John Belushi

Chicago Sun-Times newspaper reporter Ernie Souchak (John Belushi) investigates a crooked alderman named Yablonowitz (Val Avery) in Chicago, Illinois. Souchak's informant, Hellinger (Bruce Jarchow), brings his son to their meeting in an alley and the boy wants to climb a fire escape, but Hellinger is afraid of heights. Later, when Souchak's column exposes Yablonowitz's dubious metro contract, Yablonowitz orders his men to find the informant. That night, Souchak is hospitalized after a savage beating by two of Yablonowitz's men. His editor, Howard (Allen Goorwitz), wants Souchak to leave town for a few weeks in order to lay low, and Howard's wife, Sylvia (Carlin Glynn), convinces a reluctant Souchak to write a piece on Nell Porter (Blair Brown), an ornithologist studying eagles in the Rocky Mountains. In Wyoming, a mountain guide, Deke (Liam Russell), leads Souchak on the long trek into the mountains. It is an arduous climb for the overweight Souchak and he is even more upset when bears steal his cigarettes. From afar, Deke and Souchak watch a wild mountain man, Possum, hunt elk and fish. Deke learns that Souchak's visit is unexpected and warns that Nell hates reporters. Nell's cabin is locked and empty when they arrive and Deke leaves Souchak on her doorstop, promising to return in two weeks. When evening descends, Souchak breaks into the cabin, builds a fire and sleeps. Later, Nell returns and, assuming Souchak is a lost hiker, lets him stay. The next morning, she learns he is a reporter and orders him to leave, but Souchak claims he will die in the wilderness and must stay until Deke returns. Nell agrees, but insists he cannot write about her. The next day, Souchak struggles to keep up with Nell as she observes and photographs eagles. The following morning, Souchak shivers outside while inside, Nell bathes in the open shower stall. He decides to stay at the cabin to build a makeshift shower door. The following day, on a trek, Souchak and Nell hear gunshots, and Nell descends upon two hunters. Destroying their rifles, Nell declares that she is a federal agent and it is a felony to shoot bald eagles. She orders the hunters to surrender at the sheriff's office within three days, warning that the FBI will go after them. That night, Souchak tries to kiss Nell and is rebuffed, but she decides he can write an article about her. The next day, when Souchak asks about her background, Nell admits she does not like to talk about herself and asks about his life instead. After dinner, Souchak tries to kiss Nell again and is rejected a second time. Nell informs Souchak that she must work alone the following day. In the morning, however, Souchak follows her and is surprised to see Nell and Possum making love. The next morning, Nell is surprised that Souchak does not want to go to the eagle's nest. Instead, he attempts to chop wood and, when Nell leaves, a jealous Possum attacks Souchak. Nell returns for her forgotten walking stick, sees the men fighting, and orders Possum to stop. She introduces the men to each other and Souchak is awestruck to learn that Possum is actually Max Birnbaum, a former football player who walked away from a successful career. Max is equally impressed to meet the famed reporter. Later, Nell amicably ends her relationship with Max, who realizes that she is attracted to Souchak. The next day, Nell and Souchak journey to observe eagles higher in the mountains. While camping in a tent that night, Souchak kisses Nell, but she will not make love to him. They reach the eagles' nest the next morning and are excited to see that baby eagles born in the spring are thriving. Later, in their tent, Nell gives Souchak an eagle feather, claiming it is a sign of strength and courage. As they descend over icy terrain, Souchak falls down the rocky mountainside, injuring his back. Nell fashions a sled out of rope and ice, straps Souchak onto it, and journeys back to her cabin. Days later, Souchak has recuperated enough to move around with a walking stick and Nell returns to her work. While she is gone, Souchak leaves the cabin door open and a mountain lion attacks. Later, Nell returns home, sees Souchak's shredded hat outside and runs inside to find her companion bloody but alive. Nell bandages Souchak's wounds, kisses him, and they make love. Souchak returns to Chicago but he misses Nell and cannot write. Howard orders him to resume investigating Yablonowitz, but Souchack is not interested. He writes a sappy travel piece about the mountains that Howard considers unprintable. Howard leaves the article on his desk and takes Souchak out for a drink. While they are at the bar, a clerk notices Souchak's article on Howard's desk and prints it in the newspaper. At a newsstand, bystanders scoff at his article, but Souchak ignores them as he reads that Hellinger fell to his death from a fire escape. Remembering that Hellinger had a fear of heights, Souchak realizes that his informant was murdered and is inspired to write multiple articles revealing Yablonowitz's misdeeds. Souchak's apartment is blown up, but he is undeterred. When he links Yablonowitz to Hellinger's death, the alderman flees the country. As Souchak celebrates with Howard, he learns that Nell is lecturing at a conference in Chicago. Souchak attends the lecture and the lovers reconnect, but still face the problem that her life is in the mountains and his life is in Chicago. Feeling it is too difficult to say goodbye, Nell does not wait for Souchak to escort her to the train station and goes alone. However, he rushes to the train and finds her as the final boarding call is announced. Souchak decides to ride to the next stop and they make love in her train compartment. He does not get off at the next station and they continue to make love all the way to the final stop in Victor, Wyoming. The return train to Chicago leaves in half an hour and, while saying their bittersweet farewells, the couple decides they can make their unconventional relationship work. They get married just before Souchak jumps on the return train, promising to see his new wife in the summer.

