Dumb & Dumber

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Dumb And Dumber

Directed by	Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly
Produced by	Brad Krevoy
Written by	Bennett Yellin, Peter Farrelly
Starring	Jim Carrey Jeff Daniels Lauren Holly Mike Starr Karen Duffy Charles Rocket
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date(s)	December 16 1994
Running time	101 min.
Language	English
Budget	$16,000,000
IMDb profile

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Dumb & Dumber

Dumb And Dumber is a comedy film starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, made in 1994. It was directed by the Farrelly Brothers and also written by the duo, along with their friend Bennett Yellin. It is a modern example of slapstick comedy and gross-out humor, and since its release, the film has become what many consider a comedy classic and the source of countless humorous quotes. Dumb And Dumber contributed to the launch to stardom of Jim Carrey, and set the foundation for many Farrelly Brothers films to come.

1 Background information
2 Plot
3 Dumb & Dumberer
4 Main characters
5 Secondary characters
6 Cast
7 Trivia
8 External links

[edit] Background information

The film was made on an estimated $16 million budget, which was surpassed on the opening weekend. It grossed $127,175,354 in the United States, and $246,200,000 worldwide. The movie went on to amass $63,600,000 in the USA, on rentals.

Although the film did not come away with any major American motion picture awards, it was very successful at the MTV Movie Awards. Jim Carrey won for Best Comedic Performance, Carrey and Lauren Holly (a couple who would later endure a short-lived marriage) won for Best Kiss, and Jim Carrey & Jeff Daniels were nominated for Best On-Screen Duo.

In 1995, a Hanna-Barbera-produced animated spin-off aired on ABC television, as part of its Saturday morning cartoon lineup; Matt Frewer provided the voice of Lloyd, while Bill Fagerbakke voiced the character of Harry.

Tagline: 'For Harry and Lloyd every day is a no-brainer.'

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) and Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels) are two well-meaning, extremely unintelligent men who live together in their apartment in Providence, Rhode Island, and are recently out of work. Prior to his firing, Lloyd drives Mary Swanson (Holly) to the airport by limousine; he is immediately smitten and falls in love with her, along the way. After entering the airport, Mary leaves a cash-filled briefcase in the middle of a terminal area, before her departure to Aspen, Colorado. Upon seeing this, Lloyd rushes in to bring it to Mary, thinking she has forgotten it; what he does not know is that the briefcase was intentionally left behind because it contains ransom money for the man who had kidnapped Mary's husband Bobby.

Lloyd - after being fired from his job - returns to his apartment at the same time as the also-fired and equally dimwitted Harry. The two leave briefly to search for new jobs, but to no avail. After returning, Harry discovers his pet parakeet Petey has died due to his head 'falling off'; what actually happened was that the bird was murdered by Mary's husband's kidnappers, who tracked Lloyd back to his place. Between the death of the bird and Lloyd's booze being stolen by an elderly woman, the two decide to leave their troubles behind and start anew in Aspen. They also intend to return the briefcase to Mary, and become a part of the town's social scene.

Harry and Lloyd trek westward across the country, in hopes of finding Mary, encountering several misfortunes and adversaries along the way. They try to get away with having their cafe bill paid by a trucker they have just offended, and after Lloyd has to use some empty beer bottles in their van to urinate in, an unsuspecting motorcycle cop pulls them over and inadvertently takes a swig. Joe 'Mental' Mentalino (Mike Starr), one of the people hired by Mary's husband's kidnapper, tries to foil Lloyd and Harry's plans around the time they get to the midwest. However, Mental's attempt to poison the two and steal the briefcase fails: first, the two idiots place 'atomic peppers' on Mental's burger; then, they mistake the rat poison for his ulcer pills.

Harry dozes off and lets Lloyd drive, resulting in a wrong turn which takes them back in the wrong direction and wastes their gas. However, Lloyd saves the day by trading the van for a mini scooter and the pair continue to Colorado. Once the two arrive in Aspen, they realize that they are strapped for cash and have no place to stay. During a quarrel, they mistakenly break the case open to discover for the first time that the briefcase is filled with cash. Upon discovering this, they borrow a 'moderate' amount of the money to buy elaborate clothes and a Lamborghini Diablo, and stay in a very expensive hotel suite; they intend to pay the loans back with paper IOUs. Later in the visit, the two encounter Mary at a wildlife preservation benefit - although Harry is the one who chats her up and becomes friends with her. Lloyd discovers Harry's two-timing ways, and sabotages his date with Mary by spiking his tea with 'Turbo Lax', leading to a lengthy toilet scene by Jeff Daniels, a great example of toilet humor. Image:Saltshaker.jpg

Lloyd and Harry continue to argue over who 'gets' Mary, culminating in the kidnapping of all three by Mary's husband's kidnapper; the kidnapper turns out to be Nicholas Andre (Charles Rocket), a close friend of the Swanson family. There is a brief stand-off amongst the four in a hotel room, until FBI agents storm in, and arrest Andre and his other accomplice J.P. Shay. Mary's husband is returned to her (much to the dismay of Lloyd and Harry), and the two fools are left to find a way home for themselves.

