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==See also==
==See also==
* [[Slutty and Sluttier]]
{{Portal bar|United States|Film|Comedy|1990s}}


==References==
==References==

Revision as of 23:56, 7 February 2014

Dumb and Dumber
Theatrical release poster, parodying Forrest Gump
Directed byPeter Farrelly
Bobby Farrelly (uncredited)
Written byPeter Farrelly
Bennett Yellin
Bobby Farrelly
Produced byCharles B. Wessler
Brad Krevoy
Steve Stabler
StarringJim Carrey
Jeff Daniels
Lauren Holly
Karen Duffy
Mike Starr
Charles Rocket
Victoria Rowell
Teri Garr
CinematographyMark Irwin
Edited byChristopher Greenbury
Music byTodd Rundgren
Production
company
Motion Picture Corporation of America
Distributed byNew Line Cinema (US)
First Independent Films/Entertainment Film/Columbia Tristar/Warner Bros. (UK)
Release date
  • December 16, 1994 (1994-12-16)
Running time
107 minutes
113 minutes (Unrated)
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$17 million[1] $26.8 million (adjusted for inflation)[2]
Box office$247,275,374[3]

Dumb and Dumber is a 1994 American road-buddy comedy film starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels. It was written and directed by the Farrelly brothers, and is their directorial debut. The film tells the story of Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne, two good-natured but dimwitted friends from Providence, Rhode Island who set out on a cross-country trip to Aspen, Colorado to return a briefcase full of money to its owner, only to be pursued by a group of criminals who are after the briefcase.

The film was released on December 16, 1994. While initial reception towards Dumb and Dumber was mixed, it was a commercial success and has developed a cult following in the years since.[4][5] The success of Dumb and Dumber launched the career of the Farrelly brothers and solidified Carrey's.[6] The film also spawned a 1995 animated TV series and a 2003 prequel. A sequel, entitled Dumb and Dumber To, is slated for a November 2014 release.

Plot

Lloyd Christmas (Carrey) and Harry Dunne (Daniels) are best friends and roommates living in Providence, Rhode Island who struggle at every aspect of life. Lloyd, a limousine driver, falls instantly in love with Mary Swanson (Holly), a woman he is driving to the airport. She leaves her briefcase in the terminal. Lloyd, unaware that it contains ransom money for her kidnapped husband Bobby, retrieves it and tries to return it to her, but her Aspen-bound plane has already departed.

Fired from his job, Lloyd heads back to his apartment and learns that Harry has also been fired from his job. Two of Bobby's kidnappers, Joe "Mental" Mentalino (Starr) and J.P. Shay (Duffy) have followed Lloyd home from the airport in pursuit of the briefcase. Mistaking the crooks for debt collectors, the duo flee the apartment and return later. Upset about their situation, Lloyd suggests they head to Aspen to find Mary and return the briefcase, hoping she can "plug them into the social pipeline." Initially opposed to the idea, Harry soon agrees to Lloyd's proposal and they leave the next day. Mental and Shay find out about their plans and follow them.

During their trip, the duo encounter several incidents, the most serious of which include when Mental, posing as a hitchhiker, is picked up by Harry and Lloyd, while Shay follows them in pursuit. During a lunch stop, the duo unintentionally kill Mental with rat poison (which he planned to use on them) after mistaking it for his medicine. Nearing Colorado, Lloyd takes a wrong turn and ends up driving all night in the wrong direction. After waking up and realizing Lloyd's mistake, Harry angrily gives up on the journey and attempts to return home, but Lloyd persuades him to continue their trip after trading their van for a moped.

The duo soon arrive in Aspen but are unable to locate Mary. After a short scuffle that night, the briefcase breaks open and they discover the money. Low on cash and needing somewhere to stay, they borrow some of the money for a luxurious hotel room, but also buy new clothes and a Lamborghini Diablo. They soon learn that Mary and her family will be hosting a gala and prepare to attend. At the dinner gala, Harry, attempting to lure Mary over to Lloyd, reluctantly agrees to go skiing with her the next day and lies to Lloyd that he got him a date. The next day, Lloyd finds out Harry lied to him after waiting all day for Mary at a bar.