The film opens with several aerial shots of the factories and oil refineries around Chicago at night as the images pan overhead to a prison. We next see a prisoner being roused and escorted by two guards through Joliet Prison in Illinois. Is he on his way to the gallows? No, he's up for "standard parole". His personal items are returned to him, including a broken watch and prophylactics. The prisoner is released -- it is Jake (John Belushi). He meets his brother Elwood (Dan Akroyd) outside the prison gate. These are the Blues Brothers. Elwood has shown up in a used Plymouth police car after having traded in their old Cadillac for a microphone. Demonstrating the power of the car, with its cop tires, cop suspension, and 440 cubic-inch power plant, Elwood convinces Jake that this is the new Bluesmobile. They go see the "Penguin", Sister Mary Stigmata (Kathleen Freeman), the head nun at the Catholic orphanage they grew up in in downtown Chicago. She explains that they need $5,000 to pay property taxes, or else the orphanage will be closed by the local Archbishop. Aghast at Jake and Elwood's casual swearing, she beats them with a yardstick and throws them out of her office saying she'll pray for their souls and not to return until they've "redeemed" themselves. Jake and Elwood meet up with their old friend and father figure Curtis (Cab Calloway), a handyman who operates the orphanage who advises them to "get yourself to church". They go to a Baptist church, where Reverend Cleophus James (James Brown) delivers an uplifting sermon. Jake "sees the light" realizing that he must put the Blues Brothers Band back together in order to raise the $5,000. Now they are on a mission from God. That evening during a drive about how to get their old band back together, Elwood runs a red light and the Bluesmobile gets pulled over by a local state trooper police car. The two State Troopers Daniel (Armand Cerami) and Mount (Steven Williams) ask for Elwood's driver's license and registration. Through SCMODS (State County Municipal Offender Database System), the officers learn that Elwood has numerous outstanding traffic tickets and moving violations. The police intend to impound the car, but Elwood takes off, leading to a car chase. Another State trooper car driven by Trooper La Fong (director John Landis) and a "charming Trooper" (Stephen Bishop) joins in on the chase. The Blues Brothers get away (destroying a shopping mall in the process by driving through it), but now the Illinois authorities are searching for them. Both Troopers Daniel and Mount vow to catch or kill the Blues Brothers. Jake and Elwood park their car in a run-down part of the Loop of downtown Chicago where they walk to a fleabag hotel where Elwood is staying. A mystery woman (Carrie Fisher) attempts to kill Jake by firing a rocket launcher at him, but the Blues Brothers duck and the rockets miss. The woman drives away in a red Cadillac. Unfazed, Jake and Elwood enter the hotel (populated by homeless transients). Elwood asks the manager Floyd if there were any phone calls. The manager says no calls but a man named Burton Mercer (John Candy), a local corrections and parole officer, visited looking for Elwood. Jake and Elwood then go to Elwood's small room that sits right near the local L-train line where Jake falls asleep in Elwood's bed. The next morning, the mystery woman arrives at the fleabag hotel just as Troopers Daniel and Mount show up along with Burton Mercer who ID's the correct home address of Elwood. The unknown woman then blows up the entire hotel building with a bomb, but Jake and Elwood walk away from the rubble (as do the cops who were just about to apprehend them). Trying to find their old band members, who have since taken other jobs, they visit a boarding house where one of the members had previously stayed. The landlady doesn't remember where he went, but at the last minute she finds a business card with "Murph and the Magic Tones" on it. That evening, Jake and Elwood find Murph and the Magic Tones playing at a Holiday Inn Hotel lounge whom makes up of keyboardist/lead vocalist Murphy Dunne, guitarist Steve Cropper, guitarist Donald 'Duck' Dunn, drummer Willy Hall, and sax player Tom Malone. During drinks, they agree to rejoin the Blues Brothers Band but demand the money that Jake and Elwood owes them from past gigs. Jake and Elwood visit the swanky Chez Paul restaurant, where another band member and former trumpet player, Alan 'Mr. Fabulous' Rubin, is maitre'd. The brothers behave offensively while eating a meal, tossing food and offering to buy women. Promising that they'll be back