Blues Brothers Locations

Locations Manager(s): Unknown Update

Blues Brothers Filming Locations:

The scene where the Police Crusier crashes into a Billboard while chasing the Blues Brothers was filmed in Griffith Park in Los Angeles.

The big state police car pile up was done at the intersection of Illinois Rte. 12 and 176 in Wauconda. [Thanks to Glenn Lewis]

The scene were Car 55 soars into the truck was filmed in Illinois on the Northbound on-ramp to IL-53 at Dundee Rd in Buffalo Grove, IL [Thanks to Steve J] -BUT, Michael kindly wrote in to say that the "we are in a truck" scene filmed on Dundee and 53 is not in Buffalo Grove, it is in Palatine Illinois. My father and I watched them film this. Look on maps 53 doesn't go through Buffalo Grove... Dundee Rd and hwy 53 in Palatine is where the police car jumped into the trailer of the semi truck... [Thanks to Michael]

The site of the beach scene where the Brothers are in the car with the loudspeakers on top announcing the show that night was filmed at Phil's Beach. I'm in the movie and was a lifeguard there for 8 years. [Thanks to Kevin Mulvaney]

In late 1979 me and a friend were driving thru Griffith Park in Los Angeles one weekday and on the side of the road in Griffith Park there was this low to the ground billboard advertising a King Kong like movie, that some guys with pickup trucks were painting. One of the trucks had a Universal Studios sticker on the door. Knowing that Griffith Park is used for filming Movie and TV shows we got curious, so we turned around and went back and stopped and asked one of the painters if this was going to be some kind of new movie Universal was advertising. "No" he told us "they're doing a movie with the guys from Saturday Night Live." He said "We're doing all this painting just so they can crash a car into it!", and walked away. Later on in the day we tried to come back to see if they were filming something but the street was now blocked off so we couldn't see them film. When me and my friend went to see the Blues Brothers for the first time when that scene came on we just looked at each other and said "that's the billboard we saw!" We later confirmed this when we later rented the video release and watched it in slow-mo.

Country Bobs Bunker where the Band plays in the country western bar was shot on the Universal Studios Hollywood backlot. It was located right across from the Jaws attraction on the Tram Tour. In some of the scenes where John Belushi is stalling for time to pay his beer tab and Dan Aykroyd is in the Bluesmobile writing out a phony check, you can see a lake right behind them, that's the lake for the Jaws attraction. I took the Universal tour in 1980 and 'The Bunker' was still there to promote the movie. Unfortunately it's no longer there.

The motor home of the Good O'le Boys that Dan Aykroyd sprays glue to the accelerator and it crashes into the lake was filmed at the end of Universal's 'Five Points' western sets next to a lake that they call 'Singapore Lake' where the motorhome crashes into. [Thanks to Jeff Stone]

The prison was the Joliet Correction Center in Joliet, Chicago. The Bluesmoobile jumps the East 95th Street Bridge over the calumet river.

The Soul Food Restaurant is on Maxwell Street. Wrigley field is 1060 West Addison Street. The shopping mall is the Dixie Mall in Harvey. The Brothers first appearance was at "The Palace Ballroom", which is, in fact, the South Shore Country Club, South Shore Drive at Est 71st Street.

The Siege with Stephen Spielberg was at the City Hall and County Building on Clark Street.

The interior of the Palace Hotel Ballroom where the concert scene takes place is the Hollywood Palladium on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California. [Thanks to Stan]

The Blues Brothers get pulled over for the very first time in front of a Funeral Parlor on the corner of Talcott and Greenwood in Park Ridge, IL [Thanks to Gerard Kaszubowski]

The mall in which the chase scene was filmed is the Dixie Square Mall in Harvey, Illinois. The mall had been shuttered one year earlier. The large building (100 stores or so) until recently still stood vacant and in amazingly good shape. Recently demolition has begun, though. For more information on this fabled mall visit DeadMalls.com and browse to Dixie Square in the Illinois section. [Thanks to Doug Holtz] As the mall was abandoned, the production company asked a lot of the stores to come back and decorate the fronts of their old stores. All the cars in the parking lot were mostly taken from local new car dealers to fill in the lot. As of today the inside is just about how it was left after the movie, except really run down in the past 20+ years. The only change is now the Harvey police department has built a station in one corner of the parking lot. Perhaps to await the return of Jake and Elwood! [Thanks to Albert]

The location of the mall that was literally destroyed during the police chase scene was never mentioned. I had it on good authority from the husband of one of the stunt people that it was the old (or original) Fox Hills Mall, near West Los Angeles. It was being torn down to be rebuilt into a newer, larger shopping center. [Thanks to Bob Sardo]

The mall used for the police chase in the movie was originally an abodoned building but during the making of the movie the creators thought that it would be funny to have a car chase scene through a mall so they built an entire replica of a mall out of the abondoned building for the scene [Thanks to david d]

The scene that shows Jake & Elwood driving on the beach with the loudspeaker on top of the car was filmed at Phil's Beach in Wauconda. [Thanks to Jim C.]

The Mall chase was filmed in "Dixie Square Mall" in Harvey IL, at approx Western and 150th street.

The "Palace Hotel" is really a South Shore Country Club.

The Demolished flophouse is "Pioneer" on Wabash in the loop?

