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Dumb and Dumber

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This article is about the film. For the animated series based on the film, see Dumb and Dumber (TV series).
Dumb and Dumber
Theatrical release poster, parodying Forrest Gump
Directed byPeter Farrelly
Bobby Farrelly (uncredited)
Written byPeter Farrelly
Bennett Yellin
Bobby Farrelly
Jim Carrey (uncredited)
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
Release date
  • December 16, 1994 (1994-12-16)
Running time
107 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$17 million[1]
Box office$247,275,374[2]

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. Despite mixed reviews from critics, Dumb and Dumber was a commercial success and developed a cult following in the years since its release.[2][3] The success of Dumb and Dumber launched the career of the Farrelly brothers and solidified Carrey's.[4] The film also spawned an animated TV series and a 2003 prequel. A sequel, titled Dumb and Dumber To, is scheduled to be released in November 2014, 20 years after the original.

Plot

Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne 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, a woman he is driving to the airport. She intentionally 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 as a dog groomer. Two of Bobby's kidnappers, Joe "Mental" Mentalino and J.P. Shay, follow Lloyd home from the airport in pursuit of the briefcase. Mistaking the crooks for debt collectors, the duo flee the apartment and return later to find that Mental and Shay have decapitated Harry's parakeet Petey. 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.

Mental and Shay catch up to the duo at a motel that night. Posing as a hitchhiker, Mental is picked up by Harry and Lloyd the next day, while Shay follows them in pursuit. During a lunch stop, the duo accidentally kill Mental with rat poison (which he planned to use on them) after they mistake it for his medication. 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, in addition to 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.

Lloyd incapacitates Harry with an overdose of laxatives in retaliation, after which Lloyd arrives at Mary's house and informs her he has her briefcase. Lloyd takes her to the hotel room and shows her the briefcase. Lloyd confesses his love to Mary, but is rejected. Nicholas Andre, 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 has been spent by Lloyd and Harry and replaced with IOUs, 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 walking home. 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, continuing their walk home.

Cast

  • Jim Carrey as Lloyd Christmas; a chip-toothed, mischievous loser who has been fired from several jobs.
  • Jeff Daniels as Harry Dunne; Lloyd's best friend and roommate. Though still being dull-witted, Harry is slightly more intelligent than Lloyd.
  • Lauren Holly as Mary Swanson, a wealthy heiress whose husband, Bobby, has been kidnapped.
  • Karen Duffy as J.P. Shay, Mental's female accomplice.
  • Mike Starr as Joe "Mental" Mentalino, 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.
  • 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 Harry and Lloyd on their way to Aspen.
  • Joe Baker as Barnard
  • Brad Lockerman as Bobby Swanson, Mary's husband
  • Lin Shaye as Mrs. Neugeboren
  • Hank Brandt as Karl Swanson, Mary's father
  • Harland Williams as Pennsylvania state trooper
  • Brady Bluhm as Billy in (Apartment) 4C
  • 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.[5]

Steve Martin and Martin Short both turned down the role of Lloyd.[6]

Carrey had the cap removed on a real-life chipped tooth in preparation for his character.[7]

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.[8]

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

The airport scene was also filmed at Salt Lake City International Airport.

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 Dumb and Dumber at AllMusic. Retrieved 9-28-2014.

Dumb and Dumber: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the original soundtrack to the film, and was released by RCA Records on November 22, 1994.[9]

No.TitleArtistLength
1."The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" (featuring Ellen Reid)Crash Test Dummies3:46
2."New Age Girl"Deadeye Dick3:28
3."Insomniac"Echobelly4:15
4."If You Don't Love Me (I'll Kill Myself)"Pete Droge3:33
5."Crash (The '95 Mix)"The Primitives3:14
6."Whiney, Whiney (What Really Drives Me Crazy)"Willi One Blood3:36
7."Where I Find My Heaven"Gigolo Aunts3:25
8."Hurdy Gurdy Man"Butthole Surfers3:57
9."Too Much of a Good Thing" (featuring Bret Reilly)The Sons5:15
10."The Bear Song"Green Jellÿ2:41
11."Take"The Lupins3:01
12."You Sexy Thing"Deee-Lite4:07
13."Get Ready"The Proclaimers3:02

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. "2 Ft. 0 Butt Crack" by Bruce Greenwood was also omitted from the soundtrack and was erroneously credited to the band Circle the Wagon in the film's credits.[10]

The song "Go Your Own Way" by Fleetwood Mac was featured in the television edit of the film.