to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day at this restaurant until he joins them, Mr. Fabulous reluctantly agrees. The next day, while tooling around in the Bluesmobile, the guys get stuck in a traffic jam. Some Neo-Nazis are protesting on a stone bridge. Proclaiming "I hate Illinois Nazis", Elwood uses the Bluesmobile to force the Nazis to jump off the bridge. The humiliated lead Nazi (Henry Gibson) vows to find those guys and brutally kill them... further adding to the Blues Brothers ever growing list of enemies. Jake and Elwood arrive in a seedy area of Maxwell Street where they park their car and see John Lee Hooker as he plays outside a soul food restaurant. Inside the restaurant, the brothers meet Matt 'Guitar' Murphy, as well as 'Blue Lou' Marini to ask them to rejoin their band. Matt's wife (Aretha Franklin) sings "Think", warning Matt to think about it before leaving the restaurant they own. Matt and Lou quit, and the band is complete. Meanwhile, the mystery woman that is hounding Jake and Elwood is revealed to work and own a local beauty salon. After the salon closes for the night, she reads up in a book on how to operate a flame thrower. The next morning, the band's first stop is Ray's Music Exchange in Calumet City. The proprietor Ray (Ray Charles) shows off the action in a keyboard, singing "Shake A Tail Feather". The band buys $1,400 worth of instruments, on an I.O.U. While driving aimlessly that evening, the Blues Brother's first gig is at Bob's Country Bunker, where the Good Old Boys are scheduled to play. Passing themselves off as the Good Old Boys, the Blues Brothers manage to play both types of music (Country and Western). They earn $200, but drink $300 worth of beer. They skip out on paying. Now Jake and Elwood have yet another set of enemies, that of the bar owner Bob (Jeff Morris) and Tucker McElroy (Charles Napier) the lead singer of the late-arriving Good Old Boys. They get away when the pursuing truck is T-boned by State Troopers Daniel and Mount who have spotted the Bluesmobile. Daniel and Mount place Bob, Tucker, and the Good Old Boys under arrest for speeding and damaging their police car as Mount deadpans, "boys, you are in big trouble". In a sauna the next day, Jake and Elwood have a business meeting with promoter Maury Sline (Steve Lawrence) who agrees to book the Palace Hotel Ballroom for them tomorrow night. The word goes out on the streets -- Jake and Elwood swipe an enormous air-raid siren, strap it to the roof of the Bluesmobile, and use it as a loudspeaker to make announcements throughout the city about the upcoming concert. They run out of gas. The local gas station is also out of gas. Elwood flirts with a chic lady (Twiggy) while waiting for the tanker truck to arrive. The Blues Brothers Band play their concert at the Palace Hotel, beginning with Curtis as an opening act sings "Minnie The Moocher" as they wait for Jake and Elwood to arrive. Having heard about the concert, the authorities lead by Jake's parole officer, Burton Mercer, along with Troopers Daniel and Mount, stake out the joint, planning to apprehend them after the show. Bob, Tucker and the Good Old Boys, having just made bail, also see the advertisement and show up at the concert vowing to kill both Jake and Elwood. Jake and Elwood sneak past the cops and join the band. The crowd is unmoved at first but are soon cheering. The band plays so well that backstage a producer for a major record company offers them $10,000 cash as an advance on their first recording session. Jake and Elwood accept the offer and keep $5,000, asking the producer to send $1,400 to Ray's Music Exchange and to give the rest to the band. The brothers take off through a trap door in the stage while the band continues vamping. The mystery woman confronts them in an underground tunnel, firing an automatic M-16 rifle at them. It is revealed here that the mystery woman is Jake's former fiancee whom he abandoned at her wedding several years ago and she wants to personally kill Jake for her humiliation. Pleading for his life, Jake removes his sunglasses for the first (and only) time in the film. She melts, smiles "oh, Jake", and kisses him. He pushes her to the ground, saying "let's go". The police begin realizing the brothers are making their escape. Jake and Elwood are in the Bluesmobile with 106 miles to get to Chicago, a full tank of gas, a half pack of cigarettes, at night, and they're wearing sunglasses. An epic and climatic car chase begins as the Blues Brothers head towards Chicago to pay the taxes. Bob, Tucker and the Good Old Boys join in on the chase, but Elwood had earlier sabotaged