Blues Brothers Filming Locations


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Blues Brothers Filming Locations
Posted by: barsntone (---.hfc.comcastbusiness.net)
Date: March 05, 2013 02:37PM

Blues Brothers film buffs, you will appreciate this. The actual location of the fictional St Helen of the Blessed Shroud Orphanage, Calumet City, was not in Cal City but at 18th & Normal in Chicago.

http://imgur.com/phd9PMu


Top, in the film. Bottom, shot today. Offices (left) and later built power plant (right) of Peter Schoenhofen Brewing Co. Brewed Edelweiss Beer among others. Renovated and reused jn last several years.

What other locations still exist? Post away, post away.

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Re: Blues Brothers Filming Locations
Posted by: wayupnorth (---.open.airstreamcomm.net)
Date: March 05, 2013 02:49PM

Here's a site which gives a 2012 rundown of what still exists and what doesn't.
http://www.movie-locations.com/movies/b/BluesBrothers.html

It's interesting to note that this site claims that St. Helen's was a frontage built at 18th and Normal.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2013 02:52PM by wayupnorth.

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Re: Blues Brothers Filming Locations
Posted by: jd (---.hsd1.il.comcast.net)
Date: March 05, 2013 03:38PM

Here's a cut by cut movie of the Blues Brothers locations, then and "now"; ("now" being a few years ago). St Helen of the Blessed Shroud Orphanage comes in around 2:40.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_SbLi-X8JI

This guy, Herve Attia, does these then/now movie shoots all the time. Check out his "Ferris Buelle"r and "Home Alone" videos too.

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Re: Blues Brothers Filming Locations
Posted by: Diogenes9561 (---.res.bhn.net)
Date: March 05, 2013 09:28PM

There is one location that is not mentioned in that link and I'm not sure anyone could identify it, but I can. In a couple of brief scenes during the car chase heading back to the city from the Lake Wazupumani gig, you see a computer room where a man sitting in front of a blue CRT terminal says something like, "The use of excessive force against the Blues Brothers has been approved." (Sorry, but I don't remember the exact words.)
Anyway, this was a small computer room on the 2nd floor of the old Chicago Police HQ on south State Street (1160 seems to be the addreess I recall) just north of Roosevelt Road.
There was a Comten message switching system that supported the 1st generation mobile terminals used in about 200 police cars back then that were used primarily for doing license plate inquiries looking for stolen cars. There was the processor, a Calcomp hard disk controller and a single hard drive, a tape drive for journalling, a printer for reports, and a card reader. There were 2 blue Motorola CRT terminals for the operators to use and it's one of these that is shown in the film.
I know this as I was maintaining this equipment at the time and the crew moved the card reader and unplugged it from the underfloor outlet so I got a call the next day that the card reader wasn't working: they had neglected to plug it in again when they were done.
About a year after the filming, this equipment was obsolete for the new terminals going into cars and it was removed and shipped off. IIRC, a DEC system replaced it and 1981 was probably the last year I saw it. Now, the HQ building is gone, too.
The old HQ was an interesting place about 9 AM every weekday when they'd empty out the lockups on the top floor and all the women picked up the previous night would come down the elevators and parade through the lobby. The policemen would be hooting and whistling at them and making what I can only characterize on this forum as rather tasteless and suggestive comments.
But, that's just Chicago, I guess.

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Re: Blues Brothers Filming Locations
Posted by: Richard Stachowski (---.hsd1.il.comcast.net)
Date: March 05, 2013 09:35PM

[b]What about the country western night club? I believe it was the Lake & Park Inn at 108th & Roberts Road. Anybody remember that.[/b]

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Re: Blues Brothers Filming Locations
Posted by: PKDickman (---.lightspeed.cicril.sbcglobal.net)
Date: March 05, 2013 10:23PM

Richard Stachowski Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What about the country western night club? I
> believe it was the Lake & Park Inn at 108th &
> Roberts Road. Anybody remember that.

According to the website it was a Universal studio set.

Don't go looking for a good ol’ night out at ‘Bob’s Country Bunker’ – that was a set on the Universal lot (also on the lot is the lake into which the Good Ole Boys finally plunge).

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Re: Blues Brothers Filming Locations
Posted by: Rustymuscle (---.lightspeed.elgnil.sbcglobal.net)
Date: March 15, 2013 04:34PM

Some of the chase scenes were filmed in Griffith Park, CA., too.

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