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1994 comedy film by Peter Farrelly From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dumb and Dumber is a 1994 American buddy comedy film directed by Peter Farrelly,[1][2] who cowrote the screenplay with Bobby Farrelly and Bennett Yellin. It is the first installment in the Dumb and Dumber franchise. Starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, it tells the story of Lloyd Christmas (Carrey) and Harry Dunne (Daniels), two dumb but well-meaning friends from Providence, Rhode Island, who set out on a cross-country road trip to Aspen, Colorado, to return a briefcase full of money to its owner, thinking it was abandoned as a mistake, though it was actually left as a ransom. Lauren Holly, Karen Duffy, Mike Starr, Charles Rocket, and Teri Garr play supporting roles.
| Dumb and Dumber | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster (parodying Forrest Gump) | |
| Directed by | Peter Farrelly |
| Written by |
|
| Produced by |
|
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Mark Irwin |
| Edited by | Christopher Greenbury |
| Music by | Todd Rundgren |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema[1] |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 106 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $17 million[3] |
| Box office | $247.3 million[4] |
The film was released on December 16, 1994, to mixed reviews from critics. It grossed $247 million at the box office and has since developed a cult following.[4][5] The success of Dumb and Dumber launched the career of the Farrelly brothers, established the range of the heretofore dramatically acclaimed Daniels as a gifted comedic actor and revitalized his Hollywood career,[6] and solidified Carrey's reputation as one of the most prominent actors of the 1990s.[7] The film also spawned an animated TV series, a 2003 prequel, and a 2014 sequel.
 | This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. (November 2024) |
Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne, two kind but dimwitted young men, are best friends and roommates living in Providence, Rhode Island. Lloyd, a chip-toothed limousine driver, immediately falls in love with Mary Swanson, a woman he is driving to the airport. She leaves her briefcase in the terminal. Lloyd sees this and attempts to return it to her, unaware that it contains ransom money, and that she had intentionally left it for captors, Joe "Mental" Mentalino and J. P. Shay. Her Aspen-bound plane has already departed, leading to Lloyd running and falling out of the jetway.
Fired for leaving the scene of an accident, Lloyd returns to his apartment and learns that Harry, who works as a dog groomer, has also been fired for showing up late to a dog show with the dogs covered in food. Mental and Shay follow Lloyd home from the airport in pursuit of the briefcase. Mistaking the crooks for debt collectors, the two flee the apartment, and return later to find that Mental and Shay have ransacked the apartment and decapitated Harry's parakeet, Petey. Lloyd suggests they head to Aspen to find Mary and return her briefcase. Harry agrees, and they leave the next day, driving to Aspen in their dog-styled van which Harry used for his dog-grooming business.
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 while Shay secretly follows them. However, Harry and Lloyd annoy Mental with their childish antics. During a lunch stop, the duo pranks Mental by putting chili peppers in his burger, unaware that he has a stomach ulcer. When Mental reacts adversely, they accidentally give him rat poison pills (which he had planned to use on them) after mistaking them for his medication, thus killing him. In response, police wait to intercept the two on the road to Colorado, but Lloyd takes a wrong turn and drives all night through Nebraska. Harry gives up on the journey and decides to walk home, but Lloyd persuades him to continue after trading their van for a minibike.
When the two arrive in Aspen, they cannot find Mary. Frustrated that they have no money and no where to stay, Harry attacks Lloyd, breaking the briefcase open by accident. After discovering the money, the two spend it on a hotel suite, clothes, and a car. They hear in the newspaper that Mary and her family are hosting a gala and attend it. At the gala, Lloyd is too nervous to talk to Mary, so he has Harry lure Mary over to him. However, Harry reluctantly agrees to go skiing with Mary the next day, and lies to Lloyd that he got him a date with her. The next day, while Harry and Mary have a wonderful time skiing together, Lloyd waits at the hotel bar for Mary. After awhile, he learns from a bartender where Mary’s family lives. When Lloyd goes to her house, he finds out that Harry lied and spent the day with her himself.