their trailer by spraying super glue to the gas/accelerator peddle which causes Tucker to loose control of the trailer and crashes it into a nearby pond. In the morning, numerous police cars tumble off an embankment, and one (driven by Troopers Daniel, Mount and Burton) ends up in a truck. As they approach the city, all city police authorities are alerted and "the use of excessive force is approved" in their apprehension. The chase continues in Chicago, reaching speeds of 110 mph on Lower Wacker Drive. Dozens of police cars continue to pile up. Hearing chatter on the police radios, the Nazis spot the Bluesmobile and give chase. The Bluesmobile stops at the edge of a highway overpass under construction, but the car with the lead Nazi tumble over the edge. Jake and Elwood arrive at Daley Plaza just in time, as their car literally falls apart. The police buildup continues absurdly, with National Guard units, helicopters, and SWAT teams getting involved. Jake and Elwood hastily make their way to the Cook County Assessor's Office, barring doors and sabotaging an elevator on the way. Hundreds of troops are in pursuit. In the assessor's office they grab the clerk (a cameo by Steven Spielberg) and give him the money to pay the taxes. The moment the tax receipt is handed to them they are handcuffed, surrounded by countless troops with pointed firearms. The film closes with the Blues Brothers and their Band playing their next concert in prison, beginning with "Jailhouse Rock".

December 13, 1941. One week after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and on a beach in northern California, a young woman, part of a 'Polar Bear' swim club, goes for a swim in the ocean alone and naked to only to find a Japanese submarine surfacing under her. She holds on to the periscope as it rises. The submarine is the I-19, and the sub commander Akiro Mitamura (Toshiro Mifune) with some of his crew arrive out on deck to survey the coastline. Accompanying them is a hard-line German naval captain named Wolfgang von Kleinschmidt (Christopher Lee). Commander Mitamura tells Von Kleinschmidt that he has crossed the Pacific Ocean with the intent to destroy something honorable on the U.S. West Coast since missing the other activities the Japanese Navy has done in the past week. The bickering German officer agrees and suggests that they travel south along the coast to a place called Hollywood located on their chart map and hope to evade detection. As the submarine prepares to submerge, a Japanese crew member looks up at the naked girl clinging to the periscope, and yells: "Hollywood! Hollywood!" At this point, the submarine crew realizes they have arrived where they intended to be, and the vessel submerges once again while the girl swims to safety. Meanwhile in Los Angeles, dishwasher Wally Stephens (Bobby Di Cicco) tells his co-worker Dennis Desoto (Perry Lang) about his plans to enter a dance contest with his ex-girlfriend Betty Douglas (Dianne Kay), against her father's wishes. Tank crew chief Sgt. Frank Tree (Dan Aykroyd), along with his crew Private Foley (John Candy), Private Reese (Mickey Rourke), Private Hinshaw (Walter Olkewicz), and Corporal Sitarski (Treat Williams) are also at Wally's restaurant having breakfast. Sitarski takes an instant dislike to Wally after they meet when Wally serves him some coffee and a scuffle breaks out as Sitarski used to be a police officer before he was drafted and recognizes Wally who served time in a juvenile hall for auto theft. The fight is broken up by Sgt. Tree who takes his men out of the diner. Wally tries to persuade his boss to let them have the night off, but when his boss refuses and Willy keeps badgering him for the night off, both Wally and Dennis get fired from their jobs. Across town, Betty Douglas, along with her friend Maxine (Wendie Jo Sperber) are in training as taxi girl dancer for an upcoming USO show at the local nightclub that has been taken over under the tutelage of USO liaison Mrs. Fitzroy. Wally and Dennis go to a local department store where Wally tries on a zoot suit to wear and seeing that he doesn't have the money to pay for it, he has Dennis sound an air raid siren in the store. In the resulting panic, Wally walks out of the department store wearing the zoot suit, while Dennis has a run-in with two attractive looking twin ladies whom he pretends to help them out. Meanwhile somewhere in Death Valley California at 12 noon, Captain Wild Bill Kelso (John Belushi), a manic US Army Air Force officer lands his stolen Curtis P-40 fighter to refuel at a local gas station where he claims to the gas matron and the patrons