I finally sat down and watched the comedy classic The Blues Brothers on Netflix the other night (a little later than I said I would, but you all know how life can get). I enjoyed the movie alright (though I’ll take John Belushi in Animal House, also on Netflix, any day). One of the biggest things that stuck out to me was its incredible lineup of cameos.
The movie follows Jake (Belushi) and Elwood Blues (Dan Aykroyd) as they embark on a mission from God to save the orphanage where they grew up from being closed. To do so, they round up their old band to put on a concert and raise the money. While doing that, they run into characters that are played by some of the greatest music legends of all time. I knew about some of them — James Brown and Ray Charles — though I was admittedly surprised when the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, popped up.
But even beyond the Queen of Soul’s appearance, I was most surprised when a princess popped up — Princess Leia herself, Carrie Fisher.
Appearing in The Blue Brothers the same year that The Empire Strikes Back was released (1980), Fisher plays a mysterious woman who appears hellbent on killing Jake and Elwood in the most extreme ways possible — including firing a bazooka at them, blowing up a building they’re in and engulfing them in flames via a flamethrower; yet the brothers keep chugging along. We eventually learn that Fisher’s character is Jake’s ex-fiancée, none too pleased that Jake stood her up at their wedding.
Because Star Wars was the primary thing that people knew Fisher from, it can be easy to forget that she is hilarious. Her bits are short in The Blues Brothers, and she never gets her revenge, but I always enjoyed when she popped back into the movie.
There was one other Blues Brothers cameo that had me doing a double-take. In the climactic scene when Jake and Elwood are rushing to deliver the cash to the county clerk to save the orphanage, the staffer they work with is none other than legendary director Steven Spielberg.
Spielberg has made cameos in some of his movies and those of his friends, but it’s not a frequent thing like Martin Scorsese or Alfred Hitchcock. So it definitely took me a second to realize this was indeed the director, at that time most famous for Jaws.
You can try to spot all the cameos in The Blue Brothers for yourself by streaming it on Netflix right now. The movie is also available to rent on demand and is streaming on Sky TV in the UK.
