the institution will be shut down unless $5,000 in property taxes can be paid. Jake indicates they can quickly obtain the funds, but the orphanage director, Sister Mary Stigmata (nicknamed "The Penguin"), emphatically refuses to accept any stolen money from the brothers. She drives them out, and tells them not to return until they have redeemed themselves. At the prompting of Curtis, the elderly orphanage worker who introduced the duo to the blues, the brothers visit a lively evangelical church service where Jake has an epiphany: they can legitimately raise the funds by re-forming their legendary rhythm and blues band.
As they head home, Elwood's driving attracts the attention of two Illinois State Police troopers named Daniel and Mount. Elwood proceeds to both escape and earn the officers' undying enmity by driving through a shopping mall. Arriving at the flophouse which Elwood calls home, the brothers also suffer a bazooka attack launched by an unnamed "Mystery Woman" who is targeting Jake, but neither is injured. The next morning, as the troopers are about to arrest the pair, she remotely detonates a bomb that demolishes the entire building; however, the brothers again emerge unharmed, followed by the troopers a few moments later.
Jake and Elwood begin tracking down members of the band, beginning at the last known address for Tom "Bones" Malone and Louis "Blue Lou" Marini. Malone and the core rhythm section of the group (Willie "Too Big" Hall, Steve "The Colonel" Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn, and Murphy "Murph" Dunne) are found playing in an empty Holiday Inn lounge, and the five players are fairly easily convinced to rejoin. Trumpet player "Mr. Fabulous" (Alan Rubin), now maître d' at a high-class French restaurant, is harder to sway, but Jake and Elwood gleefully proceed to make a ghastly spectacle of themselves, swilling the restaurant's food and drink and harassing the other patrons. When they threaten to repeat this performance at every meal, Mr. Fabulous gives in.
En route to meet Marini and guitarist Matt "Guitar" Murphy, the brothers disrupt the neo-Nazi rally of the American Socialist White People's Party ("The Illinois Nazis,"),<2> adding another bitter enemy to the brothers' rapidly-growing list. Marini and Murphy are at the soul food restaurant which Murphy owns with his wife. Against her emphatic advice, the two musicians walk out and rejoin the band. The reunited group obtains instruments and equipment from a pawn shop, Ray's Music Exchange, but cannot pay for it all immediately.
Jake leads the skeptical band out into the countryside, stopping along the way so that he and Elwood can make a phone call. The Mystery Woman finds the phone booth and sprays a nearby propane tank with a flamethrower, setting off an explosion that launches the booth into the air. As before, though, her attack does no harm to the brothers.
The band stumbles into a gig at Bob's Country Bunker, a bar which features "both kinds of music: country and western." After a rocky start, the band wins over the bottle-tossing crowd with the theme from Rawhide and "Stand By Your Man." At the end of the evening, however, not only is their bar tab greater than the pay for the gig, but the band that was actually meant to play turns up: a Nashville group called the Good Ol' Boys. Jake and Elwood escape the Good Ol' Boys and Bob when Daniel and Mount crash their police car into the trailer driven by the angry pursuers.
Jake and Elwood facing police officers, the National Guard, and firefighters
Jake and Elwood facing police officers, the National Guard, and firefighters
The Blues Brothers blackmail their booking agent friend Maury Sline to land their big gig – a performance at the Palace Hotel Ballroom, located 100 miles north of Chicago. After being driven all over the area promoting the concert, the Bluesmobile runs out of gas, making Jake and Elwood very late. The ballroom is packed, the concert-goers are joined by the Good Ol' Boys, troopers Daniel and Mount, and scores of other police officers. To settle the crowd, Curtis appears and performs a magical version of "Minnie the Moocher" with the band. Jake and Elwood finally sneak into the venue and perform two songs. A record company executive in attendance offers a large cash advance on a recording contract, more than enough to cover the orphanage's property taxes and the cost of the band's instruments, and tells Jake and Elwood how to slip out unnoticed.
As the brothers escape via some grimy service tunnels, they are confronted one last time by the Mystery Woman, whereupon it is revealed she is Jake's brutally-jilted ex-fiancée. She threatens them with an M16 rifle, but Jake charms her, kisses her, then unceremoniously drops her in the muck, allowing the two brothers to escape to the Bluesmobile. They hit the road back to Chicago with dozens of state/local police and the Good Ol' Boys in close pursuit. Jake and Elwood eventually elude them all, leaving piled-up police cars in their wake.
After a gravity-defying escape from the Illinois Nazis, Jake and Elwood arrive at the Richard J. Daley Center, where the Bluesmobile literally falls to pieces. Finding the office of the Cook County Assessor, they discover a sign saying "Back in 5 minutes." As they wait, the building is stormed by hundreds of police, firefighters, and Illinois National Guardsmen. An assessor clerk finally appears, and the brothers pay the tax bill. Just as their receipt is stamped, handcuffs are placed on their wrists, and they turn to face a sea of armed law officers. As the film ends, Jake is back in prison, now joined by Elwood and the rest of the band, and they play "Jailhouse Rock" for their fellow inmates."
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