that he's tracking a Japanese air squadron. But when he takes off after his plane is re-fulled, he accidentally blows up the gasoline station when he drops his lighted cigar. Back in Los Angeles, the stuffy Major General Joseph Stilwell (Robert Stack) attempts to bring order to the hysteria and insanity gripping the region, while the general's new secretary Donna Stratten (Nancy Allen) as well as his assistant Captain Loomis Birkhead (Tim Matheson) have other ideas. Birkhead takes an instant liking to Donna and after learning from a colleague that Donna will only respond when she is aboard an airborne plane. At a nearby airbase, while General Stilwell gives a press conference about the impossibility of the Japanese bombing Los Angeles, Birkhead approaches Donna and takes her into the cockpit of a nearby B-17 bomber where he attempts to seduce her by simulating the plane taking off and flying. But Donna stops him by saying that it's not the same thing as being airborne and will only respond to his sexual advances in a real airborne plane. When Birkhead refuses to back away from her, she punches him, he falls back and accidentally releases a bomb door lever in which a large bomb drops out and rolls towards General Stilwell and the press conference and a panic ensues when the rolling bomb hits the stand and detonates. But all the people run to safety before it explodes. At the Douglas family home on the coast, Wally arrives to meet with Betty in his newly stolen zoot suit to ask her out, but she tells him that the club has been taken over by the USO and is accessible only to servicemen. Wally is confronted by Mr. Douglas (Ned Beatty) and his wife Joan (Lorraine Gary), where it's revealed that they are still angry at Wally since he stole and previously destroyed their car during a date he had over one year ago with Betty which landed him in jail. Betty and Maxine fall into a pit which was dug by Mr. Douglas three obnoxious and bratty younger sons whom have also gotten caught up in the war hysteria. Soon after, Sgt. Tree and the tank crew arrive to deliver a large AA gun to the Douglas property, where Corporal Sitarski also spots Betty and takes a liking to her as well. However, Maxine also spots Sitarski and takes a liking to him too, which he declines the overweight lady's offer to attend the USO show with her. When Wally attempts to persuade Betty to accompany him to the dance anyway, Sitarski and the tank crew beat up Wally and throw him in the back of a passing garbage truck. Nearby, at the home of Mr. Douglas neighbor Angelo Scioli (Lionel Stander), he has built an armored car against the protest of his nagging wife. Angelo, a former serviceman having joined the Civil Defense Force, persuades his friend Claude Crumn (Murray Hamilton) to take his friend Herbie (Eddie Deezen) to perch themselves atop a Ferris wheel at a local Santa Monica pier that Angelo owns to be air raid spotters. With rifles in hand as well as binoculars, and a telephone, Angelo puts them in on one of the Ferris wheel carts and moves the wheel to the top where Claude and Herbie will spend all day to look for approaching Japanese planes. Claude and Herbie do not get along at all because of Herbie's nagging and eccentricity, which makes matters worse when Herbie brings along a ventriquilist dummy with them where he also talks though the obnoxious and ratting dummy. Meanwhile, Japanese submarine becomes lost trying to find Los Angeles when the ship's compass is broken. Commander Mitamura sends a landing party ashore where they capture a local timber merchant, Hollis "Holly" Wood (Slim Pickens). Despite the language barrier, since none of the Japanese crew, nor Von Kleinschmidt speak any English, Hollis knows that he's a prisoner, but he also slow to understand of their destination. Upon a search of his belongings, one Japanese crewman discovers a small compass in a box of Cracker Jacks that he has. But Wood grabs and swallows the small compass rather than let it fall into the hands of the Japanese. The Japanese spend several hours torturing him by forcing him to drink prune juice to make him defecate the compass. But Wood manages to turn the tables on his captors where he manages to escape and swim ashore. In Los Angeles at nightfall, Wally arrives at the nightclub where he and several Latino zoot suit members are kept out of the nightclub by the military guards posted there. Just then, Sitarski arrives with Betty as his date and forces the guards to keep Wally and the rest of the zoot suits out. When Wally sees Dennis dressed as a sailor with the twin ladies at his side going into the USO