Reception

Critical response

Dumb and Dumber currently garners an overall 64% "fresh" approval rating on the Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes,[11] with the site's consensus "A relentlessly stupid comedy elevated by its main actors: Jim Carrey goes bonkers and Jeff Daniels carries himself admirably in an against-type performance." On 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, which indicates generally unfavorable 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 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".[16]

The film has since acquired the status of a cult classic.[17]

Awards

Although the film did not secure any major American film awards, it was successful at the 1995 MTV Movie Awards. Carrey won for Best Comic Performance, Carrey and 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 fifth 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.[18]

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.[19]

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 theatrically released, entitled Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd. The film featured a cast and crew different from the previous film, and the Farrellys 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.[20][21]

Sequel

Main article: Dumb and Dumber To

In October 2011, the Farrelly brothers confirmed that they would make a sequel to Dumb and Dumber.[22] The sequel, titled Dumb and Dumber To, began filming in September 2013. Carrey and Daniels have returned to lead the film, and Bobby and Peter Farrelly returned to direct along with original screenwriter Bennett Yellin, and actors reprising their roles from the first film include Brady Bluhm, who played Billy in (Apartment) 4C. Dumb and Dumber To is scheduled to be released on November 14, 2014.[23]

This is the first film in the series not to be released by Warner Bros. Instead, it will be released by Universal Pictures.[24] Despite Warner having no involvement in the film, its New Line Cinema division, which produced the first film and the prequel, was still given studio credit from Universal.[25][26]

See also

References

  1. ^ Box Office Information for Dumb and Dumber. The Wrap. Retrieved April 4, 2013.
  2. ^ a b Dumb and Dumber at Box Office Mojo
  3. ^ "Top 10 Cult Comedies". Retrieved 16 May 2013.
  4. ^ "Jim Carrey Biography". Bio. Retrieved 23 August 2013.
  5. ^ 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)
  6. ^ "Trivia for Dumb and Dumber". IMDb. Retrieved 2010-11-11.
  7. ^ "Incisor Action". EW.com. Retrieved 5 October 2014.
  8. ^ Adventure-Journal, Adventure-Journal 10 Mountains Misrepresented in Movies
  9. ^ Playlist as listed on the Compact Disc - retrieved on 8/12/13
  10. ^ "Bruce Greenwood Interviewed on The Hour". YouTube. Retrieved 5 October 2014.
  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. ^ "Razzie Awards (1995)".
  17. ^ Joe Cranney. "Top 10 Cult Comedies". Retrieved 5 October 2014.
  18. ^ "Empire Features". Empireonline.com. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  19. ^ Weinraub, Bernard (January 3, 1995). "'Dumb and Dumber' Tops Holiday Film Grosses". The New York Times. Retrieved May 1, 2010.
  20. ^ "Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2003)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 25 October 2013.
  21. ^ "Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 25 October 2013.
  22. ^ Fleming, Jr., Mike. "Peter And Bobby Farrelly Plan More 'Dumb And Dumber' For Jim Carrey & Jeff Daniels". Deadline. Retrieved 7 November 2013.
  23. ^ Kristobak, Ryan (19 November 2013). "'Dumb And Dumber To' Release Date Set For Nov. 14, 2014". Huffington Post. Retrieved 19 November 2013.
  24. ^ 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.
  25. ^ Goldberg, Matt. "New Poster for DUMB AND DUMBER TO; First Trailer Premieres Tonight". Collider.com. Retrieved 2014-06-17.
  26. ^ "Dumb and Dumber To Poster". Collider.com. Retrieved 2014-06-17.
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