In retaliation, Lloyd pranks Harry by serving him a coffee laced with a heavy dose of laxatives, causing Harry to spontaneously defecate in a broken toilet in Mary’s bathroom. Lloyd arrives at Mary's house. Mary remembers Lloyd from when he drove her to the airport, and he informs her that he has her briefcase. He takes her to the hotel, shows her the briefcase, and confesses his love for her, but she rejects him. Nicholas Andre, an old friend of the Swansons, then shows up.
Lloyd finds out from Nicholas that Mary has a husband named Bobby, who was abducted, and that the money was for her husband’s captors, who are Nicholas, Mental, and Shay. Nicholas is furious when he learns that Lloyd and Harry spent all the ransom money and replaced it with IOUs. He takes Lloyd and Mary hostage and takes Harry hostage when he returns. An argument leads Nicholas to shoot Harry, who plays dead before ineptly returning fire. Before Nicholas can fire another shot, an FBI team led by Beth Jordan (whom Harry had met at a gas station and Lloyd met earlier at the bar) raids the suite, where Beth tells Harry and Lloyd that the FBI and police had been following them since they left Providence. Harry reveals that they gave him a bulletproof vest and gun when he arrived. Nicholas and Shay are arrested, and Mary and Bobby are reunited, much to Lloyd’s dejection.
The next day, Harry and Lloyd have begun traveling home on foot because all their purchases were confiscated, and their minibike broke down. They then encounter a group of bikini girls, and they ignorantly reject the offer to be “oil boys” for them. Harry tells Lloyd that they will get their "break" one day, and they play a game of tag as they walk back to Rhode Island.
John Hughes originally conceived the film before he sold it to the Farrelly Brothers and asked for his name to be removed from the writing credits.[8] The Farrelly Brothers had been trying for years to get their first movie made. Director Peter's agent encouraged him to make a movie himself, alongside his brother Bobby. The Farrelly Brothers did not know who Jim Carrey was; they were only told that he was "The White Guy" on In Living Color. Only after a screening of Carrey's first major acting role, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, did they become interested in casting him. Based on the box-office success of Ace Ventura, Carrey was able to negotiate a salary of $7 million for this film.[9]
Nicolas Cage, who was proposed to be Carrey's co-star, tried to negotiate a $2 million increase in his fee but New Line Cinema decided against casting him and signed Jeff Daniels instead.[10] Cage said he turned it down to do Leaving Las Vegas instead.[11] Daniels was only paid around $50,000. New Line Cinema originally did not want Daniels in the film, as he was known only for his dramatic work at the time. However, the Farrellys and Carrey wanted Daniels for the part. Although New Line Cinema agreed to their demands, Daniels was offered the low salary in the hopes it would discourage him from signing on to the film. Daniels ultimately accepted the role, despite his agent reportedly dissuading him out of fears it would kill his career.[12]
Steve Martin and Martin Short both turned down the role of Lloyd.[13] According to Splitsider, Gary Oldman and Cage were the original choices for Lloyd and Harry.[14] Chris Elliott and Rob Lowe were both also considered for the role of Harry.[14] Carrey's chipped tooth was genuine, resulting from a fight with a classmate in his childhood, but he had since had it capped. He simply had the crown temporarily removed from that tooth to portray Lloyd.[15]
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.[16] Some of the external street scenes were filmed in Salt Lake City, and the airport scene was filmed at Salt Lake City International Airport.[17] Some scenes from the beginning of the film were shot on location in the Providence metropolitan area, including shots of the skyline and The Big Blue Bug; scenes from the beginning of their road trip were shot in locations in Cumberland, Rhode Island.[18] Parts of the film were also shot in Ogden, Utah and American Fork Canyon.[19]
| Dumb and Dumber: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack | |
|---|---|
| Soundtrack album by Various Artists | |
| Released | November 22, 1994 |
| Genre | Soundtrack |
| Length | 46:51 |
| Label | RCA Records |
| Producer | Various Artists |
| Singles from Dumb and Dumber: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack | |
| |
The original soundtrack to the film was released by RCA Records on November 22, 1994.[20] The soundtrack album's first single, "New Age Girl" by Deadeye Dick, was a chart hit, reaching number 27 in the US, while the music video for the Crash Test Dummies' version of "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" featured Jeff Daniels reprising his role of Harry.[21]
The soundtrack album has generally seen positive reception from critics. Joe Bishop of Vice named the album his favorite movie soundtrack, while the same site's Cameron Matthews described it as "a perfect slice of the mid-'90s sound: bubbly pop rock with jangly chords and just enough grit, or aka the thing you can give your kids when they one day ask you what the '90s were like".[21][22]
Though not present on the soundtrack, the film famously features Carrey and Daniels singing an a cappella version of "Mockingbird" to Mike Starr's character.[21] Also missing on the soundtrack is Apache Indian's "Boom Shack-A-Lak", which accompanies the film's opening sequence, as well as several other songs appearing in the film. Songs not included on the soundtrack are "Red Right Hand" by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, "The Rain, The Park and Other Things" by The Cowsills, "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" by Crash Test Dummies, "Oh, Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison, "Can We Still Be Friends?" by Todd Rundgren and "Rollin' Down the Hill" by The Rembrandts.