club, he gets an idea. Wally knocks out a Shoreman Patrol officer, steals his uniform, and gains access to the nightclub where he tries to get Betty's attention by bringing her onto the dance floor. But a while dancing up a storm with Betty, gaining the attention of the MC as well as a Hollywood talent agent, a huge brawl erupts when Sitarski begins a fight with Wally, and the underwear clad Shore Patrol officer arrives which leads to a huge riot out on the streets. When Captain Birkhead learns from General Stilwell about the renegade Colonel "Madman" Maddox (Warren Oates) isolating himself at the Barstow Air Force base and having airplanes, he gets the idea of going there with Donna and stealing a plane to fly and to seduce Donna. While Stilwell goes to the local theater to watch the feature film 'Dumbo', Birkhead and Donna drive to the Barstow airbase where they nearly get shot by the lunatic Maddox's solders whom he has told that every person approaching the base is a Japanese. But both Birkhead and Donna are disappointed when Colonel Maddox tells them that he has no bombers or fighter planes at the base, only an old C-47 transport plane, which Birkhead is happy to take on the ruse that he intends to fly over Los Angeles to spot any Japanese airplanes. But when Birkhead and Donna manage to take off, they realize that the plane they are flying in does not have a radio and they have no way of contacting anyone on the ground. Shortly afterwards, Wild Bill arrives with his P-40 to refuel and learns from the insane Maddox about spoting Japanese planes all over the place. As Wild Bill prepares to take off again, Maddox asks him to fire the guns from his plane just to listen to the gunfire. Wild Bill does, and in so doing, shoots up part of the airbase's buildings, and also cutting the telephone lines, which now means that Maddox and his men have no way of contacting Civil Defense in Los Angeles to inform them about Birkhead and Donna's airborne plane, or of Wild Bill's plane as well. Back in Los Angeles, the riot between the Army soldiers, Marines, sailors, and zoot suit guys is getting worse when Sgt Tree arrives in his tank with his crew, along with the latest addition, the Negro Private Ogden Johnson Jones (Frank McRae) to disrupt the riot and he gives a speech to the rioters about them turning against each other in this time of war. Just then, Los Angeles goes to Red Alert when the Civil Defense radar stations spot an "unknown aircraft" in the air. As Birkhead and Donna fly over Los Angeles just as he finally begins to seduce her, civil defense AA batteries open fire at their plane. The chaos continues as Wild Bill flies in and joins in the chase. Wild Bill manages to hit Birkhead and Donna's plane which crash lands into the La Brea Tar Pits area. Meanwhile, Ward Douglas spots the Japanese submarine lurking off shore near his home and decides to use the AA gun left behind by Sgt. Tree to fire at it. On top of the Ferris wheel, Claude and Herbie also spot the submarine, but they accidentally drop their telephone to the ground and have no way to contact anyone. So they open fire on it with their rifles, keeping the Japanese crewmen pinned down and creating some panic for them. But Claude and Herbie accidentally shoot at Wild Bill's plane that flies overhead after mistaking it for a Japanese Zero fighter. Wild Bill's plane comes crashing to the ground at Hollywood Boulevard where he gets out and tells everyone about spotting a Japanese submarine off shore. Wally hears this and when Sgt. Tree accidentally hits his head, Wally, with Betty in tow, commandeers the tank and rides off to where Wild Bill told them about the sub's location. Left behind, Sitarski and Maxine hitch a ride with Wild Bill riding on a motorcycle and a chase through the streets begins with Wally riding the tank over a few cars and even shooting up a policeman's car after recognizing the officer as the man who arrested him. The tank crashes though a paint factory and then a turpentine factory. Meanwhile, Ward Douglas begins firing at the Japanese submarine, but destroys his house in the progress with his bad aim. When Angelo sends one of Ward's sons to the pier to rescue Claude and Herbie stuck in the Ferris wheel, the brat accidentally turns on the entire lights for the amusement park..... illuminating it for the I-19 Japanese submarine. "Fire at the industrial structure!" yells Mitamuro. The I-19 begins shelling the amusement park, not realizing its little-use potential. The Ferris wheel is hit which rolls down the pier and into the water. Claude and Herbie (as well as the dummy) manage to swim