The Blues Brothers

The Blues Brothers (1980)

82 mistakes - chronological order

(16 votes)

Continuity mistake: When Carrie Fisher first attacks the boys with rocket-propelled grenades at the hotel doorway, they dive for the sidewalk and are covered with debris. As they rise moments later and enter the hotel, their black suits and hats are covered in white cement dust. In the immediate next shot, as they climb the hotel staircase, their hats and suits have no dust whatsoever.

Charles Austin Miller

Revealing mistake: During the big chase scene at the end, right before the Nazis accidentally drive off the bridge, the Bluesmobile is seen doing a backflip over their car. Watch carefully as the Bluesmobile first lifts off the ground - an air-ram is visible firing under the car, which causes the car to begin the flip. (Note: This scene has been cropped in some releases so that the air-ram isn't visible, but it is still present in other releases of the film).

Revealing mistake: When the cop car hits the Winnebago to chase the Blues Brothers, we see a puff of white smoke emit from under the cop car as it rolls over that was used to help flip it. The pole can also be seen rolling around near the top of the screen in that same shot.

jerimiah

Continuity mistake: When Carrie Fisher is shooting at the Blues Brothers in the tunnel, there are 3 pipes that run along the left side of the wall that aren't alongside Carrie when the camera angle changes to shots of her.

jerimiah

Revealing mistake: During the mall chase scene, a cop car flips upside down and is sliding. At one point, the wires pulling it are briefly visible.

manthabeat

Continuity mistake: Throughout the "Everybody Needs Somebody" song number, pay attention to the band member in the background smoking a pipe. More specifically, watch the smoke coming out of his pipe. Sometimes it's consistent from shot to shot, but at other times, it changes completely. (Ex. When Jake sings "When my soul's on fire," all of the smoke disappears between cuts).

TedStixon

Visible crew/equipment: In a quick, wide shot of the front of the building at the end of the movie, as the cops are trying to break in, the camera and crew are reflected in the back window of the cop car closest to the camera.

Movie Nut

Continuity mistake: During the mall chase, a semi-profile shot shows the squad car roll onto its roof and slide with a large panel of orange signage pinned under the roof. Camera cuts to a view of the officers inside the squad car, and there is no signage nor any other debris pinned under the car's roof. Camera cuts back, and the signage is again pinned under roof. Camera cuts back to frontal view, and the signage is gone again.

Charles Austin Miller

Continuity mistake: When the brothers are in the fancy restaurant, Elwood drinks champagne from a glass. A few shots later the glass is filled back up again.

ozwal13

Continuity mistake: In Ray's, the keyboard of the electric piano Ray plays alternates between being lit up and not lit between shots.

Movie Nut

Continuity mistake: The woman in the car trying to shoot Jake has a couple of errors. First, she gets six shots out of a four barrel weapon without reloading. Second, she goes from having the weapon out of the window, to no weapon and driving in one second, where it took at least five or six seconds to get it out and aim it.

Movie Nut

Continuity mistake: As Unit 10 slides along in the mall, it alternates from the front dragging on the floor, to only sliding on the roof in close ups on the cops.

Movie Nut

Revealing mistake: As trooper Car 10 drives along in the mall, they hit an obviously poorly disguised ramp that disappears after use. Later, it's sent into a spin by unit 70, and you see it on an obvious turntable.

Movie Nut

Other mistake: The Nazi leader tells a subordinate to get the license plate number of Elwood's car, but the car was long gone before he would have been able to see it.

Continuity mistake: When the Blues Brothers first go into the tax building in Chicago, the building has gold numbers above the door that they are blocking from the inside that read 118. When the rest of the cops and a firetruck pass by, we now see the numbers are black and not even the same shape as the gold ones.

jerimiah

Revealing mistake: When the Chicago police cars have the first major pileup underneath the elevated roadway, a number of the cop cars are seen flipping over by using two rail-like beams along the road. When the rest of the cop cars come to a stop in the next shot, the beams are gone.

jerimiah

Continuity mistake: When the cop car comes out to chase the Blues Brothers from behind the sign, the car starts off directly behind the sign. When the Good Ole Boys pass in the Winnebago, we see the cop car is before the sign and already has a running start.

jerimiah

Police Dispatcher: Use of unnecessary violence in the apprehension of the Blues Brothers HAS been approved.

More quotes from The Blues Brothers

Trivia: This movie set a long-standing Guinness World Record for the largest number of automobiles ever destroyed in a movie, 104, including 60 refurbished and reinforced police cars wrecked (most beyond repair) in the various chase scenes. This record held until the belated sequel, "Blues Brothers 2000," (1998) deliberately set the new record by wrecking one additional automobile for a total of 105.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: It possibly depends on what one counts as "destroyed." Sources suggest there were 104 cars destroyed in BB, with 105 in BB2000. The record has been broken several times since and now stands at 532. It'd be great to see evidence of the numbers for verification. whatculture.com/film/20-things-you-didn't-know-about-the-blues-brothers?page=12 www.startrescue.co.uk/news/top-10/the-10-films-that-destroyed-the-most-cars.

The trivia entry is mostly correct and doesn't need a correction. Just a word change to make it accurate. "Blues Brothers" (1980) did hold the record. 60 police cars were wrecked, but so were an additional 43 cars for a total of 103. "Blues Brothers 2000" beat their own record by 1 car. It seems person who made the entry found on the internet that "Blues Brothers" wrecked 60 cop cars and thought that was the record and assumed 61 was the new record.

Bishop73

More trivia for The Blues Brothers

Question: What tune is being played during the mall scene, and again when Cab Calloway introduces Jake and Elwood on stage? (I've heard it many times before, most recently in promos for the 2004 Major League All-State Game.).

Answer: It's 'Can't Turn You Loose,' often refered to as the Blues Brothers Theme.

rabid anarchist

Also done much earlier by Otis Redding.

More questions & answers from The Blues Brothers

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