Dumb and Dumber
Dumb and Dumber | |
---|---|
![]() Theatrical release poster, parodying Forrest Gump | |
Directed by | Peter Farrelly Bobby Farrelly |
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 | |
Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
Release date |
|
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 picaresque or buddy comedy 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. Making heavy use of slapstick comedy and gross-out humor, Dumb and Dumber contributed to the launch of a successful career for the Farrelly brothers.
Plot
Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) is a simple-minded limousine driver in Providence, Rhode Island. Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels), Lloyd's roommate and buddy, is a part-time self-employed pet groomer who drives the "Shaggin’ Wagon", a van converted into what looks like a shaggy dog. They plan on opening their own pet store that sells worm farms, though their lack of finances are troubling them. One day, Lloyd becomes infatuated with his passenger client, Mary Swanson (Lauren Holly), on her way to the airport and ultimately home to her family in Aspen, Colorado. Mary intentionally leaves a briefcase in the airport terminal for some thugs to pickup. Lloyd, not knowing it is a ransom payoff for her husband, rushes in and grabs the case thinking she accidentally left it, but is unable to catch her in time. Later that night, Lloyd convinces Harry to break out of their mundane lives and drive to Aspen to find Mary and return the briefcase, also hoping that they may gain greater prominence with society. On their trail are two thugs, Joe "Mental" Mentalino (Mike Starr) and J. P. Shay (Karen Duffy), who both saw Lloyd grab the briefcase.
On the way, the two run into several misadventures, though they manage to wriggle their way out of them: a tough redneck named Sea Bass (Cam Neely) bullies Harry and attempts to sexually assault Lloyd, though they narrowly escape; a motorcycle cop (Harland Williams) pulls the van over and attempts to cite them with DUI, but accidentally drinks Lloyd's urine; Joe manages to hitch a ride with Lloyd and Harry and is intent on killing them with rat poison, so as to retrieve the briefcase, but ends up eating the pills himself when Harry unwittingly feeds them to him; finally, approaching the Colorado border, Lloyd mistakenly re-enters the interstate headed eastbound for several hours while Harry sleeps. The two have a heated argument after realizing Lloyd's mistake, but the latter makes amends by trading in their van for a scooter. They head on to Aspen, but once there, they are unable to locate Mary. The two again scuffle in a park, but when they discover the contents of the briefcase, they check into a luxury suite and purchase a Lamborghini Diablo, promising to return the money in I.O.U.s
The two finally track down Mary by attending a community function, with Lloyd planning to ask her on a date. However, he makes Harry do the task, as he is too nervous himself. Mary becomes smitten with Harry, whose stupidity she mistakes for intentional humor. The two make plans for the next day, and Harry untruthfully tells Lloyd that she will be waiting for him in a bar. The next day Harry and Mary have fun skiing, while Lloyd is left waiting at the bar for over three hours. When he uncovers the truth, a vengeful Lloyd immobilizes Harry with laxatives and meets Mary at her house. The two then head for the suite where Lloyd shows her the briefcase, and he attempts to engage with her. However, the mastermind of the ransom operation, Nicholas Andre (Charles Rocket), who is actually a long time confidant of the Swanson family, arrives and holds them at gunpoint upon discovering that his ransom money is gone. Harry returns, but is taken hostage as well. The FBI arrives in the nick of time to save the day with Beth Jordan (Victoria Rowell), a woman Harry met earlier at a gas station, leading the way as a surprise undercover agent. Mary is reunited with her kidnapped husband with a heartbroken Lloyd and Harry looking on, both realizing for the first time that she is married. The final scene shows Lloyd and Harry on the road walking back home consoling each other when a busload of bikini-clad Hawaiian Tropic girls pulls up alongside them. They mindlessly decline an offer to join the girls on their bikini tour as "oil boys". The bus drives off and they walk on, arguing about the rules of a tag game.
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 cold-hearted criminal who works as a henchman for Nicholas Andre. He suffers from severe digestive problems, including ulcers and intestinal gas, for which he is continually seen popping prescription antacid pills.
- 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 clumsy boyfriend.
- Cam Neely as Sea Bass, a trucker. Neely, also had a brief cameo in one of Jim Carrey's later films, Me, Myself and Irene, again playing Sea Bass.
- 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
Jim Carrey, based on the box office success of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), received a salary of $7 million for this film.[1]
Although the president and chairman of New Line Cinema requested that the Farrelly Brothers shoot an alternate ending with Harry and Lloyd getting on the bus, the directors and Jim Carrey refused, insisting vehemently that Harry and Lloyd were too stupid to get on the bus with the bikini models.
The restaurant scene (with Seabass) was filmed in Ft. Morgan, Colorado. However filmmakers originally wanted to film this scene at a restaurant in Wiggins (about 15 miles west of Ft. Morgan) but after viewing the script the owner refused.
In the bar scene in Aspen, the line "No way... that's great. We've landed on the moon!" was not in the script but an impromptu addition by Jim Carrey on the spot during shooting.
Steve Martin and Martin Short, two of the Three Amigos, both turned down the role of Lloyd.[2]
Location
Scenes taking place in Aspen were actually 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.[citation needed] The opening scene (the limo scene) was filmed on 500 East, between 500 South and 600 South. The scenes at the "Providence Airport" were actually filmed at Salt Lake City International Airport.[3] The external courtyard of Harry and Lloyd's apartment (where they give the little blind boy Petey the parrot) was filmed at 226 South and 300 East. The scene with the "sweet ol' lady on the motorized cart" was filmed in front of Thomson & Burrows Antique Store at 270 East and 300 South. The interior shots of Harry and Lloyd's apartment were filmed in the historic Union Pacific Railway Station in downtown Salt Lake. Mary Swanson's mansion is on Perseverance Court in Park City. Additional filming was at LaCaille Restaurant near Big and Little Cottonwood Canyon.
