An Epic Friendship, the Rise of Improv, and the Making of an American Film Classic
The Blues Brothers
Written by Daniel de Visé, published by Atlantic Monthly Press.
On June 20, 1980, a pair of men in cheap black suits and sunglasses claimed they were on a mission from God. Their target was a Chicago orphanage; their real objective was to drag the fading legends of rhythm and blues—Aretha, Brown, Hooker, Calloway, Charles—into the blinding lights of the mainstream.
The film, The Blues Brothers, was a catastrophe in the making. It was late, broke the bank, and was fueled by the kind of wild, chemical-heavy instability that usually kills a production before the first reel is finished. The critics mostly stayed away or sneered. But time has a funny way of sorting the wheat from the chaff. Forty-four years later, the picture sits in the National Film Registry and is cited as a cultural touchstone. It is a messy, loud, essential piece of 20th-century American grit.
In this new work, Daniel de Visé pulls back the curtain on how a fever dream became a classic. This isn't just about a movie; it is the story of two men born into the collision of the Harvard Lampoon and the sweat-soaked stages of Chicago’s Second City. It tracks the rise of Saturday Night Live when the air was thin and the rivalries were sharp, and it details, scene by frantic scene, the sheer will required to drag this project across the finish line.
Using original research and testimony from the people who were actually there—Landis, Weiss, Michaels, and Aykroyd—this book captures the architects of modern comedy as they were, long before the polish of hindsight settled over the story. It is the real, unvarnished history of a mission that, against all logic, succeeded.
Atlantic Monthly Press website