Daily Dialogue — September 3, 2019

Jake: Disco pants and haircuts…
Elwood: Yeah, lots of space in this mall.

— The Blues Brothers (1980), written by Dan Aykroyd, John Landis

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Shopping Mall. Today’s suggestion by @JaceSerrano, @kiribatiwriter, and @DougChristophel.

Trivia: Producers rented the Dixie Square Mall in Harvey, Illinois, for the mall chase scenes. The mall had been closed for over a year. Rumors spread in the community that the mall was being refurbished, and would be reopened after filming was complete. Universal was later sued for over $87,000 for failure to “return the mall to its original condition”, something that had never been agreed upon. After years of political wrangling, the Montgomery Ward anchor store and mall power plant were demolished, while the rest of the dead mall rotted. The rest of the mall was finally torn down and cleared away in 2012.

Dialogue On Dialogue: During the extended car chase scene inside a shopping mall, Jake and Elwood calmly note various store outlets. The juxtaposition of their deadpan observations and the chaotic destruction of property adds to the humor of the sequence.