Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 19

I ll.JII movies DETROIT FREE PRESSFRIDAY, JUNE 20. 1980 3B kTTrtfffrrrriTTTffii I Kl IUI 111 SPRING SALE All Films $12.00 oa. WHH.E SUPPLIES LAST loroe Selection of Adult Videos-VHS BETA Brothers are anything but blue And You Thought We Were Jutt A Bookstore DANISH NEWS ADULT NOW thru SUN! DANCE THEATRE of HARLEM TONIGHT'S PROGRAM "Serenade" "Greening" "AdagiertoNo.5""Dougla" Fri. i Sat. 8 30 pm Sun.

6:30 pm Sat Sun. 2:00 pm Tickets: $3.50 to $1150 if BOOKSTORE 22644 VanDvke.Bet.84 9MlleRd. 757-9208 Ad Good fort Fro Admission (t SifWs I a CTViT.n r. II K-'MJSPy----. (WW sy.jj.Mtmmx-ttwtsgm VM Elwood Blues, played by Dan Aykroyd (center) joins the dancing at the Triple Rock Baptist Church in the hilarious spectacle "The Blues Brothers." By JACK MATHEWS Free Press Film Critic It's just as well that Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi have dropped out of NBC's "Saturday Night Live" cast.

Anything they might do for television after their first movie together "The Blues Brothers," would be anticlimactic. The singing comedians have outgrown the medium that gave birth to them. Aykroyd and Belushi work as well together on film as they ever did during five seasons with the Not Ready for Prime Time Players, and they have combined talents here with "Animal House" director John Landis to create the most delightful madcap movie romp since Stanley Kramer's "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." "Blues Brothers" is everything and more than what Steven Spielberg spent $30 million trying to make out of last year's "1941" and failed. It's a big, loud, destructive, crazy, hilarious spectacle, a musical action-comedy that is as much fun to listen to as it is to watch. "BLUES BROTHERS" is no low-budget number itself.

It cost $28 million to make, but it looks like they could have spent more than that just paying for damages. The movie includes two of the wildest car chases ever filmed, one ending with the annihilation of an indoor shopping mall Toys Us and all and the other with the metal-gnashing pileup of dozens of police cars under the elevated rail in Chicago. If the filmmakers bought the cars they destroyed new from Detroit, they can underwrite the sequel with factory rebates. As spectacular as the chases are, "Blues Brothers" works because of Aykroyd and Belushi, who play off each other with nearly flawless timing and sustain it throughout the movie's two hours and 10 minutes. There are some flat spots, and a few lines that strain a bit too hard for laughs, but this is not sophisticated, tightly written comedy.

It's crazy, slot-machine slapstick that delivers a jackpot with about every third crank. "Blues Brothers" is an exploitation movie of sorts. It was made to capitalize on the phenomenal, unexpected success of the characters Aykroyd and Belushi created three years ago out of fun and a mutual interest in blues and rock music. They introduced their funky singing brothers in their black suits, black hats and dark sunglasses at parties, then to the "Saturday Night Live" audience, then to concert crowds and finally to record buyers who responded by buying more than two million copies of their first album, "A Briefcase Full of Blues." They probably could have made money simply by having one of their concerts filmed and released to theaters, as their "Saturday Night Live" colleague Gilda Radner did. Instead, they made what may become a comedy classic, a movie that is much better if not ultimately more profitable than "Animal House." "BLUES BROTHERS," written by Aykroyd and Landis, is the story of Elwood (Aykroyd) and Jake (Belushi) Blues, a pair of bumbling ex-cons out to gain redemption from the nun who raised them by coming up with an honest $5,000 to save her orphanage from the tax man.

THE BLUES BROTHERS Area Theaters Jake John Belushi Elwood Blues Dan Aykrovd Mystery woman Carrie Fisher Curlis Cab Calloway Sister Mary Stigmata Kathleen Freeman Reverend James James Brown Burton Mercer John Candy Head Nazi Henry Gibson Produced by Robert K. Weiss; directed by John Landis; written by Dan Aykroyd and Landis; photography bv Stephen M. Kali; musical score by Ira Newborn; distributed by Universal Pictures. Running time, 2 hours, 10 min. PARENTS' GUIDE: Rated strong profanity.