The car is first pulled over (by State Police) around Thacker and Devon in Park Ridge. [Thanks to L Redfield]

The area where the Nazi Pinto falls to the ground from the overpass is actually a road salt storage area. It was chosen because when the movie was filmed it wasn't in use (no people around) -yet it was still within the city limits to show the skyline. [Thanks to Albert]

The bridge in the park where they run the Nazi's off is Marquette Park,Chicago. Two blocks or less from the park is Rockwell Hall which was the actual headquarters for the Illinois Nazi Party. The park is at 67th and Kedzie and the hall was around 71st and Tallman. [Thanks to joey]

You appear to be missing the 95th street bridge, the drawbridge jumped in the start of the movie. For those taking a trip to the bridge stop in at Calumet Fisheries. They have photos of the movie shoot on display. Great food there as well. From Downtown, take 41 south until you hit 95th street. Take a left on 95th street, it is the first drawbridge (0.5 mile) that you cross. Calumet Fisheries is on the south side of the street. The film was shot from the south side and all of the buildings on the north side of 95th street have been torn down seen in the film have been torn down. [Thanks to Jeff Terry]

The entire sequence where the Bluesmobile is being chased by the Illinois Nazis down a freeway segment that ends (the Bluesmobile stops with the front wheels hanging off, they go into reverse and it flies over the Nazi's car which then drives off the freeway) was filmed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where there were freeway ramps left unfinished that were supposed to connect with a proposed Lake Freeway, which was never built. You can notice the shift as the Bluesmobile drives, a tall white building can be seen in the background which is the U.S. Bank (formerly FirStar, formerly First Wisconsin) building in Downtown Milwaukee. [Thanks to William Kucharski]

The beach scene with the loudspeaker was at Phils beach in Waconda, IL [Thanks to Jim]

Ray's Music Shop in Calumet City is not filmed in Calumet City. The mayor at thought that being in the movie would give the city "a bad image." [Thanks to Eric]

The Holiday Inn where the brothers find Murph and the Magic tones is now a Days Inn located on Manheim Road north of I-294 , 1/2 mile south of O'Hare airport. [Thanks to Bobby]

The church scene, with James Brown, is on the South Side at the corner of 91st and Burley. It still looks pretty much the same as it did in the movie. It is just a few blocks from the 95th street bridge they jump. [Thanks to Chas]

CCL Custom Manufacturing, 1 Hegeler Lane, Danville, Illinois 61833 was where the deleted factory scenes with Dan Akroyd were filmed. There were even more scenes than what made the special DVD, including a speaking scene with the security and one where he walks out of the building, which my father is in. He was paid 50 dollars to walk behind Akroyd. The woman working on the line is not Dan Akroyd's mother. The factory is much the same - and is in fact and always has been a high-production aerosol plant. I used to work in the same office they filmed the quitting scene in. They must have spent a fortune filming all the way down here in Danville, and none of the footage made the original cut. The plant is roughly 130 miles due south of downtown Chicago. Mr. Belushi was not on the Danville set - but director Landis was. [Thanks to Ben Taylor]

The gas station scene in the movie was filmed at Gary's Mill Road and Il Route 59 in West Chicago. The vacant lot used was actually just north of an old existing gas station, which I believe wasn't used because there would've been too many houses in the background, and they wanted a more "middle-of-nowhere" look. [Thanks to Ed Barczak Jr.]

The gas station was built on a vacant lot off of Rte 59, that once was the location of an old Steak house. The station was sick built and filled with supplies to make it appear real. When Jake and Elwood are leaving the station the fuel truck is filling the tanks, but there is a small leak... So as you can guess, being a Blue Brothers movie what is supposed to happen? Yep, as they pull away Elwood flicks his cigarette out and it lands in the gas trail... Which then tracks to the tanker and explodes. I Know this happened as I lived approx two miles away and my friend lived three miles away, which when it went up in flames with the explosion they suffered a cracked picture window. I would like to see that deleted scene as the church across the road had 2x4's driven into the walls and through the windows. Great movie! [Thanks to Randy Hooper]

The restaurant that Jake and Elwood visit to convince the "maitre d" to come back and join the band is the very expensive, very posh, Chez Paul. This is the same restaurant where Ferris Bueller was filmed where he poses as "Ed Frohman" the sausage king of Chicago [Thanks to Paula P.]

The motel in the scene where Twiggy is shown waiting for Dan Akroyd to meet her at midnight is the West Wind Motel on Roosevelt Rd. in West Chicago, Il. It is still there and is on the south side of Roosevelt Rd. just east of Illinois Route 59.[Thanks to Tom Thomas]

The "Ray's Music Exchange" building (with mural) was shot at 300 E.47th St. on the south side of Chicago. The mural is still there, and in amazingly good shape considering it's age. It's now a pawn shop, so the "Ray's Music Exchange" on the mural is covered up and says instead "Shelly's Loan Co.". You can actually buy musical instruments there! The big street dancing scene was also shot at that same location on 47th St., right under the elevated tracks.
[Thanks to Jerry Eaglebarger]

Jake and Elwoods Apartment was filmed at: 22 W. Van Buren Street, downtown Chicago, Il. It is now actually torn down and is now Pritzger Park [Thanks to Dylan Tyler / Mountain Mike]

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