Beck had been approached about including his song "Loser" on the soundtrack, but he refused. He recalled the process: "I remember getting a phone call one day. My manager said, 'There's a film. They want to use 'Loser' as the theme song'. There was a long pause, and he said, 'The name of the film is Dumb And Dumber. And I just remember: That sums up what the world thinks of me at this point. I tried to have fun with it, tried to not take it too serious. But at the same time, it was a little disheartening sometimes."[23]
| No. | Title | Artist | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" | Crash Test Dummies featuring Ellen Reid | |
| 2. | "New Age Girl" | Deadeye Dick | |
| 3. | "Insomniac" | Echobelly | |
| 4. | "If You Don't Love Me (I'll Kill Myself)" | Pete Droge | |
| 5. | "Crash – The '95 Mix" | The Primitives | |
| 6. | "Whiney, Whiney (What Really Drives Me Crazy)" | Willi One Blood | |
| 7. | "Where I Find My Heaven" | Gigolo Aunts | |
| 8. | "Hurdy Gurdy Man" | Butthole Surfers | |
| 9. | "Too Much of a Good Thing" | The Sons featuring Bret Reilly | |
| 10. | "The Bear Song" | Green Jelly | |
| 11. | "Take" | The Lupins | |
| 12. | "You Sexy Thing" | Deee-Lite | |
| 13. | "Get Ready" | The Proclaimers |
Dumb and Dumber opened at No. 1 in its opening weekend, earning $16.4 million.[24] It went on to gross $127,175,374 in the United States, and $247,275,374 worldwide, and topping the holiday season film gross.[25]
Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 68% of 53 surveyed critics gave Dumb and Dumber a positive review; the average rating is 6.1/10. The site's consensus reads: "A relentlessly stupid comedy elevated by its main actors: Jim Carrey goes bonkers and Jeff Daniels carries himself admirably in an against-type performance".[26] On Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, it has a score of 41 based on reviews from 14 critics, which indicates "mixed or average reviews".[27] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[28]
Roger Ebert gave the film two of four stars for the hit-or-miss comedic elements, but praised the performances of Carrey and Daniels, dubbing the former a "true original", and writing that the dead parakeet joke "made me laugh so loudly I embarrassed myself. I just couldn't stop".[29] Stephen Holden of The New York Times called Carrey "the new Jerry Lewis",[30] 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.[31]
Although Dumb and Dumber 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. The film ranks 445th on Empire's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time.[32]
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, and aired for only one season, having been cancelled.
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 Farrelly brothers had no involvement in the film's production. It was panned by critics, receiving a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[38] It grossed 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.[39]
The Farrelly brothers returned to make a sequel to Dumb and Dumber.[40] The sequel, titled Dumb and Dumber To, was shot in the fall of 2013. Carrey and Daniels returned, and Bobby and Peter Farrelly returned to direct along with original screenwriter Bennett Yellin. Actors reprising their roles from the first film include Brady Bluhm, who played Billy in (Apartment) 4C, and Cam Neely, who played Sea Bass. Dumb and Dumber To was released on November 14, 2014.[41] Compared to the original film, Dumb and Dumber To was met with mixed reviews from critics, although it did well commercially. Dumb and Dumber To was not released by Warner Bros. Pictures (who now owns New Line Cinema), but rather by Universal Pictures.[42] Despite having no involvement in the film, New Line was still given studio credit from Universal.[43][44]
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