Cab Calloway, the orphanage janitor, doing his classic "Minnie the Moocher" routine Ray Charles, a music store owner who jams with the boys to sell them a piano. James Brown, the rocking reverend who worlft his congregation and the Blues brothers into such a gospel frenzy, that the brothers think they're getting a message from God. Aretha Franklin, a soul-food proprietor who gets her joint a jumpin' in the movie's best choreographed scene. And John Lee Hooker, one of the legendary blues singers who inspired Aykroyd and Belushi to begin with, causing a musical scene on the streets of southside Chicago. "BLUES BROTHERS" is a remarkably clean and smoothly edited film, given the overwhelming amount of stunts and crashes and special effects.

It is all the more remarkable considering it is photographer Stephen Katz' first major studio assignment. (His largest previous credit is the successful but sopho-moric "Kentucky Fried If "Blues Brothers" scores at the box office, it will be interesting to see what Aykroyd and Belushi do next. They could make a career out of the Blues Brothers if they wanted, but that would seem pretty restrictive for two people who are among the most talented comedy actors in America. The only thing that seems certain is this: After "Blues Brothers," an occasional television appearance simply won't do. COL UMBIA PICTURES Presents "WHOLLY MOSES!" DUDLEY MOORE LARAINE NEWMAN JAMES COCO PAUL SAND JACK GILFORD DOM DeLXIlSE JOHN HOUSEMAN MADELINE KAHN DAVID L.

LANDER RICHARD PRYOR JOHN RITTER Music by PATRICK WILLIAMS Written by GUY THOMAS Executive Producer DAVID BEGELMAN gOk. Produced by FREDDIE FIELDS Directed by GARY WEIS IPG! PARENTAL GUIDANCE SUGGESTED PANAVISIOM 19B0COI UMHIA PICTURES INDUSTRIES INC Pictures Aykroyd and Belushi, in costume almost from start to finish, have a few days to come up with the money; the question is not so much whether they and their band get it or not (you know they will), but how much destruction they will wreak and how many enemies they will make along the way. They make plenty of enemies: A squad of American Nazis, led by Henry Gibson, whom they run off a bridge during a demonstration; a Western band whose place they take for a night at Bob's Country Bunker; Belushi's jilted girlfriend (Carrie Fisher), who tries to assassinate them with an assortment of war munitions, and the entire police population of Illinois, helped out in the climactic showdown at Daley Plaza by Swat teams and the National Guard. You don't go for madness and destruction? Close your eyes and listen to the music. "Blues Brothers" may be the sound track of the summer, featuring blues, rock and even a little Country-Western, performed by the brothers and a host of familiar entertainers who appear in the movie: STARTS TODAY HELD OVER at these theatres i ir-nmsmrtiamimmnn IH.WdrW.ta.il H.H.illll Ml 20TH CENTIIRY-I OX PRESENTS A TED MANN-RON SILVERMAN PRODUCTION A STUART ROSENBERG FILM ROBERT REDFORD "BRUBAKER" YAPHETKOTTO JANE ALEXANDER MURRAY HAMILTON davidki ith 1 11V1 1V1L11M I UVLasHucy Executive Producer TED MANN Produced by RON SILVERMAN Directed by STUART ROSENBERG Screenplay by W.

D. RICHTER Story by W. D. RICHTER and ARTHUR ROSS Music by LA IX) SCHIFRIN OLOR BY DcLUXE Available In Paperback from Ballamim- BH.ks RESTRICTED UNDER HRIQUIdtS ACCOMPANYING PARENT OR ADULT CUAR0IAN TWENTIETH CENTURY-FOX STARTS TODAY DEARBORN MAPLE ABBEY S8S-0M1 14 Mil Bd. 1-78 LIVONIA MALL 7 Mil A MWdKbtH S500 LO.

1-344 Michigan A Tclagrtph W. Mpl Rd. W. of Ttlcgnph RENAISSANCE BEL AIR SHOWBOAT 3.37 Fort at Slblay Rd. Rhrarvlaw NORTHLAND I Northland Contor on J.

L. Hudson Dr. WARREN Cinema City 772-5000 E. Mil at Schoanharr QUO VADIS Wayn A Warran Rda. 36A-7460 259-2370 425-7700 at Ranalsaane Cantor Towar 200-2nd Laval E.

I Mllo-Van Dyka CHECK MOVIE GUIDE FOR WFEKEND SHOW TIMES..