ashore. But the nervous and bickering Captain von Kleinschmidt has had enough and wants to submerge, and he draws a gun on Mitamuro. But Mitamuro overpowers the German officer and throws him overboard. Kleinschmidt manages to swim ashore where he is later captured by Hollis Wood himself (the only U.S. "victory" of the movie). When Wally and the tank crew arrive at the amusement park and drive onto the pier to open fire on the I-19. The Japanese sub turns toward the shore and fires a torpedo at the pier, destroying it and sending the tank and all its occupants into the water. Wild Bill drives his stolen motorbike onto the pier just as it collapses into the water. Deranged to the last, Wild Bill swims to the submarine and boards where he is captured by the crew. Commander Mitamuro, believing that his honorable mission has been accomplished, orders his crew to submerge and return home with their prisoner of war Wild Bill, who undaunted, he declares, "Turn this tub around! You're takin' me to Tokyo!" The following morning on Sunday December 14, General Stilwell arrives at the devastated Douglas home where he is informed by Sgt. Tree, Wally, Betty, Claude, Herbie, Dennis, plus the entire tank crew about their harrowing experiences the night before. Also in custody with Stilwell's men is Birkhead and Donna, as well as Sitarski and Maxine, as well as the captive Captain von Kleinschmidt with his former captive-turned-captor Hollis Wood, and Colonel Maddox in a straightjacket on his way to the local funny farm. Ward delivers a short and inspirational speech to those present, vowing that Christmas will not be ruined; to punctuate his point, he nails a wreath to his front door, jarring the unstable house so that it collapses and slides into the ocean. The amused Stilwell mutters, "It's gonna be a long war," and walks away as everyone begins arguing and fighting in front of the foundations of the destroyed Douglas home.

Due to the lack of men after the Civil War, a western town allows a young bachelorette who lives alone to save a thief from hanging by marrying him. They must deal with his old gang, the Sheriff, the railroad, a gold mine, and each other. Texas, shortly after the Civil War. Henry Moon is an outlaw, on the run from the law. He is captured trying to escape to Mexico and taken back to town to be hanged. The town has a special law that a condemned man can walk free if one of the single women of the town offer to marry him. Henry is in luck - at the last moment Julia Tate offers to marry him, and pretty soon they are married. However, Henry soon discovers that Julia's motives are purely business-orientated - she needs someone to work the mine on her property. This makes for a very cold marriage. —grantss Henry Moon is captured for a capital offense by a posse when his horse quits while trying to escape to Mexico. He finds that there is a post-Civil War law in the small town that any single or widowed woman can save him from the gallows by marrying him. Julia Tate needs a man to help her work her mine and marries him. The sheriff makes it very clear to Moon what the consequences of his leaving Julia will be. The two begin to try to form a relationship based on necessity in which they have nothing in common. —John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>

In 1962, college freshmen Lawrence "Larry" Kroger (Tom Hulce) and Kent Dorfman (Stephen Furst) seek to join a fraternity at Faber College. They visit the prestigious Omega Theta Pi House's invitational party, but are not welcomed there. They then try next door at Delta Tau Chi House, the campus' most raucous and undisciplined fraternity, where Kent's brother was once a member, making Kent a "legacy." There they find the slovenly John "Bluto" Blutarsky (John Belushi) urinating outside the fraternity house and a wild party already underway inside. The Deltas "need the dues" so they permit Larry and Kent to pledge. They receive the fraternity names "Pinto" (Larry) and "Flounder" (Kent). Vernon Wormer (John Vernon), dean of Faber College, wants to expel Delta from campus due to repeated conduct violations and low academic standing. Since they are already on probation, he puts the Deltas on something he calls "double secret probation" and orders the clean-cut, smug Omega president Greg Marmalard (James Daughton) to find a way to get rid of the Deltas permanently. Flounder is bullied by Omega member and ROTC cadet commander Doug Neidermeyer (Mark Metcalf), so Bluto and Daniel Simpson "D-Day" Day (Bruce McGill) persuade Flounder to sneak Neidermeyer's horse into Dean Wormer's office late at night. They