Asked how he liked being stuck in a small college town during the shooting of Animal House (1978), John Belushi responded he didn’t miss LA at all, because ”people in Eugene know way more about music and having a good time.”
Two years later, Belushi and Dan Ackroyd appeared as Jake and Elwood Blues, in The Blues Brothers, playing musicians “on a mission from God”. The harmonica, hat, tie, and suit were all copied from Eugene blues singer Curtis Salgado.
The creative debt owed by the makers of The Blues Brothers was not kept secret. The Blues Brothers’ first album Briefcase Full Of Blues, is dedicated to Curtis Salgado.
Here’s the best possible appreciation of The Blues Brothers, wow!
I hereby claim The Blues Brothers as an Oregon film, on the basis of the inspirational role played by Oregonian Curtis Salgado.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Rob Lawson // Oct 15, 2010 at 3:25 pm
I think every film in which Marc Singer appeared should be classified as an Oregon film. He lived in Portland when his father, Jacques Singer was sort-of conducting the then-Portland Symphony Orchestra.
Every Brian Dennehy film should be classified as
an Oregon film because Dennehy used to own a condo in Portland (maybe he still does).
Lolita should be classified as an Oregon film because Oregon is mentioned in the novel, and Vladimir Nabokov visited here in his lepidoptery pursuits.
I think North by Northwest should be classified as an Oregon film because Cray Grant’s character says he’s from Oregon when he’s on the lam.
I think any film in which Oregon is mentioned should be classified as an Oregon film, including The Maltese Falcon.
2 Anne Richardson // Oct 15, 2010 at 3:37 pm
Rob, you are a cinema taxonomist after my own heart!
3 Rob Lawson // Dec 12, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Actually, Cary Grant’s character in North by Northwest, Roger O. Thornhill, doesn’t say he’s from Oregon when he is on the lam. Grant’s character in To Catch a Thief makes that (bogus) claim to Grace Kelly’s character, even though she of course knows he is the cat burglar John Robie. In both instances Grant’s character tries a lame cover story on a sophisticated blonde, who is amused by his pretense and falls for him anyway. Thus one aspect of Hitch’s romantic fantasies.
An inversion of this theme is used in Vertigo where the blonde is the one who thoroughly deceives the retired detective played by James Stewart, with tragic results.
Another variation is the utterly straightforward character played by Sean Connery who sedulously peels away the falsehoods of the neurotic blonde that he marries, with a (perhaps) cathartic result.
Have you thought of adding the musical Gypsy! to your list of Oregon films? Klamath Falls is mentioned.
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