Dumb and Dumber

Dumb and Dumber
Theatrical release poster, parodying Forrest Gump
Directed by	Farrelly brothers
Written by	Peter Farrelly Bobby Farrelly Bennett Yellin
Produced by	Brad Krevoy Steven Stabler Charles B. Wessler Bobby Farrelly Gerald Olson
Starring	Jim Carrey Jeff Daniels Lauren Holly
Cinematography	Mark Irwin
Edited by	Christopher Greenbury
Music by	Todd Rundgren
Production companies	Motion Picture Corporation of America Conundrum Entertainment
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date	December 16, 1994 (1994-12-16)
Running time	107 minutes 113 minutes (Unrated)
Country	Template:FilmUS
Languages	English Swedish German
Budget	$17 million
Box office	$279,943,217

Dumb and Dumber is a 1994 comedy road film starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels. Written and directed by the Farrelly brothers, the film follows the cross-country trek of Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne, two good-natured but incredibly moronic friends.

Plot

Best friends Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) and Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels) are two incredibly stupid fellows who share an apartment in Providence. Struggling to make ends meet, constantly on the run from creditors, and unable to hold on to jobs due to their incompetence, they decide to pack up and move to Aspen to return a briefcase to the wealthy Mary Swanson (Lauren Holly), who left it at the Providence airport after Lloyd, briefly working as a limo driver, drove her there. They also hope to start anew in Aspen. Lloyd, who fell in love with Mary at first sight, believes she will help them climb up the social ladder. Unknown to both Lloyd and Harry, the briefcase actually contains ransom money that was meant to be delivered to kidnappers who took Mary’s husband, Bobby. The kidnappers then tail the two friends.

Making the long road trip to Aspen, Lloyd and Harry run into one misadventure after another, particularly one in which they accidentally kill one of the kidnappers, Joe Mentalino (Mike Starr), by feeding him rat poison (which the kidnapper was going to use on them). As the two come close to Aspen, Lloyd inadvertently takes the wrong route and drives almost a sixth of the way across the country in the wrong direction, infuriating Harry (who was sleeping and had not noticed the mistake) and causing him to leave Lloyd behind with the car in the middle of nowhere. However, Lloyd quickly redeems himself by trading in the car for a moped and the two continue their trip, finally arriving in Aspen.

While there, the two open the briefcase during a tussle and discover the money inside. Immediately, they spend it lavishly, living in a suite reserved for kings, presidents and emperors, purchasing a sports car and new clothes, simply enjoying themselves. Days later, Lloyd recognizes Mary in a news article publicizing a charity dinner event. After getting full-body makeovers and renting bright-colored tuxedos, the two head over to the dinner party. Upon spotting Mary, Lloyd becomes too nervous to speak to her, instead making Harry bring her over to introduce. It turns out Mary is charmed by Harry, whose stupidity she mistakes for intentional humor. The two eventually make plans the next day to go skiing. Harry does not tell Lloyd, instead lying to him by saying Mary will meet him at a bar. After Lloyd uncovers the set-up, he angrily incapacitates Harry and sees Mary himself, informing her of the briefcase. At this point the benefactor of the kidnapping (Charles Rocket) shows up and threatens to kill Lloyd, Harry, and Mary, but the FBI shows up in time to intervene. Mary and her husband are reunited shortly afterward, and despite his heartbreak (which includes a fantasy where he angrily guns down Bobby), Lloyd expresses goodwill towards the two. Lloyd and Harry end up being stripped of their luxurious lifestyle, since the ransom money actually belonged to the FBI.

The movie ends with the two walking down the interstate, where they inadvertently turn down offers to be towel boys for a bus of bikini models. Ironically, Lloyd encourages Harry that the two of them will someday get their "lucky break". The two start playing tag with each other playfully as the credits roll.

Cast

• Jim Carrey as Lloyd Christmas; a semi-literate and mischievous man who has been fired from several jobs due to his lack of intelligence and his unwillingness to work "40 hours a week," the most recent of which is driving a limousine.
• Jeff Daniels as Harry Dunne; a good-natured dog groomer, and best friend to Lloyd.
• Lauren Holly as Mary Swanson, a woman whose husband, Bobby, has been kidnapped.
• Charles Rocket as Nicholas Andre; a wealthy resident of Aspen, Colorado, who enjoys fine living. Andre is a long-time confidant of the equally wealthy family of Aspen, the Swansons.
• Mike Starr as Joe "Mental/Gas-Man" Mentalino, a criminal who works as a henchman for Nicholas Andre.
• Karen Duffy as J.P. Shay, Mental's female accomplice.
• Victoria Rowell as Beth Jordan (credited as "Athletic Beauty"), an FBI agent masquerading as a talkative young woman who is moving to Aspen to get away from her boyfriend.
• Cam Neely as Sea Bass, a trucker.
• Joe Baker as Barnard
• Brad Lockerman as Bobby Swanson, Mary's husband.
• Lin Shaye as Mrs. Neugeboren
• Teri Garr as Helen Swanson
• Hank Brandt as Karl Swanson
• Harland Williams as Pennsylvania State Trooper
• Brady Bluhm as Billy the Blind Kid
• Rob Moran as Bartender
• Lisa Stothard as Austrian Bus Stop Beauty
• Connie Sawyer as "Elderly Woman"
• Fred Stoller as Anxious man at phone

Production

File:Jeffdanielsfilm.jpg

Jeff Daniels as Harry Dunne

Jim Carrey, based on the box-office success of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), received a salary of $7 million for this film.

Steve Martin and Martin Short both turned down the role of Lloyd.