After incapacitating Harry with an overdosage of laxatives which causes a bout of explosive diarrhea, Lloyd arrives at Mary's house and informs her he has her briefcase. He takes her to the hotel room and shows her the briefcase. Lloyd confesses his love for Mary, but is rejected. Nicholas Andre (Rocket), a confidant of the Swansons and the mastermind behind Bobby's kidnapping, arrives at the hotel with Shay and, upon learning most of the ransom money is gone, takes Lloyd and Mary hostage, as well as Harry after he returns to the hotel. Before Nicholas can kill them, an FBI team raids the hotel room and arrests him and Shay. After the incident, Mary and Bobby are reunited, much to the jealousy of Lloyd.

The film ends with Harry and Lloyd wandering down a desert road. All of the items they bought with the ransom money were confiscated and their moped has broken down. The two unknowingly decline the chance to be oil boys for a group of Hawaiian Tropic bikini girls, after which Harry ironically tells Lloyd that they will get their "break" one day. They then play a friendly game of tag, closing the film.

Cast

  • Jim Carrey as Lloyd Christmas; a chip-toothed, mischievous loser who has been fired from several jobs, the latest being a limousine driver. Like Harry, Lloyd seeks to open up a store specializing in selling "worm farms" (akin to ant farms).
  • Jeff Daniels as Harry Dunne; Lloyd's best friend and roommate. A good-natured dog groomer who has a dog-shaped van, he is fired from his job after he unintentionally got a group of dogs messy on their way to a dog show. He also owned a pet parakeet named Petey until he was killed by Mental, which Harry didn't realise and just thought his head had "fallen off" from old age. While still unintelligent, Harry is marginally smarter than Lloyd.
  • Lauren Holly as Mary Swanson, a wealthy heiress whose husband, Bobby, has been kidnapped. Unaware she is married, Harry and Lloyd, especially the latter, are romantically attracted to her and view her as someone who can elevate their status in society.
  • Karen Duffy as J.P. Shay, Mental's female accomplice.
  • Mike Starr as Joe "Mental" Mentalino (also referred to as the "Gas Man" in a letter Harry and Lloyd wrote to him), a criminal who works as a henchman for Nicholas Andre. He suffers from a stomach ulcer and regularly takes a medication for it.
  • Charles Rocket as Nicholas Andre; a greedy, wealthy resident of Aspen, Colorado and the mastermind behind Bobby's kidnapping. He enjoys fine living and is a longtime confidant of the equally wealthy family of Aspen, the Swansons.
  • 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.
  • Teri Garr as Helen Swanson, Mary's stepmother.
  • Cam Neely as Sea Bass, a trucker who gets into frequent confrontations with Lloyd and Harry on their way to Aspen. The feud began after Harry accidentally hit him with a saltshaker at a Pennsylvania diner.
  • Joe Baker as Barnard, a butler who works at the Aspen hotel that Harry and Lloyd reside at.
  • Brad Lockerman as Bobby Swanson, Mary's husband who is kidnapped for a ransom from the Swansons.
  • Lin Shaye as Mrs. Neugeboren
  • Hank Brandt as Karl Swanson
  • Harland Williams as Pennsylvania State Trooper
  • Brady Bluhm as Billy in (Apartment) 4C, a blind kid whom Lloyd sells, among other things, Harry's dead parakeet before leaving for Aspen.
  • 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.[7]

Steve Martin and Martin Short both turned down the role of Lloyd.[8]

Jim Carrey had the cap removed on a real-life chipped tooth in preparation for his character.[9]

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 staircase shot were the shots filmed there. The scenes filmed in the snow were shot at Copper Mountain Resort, Colorado.[citation needed]

Some of the external street scenes were filmed in Salt Lake City.[citation needed]

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.[citation needed]

Soundtrack

Untitled
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
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.[10]

  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. "Where I Find My Heaven" by Gigolo Aunts
  8. "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by Butthole Surfers
  9. "Too Much of a Good Thing" by The Sons featuring Bret Reilly
  10. "The Bear Song" by Green Jellÿ
  11. "Take" by The Lupins
  12. "You Sexy Thing" by Deee-Lite
  13. "Get Ready" by The Proclaimers

Omissions

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.