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.
Reception
Box office
The film was very 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.[4]
Critical response
The film currently garners an overall 62% "fresh" approval rating on the Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes. [5] 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".[6]
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),[7] most reviews were positive. Stephen Holden of the New York Times called Jim Carrey "the new Jerry Lewis,"[8] 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.[9]
Awards
Although the film did not win any major American film awards, it was very 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.[citation needed] The film ranks 445th on Empire Magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time.[10]
The unrated version
An unrated version was released in 2006 adding 6 minutes of footage to the film, culminating in 113 minutes.
- Added/removed scenes
- In the unrated version, when Harry and Lloyd are in the truckstop diner, Harry complains to the waitress that his drink is no longer fizzy. The waitress deals with this by rudely grabbing the glass and blowing bubbles through the straw.
- In the original version, "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" by XTC (covered by Crash Test Dummies for the film) plays during the scene where Harry, Lloyd, and Mental are in the restaurant. This song is absent in the unrated version.
- After the gas station scene, a new scene occurs while driving where Harry makes fun of Lloyd about being in a bathroom with a 6'4" man with his pants down.
- Differences
- In the original version, when Mental tears Petey's (Harry's parakeet) head off, it cuts after he says "I Tawt I Taw a Putty Tat!." In the unrated version, it shows him violently squeezing Petey's head with his fists.
- In the original version, Sea Bass is about to spit on Harry's burger, but the camera cuts to Lloyd, while the spitting sound is still heard. In the unrated version, it shows the spit coming out of his mouth onto the burger.
- The unrated version features an extended dialogue scene between Lloyd and Harry in the honeymoon motel.
- In the unrated version, when Mental and Shay are waiting by the side of the road for Harry and Lloyd to drive by, Shay says to Joe: "Keep your shirt on, I gotta squeeze a lemon" and crouches down.
- In the unrated version, when Sea Bass finds Lloyd in the bathroom, Lloyd keeps repeating "Find a happy place" to which Sea Bass replies, "I'll show you a happy place!" before dropping his own pants and grabbing his crotch.
- In the unrated version, it features an extra scene prior to Harry's departure to the slopes with Mary, in which Lloyd comments on Harry's "revealing" ski suit.
- In the original version, when Harry is attempting to fix Mary's toilet, he shouts out that he's shaving, and we see Mary standing at the door. The unrated version shows Harry lifting the toilet to the window and dumping its contents out.
- In the original version, it is only implied that Sea Bass was trying to rape Lloyd however in the unrated he states that he is.
- The unrated version cuts out extended dialogue in the restaurant scene with Harry, Lloyd, and Mental.
Legacy
Animated series
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
Not unlike Butch and Sundance: The Early Days, a prequel, Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, was released in 2003 to largely negative reviews from the popular media and a low box office income. It included only Lin Shaye from the original film's cast.
Sequel
On February 28, 2011, Bobby Farrelly revealed to Moviehole that a sequel to Dumb and Dumber will happen with Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels reprising their roles as Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne, respectively. He goes on by saying, "[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."[11]
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 I Hate You Dad. [12]
Soundtrack
Untitled | |
---|---|
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
Allmusic | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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.
- "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" by Crash Test Dummies (featuring Ellen Reid)
- "New Age Girl (Mary Moon)" by Deadeye Dick
- "Insomniac" by Echobelly
- "If You Don't Love Me (I'll Kill Myself)" by Pete Droge
- "Crash (The '95 Mix)" by The Primitives
- "Whiney, Whiney (What Really Drives Me Crazy)" by Willi One Blood
- "Where I Find My Heaven" by Gigolo Aunts
- "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by Butthole Surfers
- "Too Much of a Good Thing" by The Sons featuring Bret Reilly
- "The Bear Song" by Green Jellÿ
- "Take" by The Lupins
- "You Sexy Thing" by Deee-Lite
- "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 "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.
References
- ^ Cameron-Wilson, James; Speed, F. Maurice (1994), Film Review 1994-5, Great Britain: Virgin Books, p. 146, ISBN 0-86369-842-5
- ^ "Trivia for Dumb and Dumber". IMDb. Retrieved 2010-11-11.
- ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109686/locations
- ^ Weinraub, Bernard (January 3, 1995). "'Dumb and Dumber' Tops Holiday Film Grosses". The New York Times. Retrieved May 1, 2010.
- ^ "Dumb and Dumber". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
- ^ "Critic Reviews for Dumb & Dumber at Metacritic". Metacritic.com. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
- ^ "Dumb And Dumber". Chicago Sun-Times.
- ^ Holden, Stephen (December 16, 1994). "FILM REVIEW; Traveling on Half a Tank". The New York Times. [dead link]
- ^ "FILM REVIEW -- 'Dumb and Dumber' a Smart Comedy With Lowbrow Laughs". The San Francisco Chronicle. June 23, 1995.
- ^ "Empire Features". Empireonline.com. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
- ^ "Bobby Farrelly Says Dumb & Dumber Sequel Possible". ComingSoon.net.
- ^ http://www.deadline.com/2011/10/peter-and-bobby-farrelly-plan-more-dumb-and-dumber-for-jim-carrey-and-jeff-daniels/
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Wikiquote-logo.svg/34px-Wikiquote-logo.svg.png)
- 1994 films
- 1990s comedy films
- American films
- American comedy films
- English-language films
- Swedish-language films
- German-language films
- Directorial debut films
- Buddy films
- Films set in Colorado
- Films set in Rhode Island
- Films shot in Colorado
- Films shot in Rhode Island
- Films shot in Utah
- Road movies
- New Line Cinema films