Location

Scenes taking place in Aspen were filmed in Breckenridge, Colorado and Park City, Utah. The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado was transformed into the "Danbury Hotel" for the filming of the movie. The "Danbury Hotel" bar scene and stair case shot were the shots filmed there. The scenes filmed in the snow were shot at Copper Mountain Resort.

Most of the external street scenes were filmed in Salt Lake City.

Some scenes from the beginning of the film were also shot on location in the Providence, Rhode Island metropolitan area, including shots of the skyline, The Big Blue Bug, and scenes from the beginning of their road trip were shot in locations in Cumberland.

Soundtrack

Untitled

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	link

Dumb and Dumber: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the original soundtrack to the film; the soundtrack was released by RCA Records on November 22, 1994.

1. "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" by Crash Test Dummies (featuring Ellen Reid)
2. "New Age Girl" by Deadeye Dick
3. "Insomniac" by Echobelly
4. "If You Don't Love Me (I'll Kill Myself)" by Pete Droge
5. "Crash (The '95 Mix)" by The Primitives
6. "Whiney, Whiney (What Really Drives Me Crazy)" by Willi One Blood
7. "Too Much of a Good Thing" by The Sons featuring Bret Reilly
8. "You Sexy Thing" by Deee-Lite
9. "Where I Find My Heaven" by Gigolo Aunts
10. "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by Butthole Surfers
11. "Take" by The Lupins
12. "The Bear Song" by Green Jellÿ
13. "Get Ready" by The Proclaimers

The song "The Rain, The Park & Other Things" by The Cowsills was not on the soundtrack, although it was played quite prominently in the montage of Lloyd fantasizing about Mary, nor was "Oh, Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison, though it was featured prominently in the make-over montage.

Also missing are "Rollin' Down the Hill" by The Rembrandts, "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" by the Crash Test Dummies, "Red Right Hand" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, "Can We Still Be Friends" by Todd Rundgren (who also wrote the original soundtrack), "Boom Shack-A-Lak" by Apache Indian and "Make Love Now" by Patrick Wilson.

Reception

Critical response

The film currently garners an overall 63% "fresh" approval rating on the Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, it has a score of 39% based on reviews from 13 critics, indicating "Generally unfavorable reviews".

While Roger Ebert gave the film only two of four stars (despite praise for Carrey's performance, dubbing him a "true original", and the dead parakeet joke), most reviews were positive. Stephen Holden of the New York Times called Jim Carrey "the new Jerry Lewis," and Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle called it "riotous," "rib-splitting," and gave the film praise for being both a crude and slapstick comedy and a "smart comedy" at the same time.

Awards

Although the film did not win any major American film awards, it was successful at the 1995 MTV Movie Awards. Carrey won for Best Comic Performance, Carrey and Lauren Holly (a couple who would later endure a short-lived marriage) won for Best Kiss, and Carrey and Daniels were nominated for Best On-Screen Duo.

In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted Dumb and Dumber the 5th greatest comedy film of all time. The film ranks 445th on Empire Magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time.

Box office

The film was successful at the box office, grossing $127,175,374 in the United States, and $247,275,374 worldwide, and topping the holiday season film gross.

Legacy

Animated series

Main article: Dumb and Dumber (TV series)

File:Dumb & Dumber Cartoon Title.jpg

Title card for the cartoon.

In 1995, a Hanna-Barbera-produced animated series aired on ABC, as part of its Saturday morning cartoon lineup; Matt Frewer provided the voice of Lloyd, while Bill Fagerbakke voiced Harry. In the cartoon, Harry and Lloyd have reacquired their van. The cartoon also features a new character, Kitty, a female pet purple beaver who appears to be smarter than both men. The animated series was written by Bennett Yellin, co-writer of the film.

Prequel

In 2003, a prequel was released to theaters, entitled Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd. The prequel featured a different cast and crew than the previous film. It was heavily panned by critics, receiving a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and was only a moderate success, grossing approximately $39.2 million worldwide against a $19 million budget, as opposed to the original film's far greater $279 million worldwide gross against a $17 million budget.

Sequel

On February 28, 2011, Bobby Farrelly revealed to Moviehole that a sequel to Dumb and Dumber might happen with Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels reprising their roles as Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne, respectively. He said, "[Dumb and Dumber] has run a bunch of times on TV in the states, and kids will come up and they’ll be able to quote lines from that – lines that I’ve long forgotten. If we could get those two guys back together, Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels that might be a worthwhile sequel – and that ball is in motion. We’re starting to think about what those two dimwits would be doing twenty-years later in life, and hopefully we’ll be able to come up with something worthy of a sequel."

On October 26, 2011, it was announced that Sean Anders and John Morris had been hired to write the script. The two had co-written the Anders-directed Sex Drive and had recently co-directed the Adam Sandler comedy That's My Boy.

On April 1, 2012, it was announced that Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels had been signed to the sequel, and that principal photography would begin in September. The Farrelly brothers will direct and write the script. It was noted that while the Farrelly brothers and Daniels were always interested in a sequel, much of the holdup had been on Carrey, who aside from Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls had gained a reputation for not wanting to do sequels (he was absent for sequels for both The Mask and Bruce Almighty) and had only recently shown interest on doing a sequel to Dumb and Dumber.

External links

• Dumb and Dumber at IMDb
• Dumb and Dumber at AllMovie
• Dumb and Dumber at Box Office Mojo
• Dumb and Dumber at Rotten Tomatoes
• Dumb and Dumber at Metacritic
• Dumb & Dumber movie script