Neighbors

One of the great comedy teams of the late 70's, early 80's was John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. The duo made only three films before Belushi's untimely death. Oddly enough, as well as they are remembered, they only had one hit, The Blues Brothers. Today, I'm going to look back at their final film, 1981's Neighbors.

Belushi plays Earl, a mild mannered sad sack of a man. He just goes with the routine at work, with his wife Enid, Kathryn Walker, and his teenage daughter Elaine, Lauren-Marie Taylor. His hum drum existance gets up rooted with the arrival of new neighbors Vic, Dan Aykroyd, and Ramona, Cathy Moriarty. The new couple impose themselves instantly on Vic making his life utter chaos. Put off by the loud and obnoxious Vic and turned on by the sexy Ramona, Ed is frusterated, and also excited about the new possibilites that these new neighbors have brought into his life.

This is a bizarre movie. Belushi and Aykroyd's one upmanship is played out more like a cartoon than a live action feature. It doesn't play for easy, straight forward laughs like most comedies and goes for the more surreal. And it has a real dark sensibilty underneath. I love that it switches the roles up with Belushi being the straight man and Aykroyd as the wild and crazy one. In their other collaberations, the roles would have been reversed. This was a decision the two guys made during production. And they are both great in it. I really enjoy Aykroyd when he gets to cut in loose in film. Moriarty is also very funny and sexy as Ramona.

This was a very chaotic set. Belushi and Aykroyd had issues with the director, John G. Avildsen. Belushi complained that he didn't get comedy and tried hard to get him replaced with either John Landis or Aykroyd. Avildsen is best known for helming pictures like Rocky and The Karate Kid, but I think he got the humor of the piece. He is no stranger to black comedy. He also did the dark film Joe in 1970. Belushi also didn't like Avildsen because Belushi wanted the punk band Fear to do the closing number, but Avildsen nixed that idea.He also replaced the original composer Tom Scott with his regular collaborator Tom Conti. This move also pissed off the two stars. Belushi's drug abuse was out of control during the shoot and sadly would be his last picture before drugs got the better of him and ended his life.

Screenwriter Larry Gelbert, the creator of tv's M*A*S*H*, also had issues when he found out that Aykroyd was making rewrites to his script. They even changed the ending making it more upbeat. He practically disowned the movie upon release.

Even with all the troubles, it's a great movie. It's my favorite collaboration between the two stars and I love the surrealism and darkness of it. It was huge flop among fans and critics, but I think it's due to be rediscovered. It definately has the makings of a cult hit.

It's available on dvd.