Along the way home, they inadvertently turn down a chance to be oil boys for bikini models, which was considered by many audiences to be the most ignorant, dumbest thing they had done throughout the movie.Image:Ddumber1.jpg

[edit] Dumb & Dumberer

A prequel, Dumb & Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd was released in 2003 to largely negative reviews from the popular media, and a low box office income; neither Carrey nor Daniels appears in this film.

[edit] Main characters

Lloyd Christmas is an illiterate, good-hearted (though at times mischievous) man who has apparently 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 working for a limo company. He melodramatically falls in love with Mary while driving her to the airport, and becomes convinced he is destined to track her down, return her misplaced suitcase, and spend his future with her. He and Harry are the main characters.

Harry Dunne is a dog groomer, and best friend to Lloyd. What he lacks in common sense, he makes up for by being a superior linguist to Lloyd. He, along with Lloyd, plans to open up his own pet store to specialize in selling worm farms; the store is tentatively named 'I Got Worms'.

Mary Swanson is an attractive lady whose husband, Bobby, has been kidnapped by a family friend. She is the object of Lloyd's longing.

[edit] Secondary characters

Nicholas Andre is Mary Swanson's husband's kidnapper, as well as a long-time confidante of the Swanson family. His plot is foiled by Harry and Lloyd after they spend the ransom money and draw the attention of the FBI to the situation.

Joe 'Mental' Mentalino, also known as 'Gas-Man', is a cold-hearted criminal who works as a henchman for Nicholas Andre, the kidnapper. He suffers from severe digestive problems, including ulcers and gas. He attempts to kill Lloyd and Harry, as well as retrieve the briefcase, but is accidentally killed for his troubles. Although he is a man of below-average intelligence, he is still angered by the idiocy of Lloyd and Harry.

J.P. Shay is the female accomplice of Mental. She appears as Andre's date at the wildlife benefit.

Beth Jordan is an FBI special agent and all-around blabbermouth. She befriends Lloyd in a bar as he expects to meet with Mary, having previously met Harry as they both filled up at a gas station. Neither Lloyd nor Harry know, as they meet Beth, that she works for the FBI.

Sea Bass is a very large, tough man, and is apparently a trucker and expert fisherman. He spits on Harry's hamburger after Harry accidentally hit him with a salt shaker at a roadside diner, and is later accidentally foiled by Harry again, when he attempts to rape Lloyd in a truck stop bathroom. Sea Bass was portrayed by Hockey Hall of Famer Cam Neely, who also acted in one of Jim Carrey's later films, Me, Myself and Irene, again playing the character Sea Bass.

[edit] Cast

Jim Carrey as Lloyd Christmas
Jeff Daniels as Harry Dunne
Lauren Holly as Mary Swanson
Mike Starr as Joe Mentalino
Charles Rocket as Nicholas Andre
Karen Duffy as J.P. Shay
Cam Neely as Sea Bass
Harland Williams as Pennsylvania State Trooper
Victoria Rowell as Beth Jordan
Teri Garr as Helen Swanson
Chris O'Donnell is an extra

[edit] Trivia

Jim Carrey's tooth really is chipped; he simply took off the cap for this role.
One of Jeff Daniels's first acting roles was in a commercial for Pepto Bismol.
A young Jonathan Brandis appears, as the small child in the Pacific Bell commercial.
The hotel suite that Lloyd and Harry stay in is at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado.
Jim Carrey refused to shoot an alternate ending of Harry and Lloyd getting on the bus with the girls, claiming that his character would be too dumb to do so.
The lines 'the most annoying sound in the world' and 'we've landed on the moon!' were ad-libbed by Carrey.
Production in Salt Lake City, Utah was shut down, due to Jim Carrey having gallstone surgery.
In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted Dumb And Dumber the 15th greatest comedy film of all time.
Lloyd's hair cut in this film closely resembles that of Ish Kabibble, a popular comedian of the 1940s who performed with the Kay Kyser Orchestra. It has been suggested Kabibble may have been an influence on Lloyd, since his style was that of a rather slow-witted individual.
The 'sheepdog van' was made out of a 1984 Ford Econoline.
Karen Duffy also played a character named 'Shay' (Shay Stanley) in the film Blank Check.
In the Hungarian-dubbed version of Dumb And Dumber, the characters are called Dumb Dunn and Dumber Christmas.
Jim Carrey was offered Jeff Daniels' role as it had more dialogue; he chose the role he played because it had more comedy.
Scenes taking place in Aspen were actually filmed in Breckenridge, Colorado.