give him a gun and tell him to shoot it. Unbeknownst to Flounder, the gun is loaded with blanks. Unable to bring himself to kill the horse, he fires into the air but the noise frightens the horse so much that it dies of a heart attack. In the cafeteria the next day, smooth-talking Eric "Otter" Stratton (Tim Matheson) tries to convince the stuck-up Mandy Pepperidge (Mary Louise Weller), with whom he'd had a one-time tryst, to abandon her boyfriend, the uninteresting Marmalard, and date him instead. Bluto provokes Marmalard with his impression of a popping zit by stuffing his mouth with a scoop of mashed potatoes and propelling it at Marmalard and table mates, Chip Diller (Kevin Bacon) and Barbara "Babs" Jansen (Martha Smith). Bluto starts a food fight that engulfs the cafeteria. Bluto and D-Day steal the answers to an upcoming psychology test, but it turns out the Omegas switch the discarded exam mimeograph stencil and the Deltas get every answer wrong. Their grade-point averages drop so low that Wormer needs only one more incident to revoke their charter and kick them out permanently. To cheer themselves up, the Deltas organize a toga party. They go shopping at the local market, using Pinto's thick cardigan sweater to hide loads of food they don't want to pay for. During the party Otis Day and the Knights perform "Shout". The dean's alcoholic, lecherous wife, Marion (Verna Bloom), attends the party at Otter's invitation and has sex with him. Pinto hooks up with Clorette (Sarah Holcomb), a girl he met at the supermarket, and makes out with her only to learn she is the mayor's 13-year-old daughter. He later takes her home in a shopping cart, abandoning her at the front door. Due to the party, Wormer organizes a kangaroo court with the Omegas and revokes Delta's charter and all their belongings are confiscated from their house. To take their minds off their troubles, Otter, Donald "Boon" Schoenstein (Peter Riegert), Flounder and Pinto go on a road trip in a car Flounder borrowed from his brother. Otter picks up some girls from Emily Dickinson College by pretending to be the fiancé of Fawn Liebowitz, a girl who recently died on campus. They stop at a roadhouse because Otis Day and the Knights are performing there, not realizing that it caters to an exclusively black clientele. The hulking patrons intimidate the guys and they flee, damaging Flounder's brother's car and leaving their frightened dates behind. Boon breaks up with his girlfriend Katy (Karen Allen) after discovering her sexual relationship with a professor (Donald Sutherland). Marmalard is told that his girlfriend is having an affair with Otter, so he and other Omegas lure him to a motel and beat him up. The Deltas' midterm grades are so poor that an ecstatic Wormer expels them all. He even notifies their draft boards of their eligibility. In the process, before Bluto attempts to speak to the dean, Wormer orders Flounder to speak, saying "Well? Out with it!", whereupon Flounder vomits on the dean. It seems time for the Deltas to give up, but Bluto, supported by the injured Otter, rouses them with an impassioned, historically inaccurate speech ("Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?!") and they decide to take revenge on Wormer and the Omegas. Stork shoves the drum major out from his position at the head of the marching band and leads them down a one-way alley, trapping them. Hoover attaches one end of a chain to a telephone pole and the back of one of the floats, tearing it apart. Several other Deltas use a makeshift mortar to launch flares onto the street. When Neidermeyer and his ROTC unit chase after the Deltas, Flounder tosses a large jar of marbles in their path, spilling them all to the pavement. Flounder produces a large soda sprayer for Neidermeyer but he's forced to retreat when Neidermeyer loads his marching rifle with a live round, shooting out the soda bottle. Chip Diller, who gradually becomes hysterical, tries to calm the fleeing crowd and is trampled. To top it all off, the Deltas have converted Flounder's brother's Lincoln into a parade float with the words "EAT ME" sculpted on the sides. They cut the flowered portion away to reveal the work they did to make the car demonic -- the "DEATHMOBILE" -- complete with a turret and train whistle, and ram it into the spectator's bleachers, upsetting the Dean, his wife, the mayor and their guests. Hoover approaches the Dean and asks for one more chance. Finally, the futures of many of the main characters are revealed. The last shot of the film is of Bluto driving away in a white convertible with his soon-to-be wife, Mandy Pepperidge.