Update: Due to theaters oening a bit slower than anticipated, Fahom has postponed their screenings of The Blues Brothers until July 26 & 29.
As movie theaters begin to open up again, Fathom Events has announced that their screening series of classic American films in conjuntion with Turner Classic Movies will resume at the end of this month with director John Landis’s classic musical comedy The Blues Brothers.
The first of the three schedule screenings is June 28, just a week and a day after The Blues Brothers celebrates the 40th anniversary of its premier. Additional screenings will be held on July 1 and 5.
The first film to be spun off from Saturday Night Live, The Blues Brothers starred John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd as two blues musicians on a mission from God to reunite their old band for a Benefit concert to raise money to save the orphanage where they grew up. Along the way, they have to contend with rocket-launcher ex-girlfriends, Illinois Nazis and cars and cars and cars worth of state police.
Ostensibly an action-comedy, Aykroyd and Landis wanted the film to also serve as a showcase for the blues, rhythm and blues and soul music that formed the basis of so much of the music of the second half of the 20th century. To that end they included performances from the likes of Ray Charles, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Cab Calloway and Lohn Lee Hooker. Famously, Landis had to talk Calloway out of recording a disco version of his classic tune “Minnie the Moocher,” telling the swing band leader that they wanted a classic rendition of the song, not a modernized one.
You can find screening locations and ticket information at the Fathom Events website.
Here’s the film’s original trailer, but be warned, there’s a lot of the film’s finale in here.