The song "Go Your Own Way" by Fleetwood Mac was featured in the edited-for-television version of the film.

Reception

Critical response

Dumb and Dumber received mixed reviews from critics. The film currently garners an overall 64% "fresh" approval rating on the Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes.[11] 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 a range of acceptable reviews.[12]

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),[13] most reviews were positive. Stephen Holden of The New York Times called Jim Carrey "the new Jerry Lewis,"[14] 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.[15] Carrey was nominated for a Razzie Award for "Worst New Star".[citation needed]

The movie has since acquired the status of a cult classic.[16]

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.[citation needed] The film ranks 445th on Empire Magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time.[17]

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.[18]

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 now named "Otto". 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. The show was short lived and was shelved after one season.[citation needed]

Prequel

Main article: Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd

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, and the Farrelly brothers had no involvement in the film's production. It was heavily panned by critics, receiving a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and was only a minor box office success, grossing approximately $39.2 million worldwide against a $19 million budget, as opposed to the original film's far greater $247 million worldwide gross against a $17 million budget.[19][20]

Sequel

Main article: Dumb and Dumber To

In October 2011, the Farrelly brothers confirmed that they would make a sequel to Dumb and Dumber.[21] The sequel to the film, titled Dumb and Dumber To, began filming in September 2013. Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels have returned to lead the film, and Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly have also returned to direct the film along with original screenwriter Bennett Yellin, and actors reprising their roles from the first film including Brady Bluhm, who played Billy in (Apartment) 4C. Dumb and Dumber To is scheduled to be released on November 14, 2014.[22] This is the first film in the series not to be released by Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema. Instead, it will be released by Universal Pictures.[23]

See also

References

  1. ^ Box Office Information for Dumb and Dumber. The Wrap. Retrieved April 4, 2013.
  2. ^ http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
  3. ^ Dumb and Dumber at Box Office Mojo
  4. ^ Dumb and Dumber at Box Office Mojo
  5. ^ "Top 10 Cult Comedies". Retrieved 16 May 2013.
  6. ^ "Jim Carrey Biography". Bio. Retrieved 23 August 2013.
  7. ^ Cameron-Wilson, James; Speed, F. Maurice (1994). Film Review 1994-5. Great Britain: Virgin Books. p. 146. ISBN 0-86369-842-5Template:Inconsistent citations{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  8. ^ "Trivia for Dumb and Dumber". IMDb. Retrieved 2010-11-11.
  9. ^ Incisor Action
  10. ^ Playlist as listed on the Compact Disc - retrieved on 8/12/13
  11. ^ "Dumb and Dumber". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  12. ^ "Critic Reviews for Dumb & Dumber at Metacritic". Metacritic.com. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  13. ^ "Dumb And Dumber". Chicago Sun-Times.
  14. ^ Holden, Stephen (December 16, 1994). "FILM REVIEW; Traveling on Half a Tank". The New York Times. [dead link]
  15. ^ "FILM REVIEW -- 'Dumb and Dumber' a Smart Comedy With Lowbrow Laughs". San Francisco Chronicle. June 23, 1995.
  16. ^ Top 10 Cult Comedies
  17. ^ "Empire Features". Empireonline.com. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  18. ^ Weinraub, Bernard (January 3, 1995). "'Dumb and Dumber' Tops Holiday Film Grosses". The New York Times. Retrieved May 1, 2010.
  19. ^ "Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2003)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 25 October 2013.
  20. ^ "Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 25 October 2013.
  21. ^ Fleming, Jr., Mike. "Peter And Bobby Farrelly Plan More 'Dumb And Dumber' For Jim Carrey & Jeff Daniels". Deadline. Retrieved 7 November 2013.
  22. ^ "'Dumb And Dumber To' Release Date Set For Nov. 14, 2014". Huffington Post. Retrieved 19 November 2013.
  23. ^ Fleming, Jr., Mike. "TOLDJA! 'Dumb And Dumber To' Proves No-Brainer For Universal; Studio Locks Deal For Farrellys, Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels Pic". Deadline. Retrieved 13 January 2014.
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