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.
Dumb and Dumber received generally positive reviews from critics and was a commercial
success.
The film developed a cult following in the years since its release.
The success of Dumb and Dumber launched the career of the Farrelly brothers and solidified
Carrey's.
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.
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, but 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 so that he can find out what they know, if anything, about the
kidnapping and ransom, 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 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 mini-bike.
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.
After incapacitating Harry with an overdose of laxatives, 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 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, who is slightly more
intelligent, honest and realistic 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, 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 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, received a salary of $7 million for this film.
Steve Martin and Martin Short both turned down the role of Lloyd.
Jim Carrey had the cap removed on a real-life chipped tooth in preparation for his character.
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.
Some of the external street scenes were filmed in Salt Lake City.
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.
Soundtrack 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
"New Age Girl" by Deadeye Dick "Insomniac" by Echobelly
"If You Don't Love Me" by Pete Droge "Crash" by The Primitives
"Whiney, Whiney" 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 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, "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.
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 generally positive reviews from critics.
The film currently garners an overall 64% "fresh" approval rating on the Review aggregation
website Rotten Tomatoes, 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."
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, which indicates generally unfavorable
reviews.
While Roger Ebert gave the film only two of four stars, most reviews were positive.
Stephen Holden of The New York Times called Jim Carrey "the new Jerry Lewis," 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.
Carrey was nominated for a Razzie Award for "Worst New Star".
The movie has since acquired the status of a cult classic.
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 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.
The film ranks 445th on Empire Magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all
time.
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.
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 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.
Prequel
In 2003, a prequel was released to theaters, entitled Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met
Lloyd.
The prequel featured a cast and crew different from 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.
Sequel
In October 2011, the Farrelly brothers confirmed that they would make a sequel to Dumb and
Dumber.
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 include Brady Bluhm, who played
Billy in 4C.
Dumb and Dumber To is scheduled to be released on November 14, 2014.
This is the first film in the series not to be released by Warner Bros. Instead, it will
be released by Universal Pictures.
Despite Warner Bros. 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.
See also References
External links Official website
Dumb and Dumber at the Internet Movie Database Dumb and Dumber at AllMovie
Dumb and Dumber at Rotten Tomatoes Dumb and Dumber on Facebook