THE BLUES BROTHERS: An Epic Friendship, The Rise of Improv, and the Making of an American Film Classic
Yes, you read that correctly. I’m doing a book review. I love books about movies, especially when they hit a sweet spot of being a fun oral history and a deep dive into the history of its stars and filmmakers. It was a real treat to get my hands on a copy of “The Blues Brothers: An Epic Friendship, the Rise of Improv, and the Making of an American Film Classic” by Daniel de Visé, as it also dives into the beginning of Saturday Night Live. The release of this book seems to perfectly coincide with the release of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire starring Blues Brothers vet Dan Aykroyd. Ghostbusters vet Jason Reitman is also currently filming SNL 1975 about the making of the pilot episode. As a massive fan of Saturday Night Live, I love the renewed attention on the sketch comedy giant.
Author Daniel de Visé could have just stuck to the making of 1980s big screen adaptation of The Blues Brothers and its erratic filming and ultimately cult classic status. Instead, he turns this into a rich look back to where it all began. This wasn’t just a movie with two costars hired for the title characters. As his title suggests, he goes back to what led to the immediate friendship between Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi years before they started working on Saturday Night, which was the original title of Saturday Night Live. The book’s first few chapters detail John Belushi’s childhood, his days performing in high school and his eventual work with the comedy troupe Second City in Chicago. de Visé then details Aykroyd’s childhood, his teenage love for the blues, and how he came to meet SNL creator Lorne Michaels and his work with the Toronto cast of Second City. Readers will be interested to learn about their connection to Second City cast members Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Catherine O’Hara, Eugue Levy, Martin Short, and Gilda Radner. Aykroyd and Belushi would meet when the two casts worked together, and there was an immediate connection between them. They had a different way of working but connected over music and comedy. De Visé offers a plethora of trivia, details, and little known facts with the copious interviews he used for the book. Did you know Oscar winning composer Howard Shore was the one who originally suggested the name “Blues Brothers” to the duo? This was years before they were cast together on Saturday Night Live.
It’s 100 pages into the book before we even get to the pilot episode of Saturday Night Live, and the rocky road to getting Belushi cast and him signing his contract. It’s three years later when Aykroyd and Belushi donned their official suits and performed on Saturday Night Live as The Blues Brothers. It wasn’t just a sketch as they appeared in the opening credits and were credited as The Blues Brothers. No one really knew if this was a sketch, if they were serious, or what the intent of this bit was going to be. Daniel de Visé lays is all out in great detail. Their appearance became a huge hit, and that episode has been lauded as one of the best episodes of Saturday Night Live of all time.
John Belushi had become a huge star given the box office success of Animal House. It’s halfway through the book when author Daniel de Visé starts to dive into the making of the movie of The Blues Brothers which boasted appearances by James Brown and Aretha Franklin in her film debut. He covers it all including Belushi’s untimely death due to a drug overdose, and the future of the Blues Brothers after his passing.
Much like the movie, the book “The Blues Brothers: An Epic Friendship, the Rise of Improv, and the Making of an American Film Classic” works on so many different levels and should appeal to a variety of readers. Whether you’re looking at learning more about improv, the early days of Saturday Night Live, want to revisit the classic movie or remember the comedy legacy of John Belushi, Daniel de Visé offers a rich history of how Jake and Elwood Blues came to be and why it’s still making audiences laugh forty-four years later.
Pick it up today from Grove Atlantic books! Here’s the video I made for TikTok.
