Dumb and Dumber
Theatrical release poster, parodying Forrest Gump
Directed by	Peter Farrelly Bobby Farrelly (uncredited)
Produced by	Brad Krevoy Steven Stabler Charles B. Wessler Bobby Farrelly (co-producer) Gerald Olson (executive)
Written by	Peter Farrelly Bobby Farrelly Bennett Yellin
Starring	Jim Carrey Jeff Daniels Lauren Holly
Music by	Todd Rundgren
Cinematography	Mark Irwin
Editing by	Christopher Greenbury
Studio	Motion Picture Corporation of America
Distributed by	New Line Cinema (US) First Independent Films/Entertainment Film/Columbia Tristar/Warner Bros. (UK)
Release date(s)	December 16, 1994 (1994-12-16)
Running time	107 minutes 113 minutes (Unrated)
Country	United States
Language	English Swedish German
Budget	$17 million[1]
Box office	$247,275,374[2]

Dumb and Dumber is a 1994 American buddy comedy film starring Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels and Lauren Holly. Written and directed by the Farrelly brothers, Dumb and Dumber is their directorial debut. The film follows the cross-country trek of Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne, two good-natured but incredibly moronic friends who try to return a briefcase full of money to its owner.

While initial reception towards the film was mixed, Dumb and Dumber has since obtained a cult following.^[3] The movie has also spawned an animated TV series, a 2003 prequel, and plans for a sequel.

Plot[edit]

Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) and Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels) are unintelligent, socially awkward best friends living in Providence, Rhode Island. Lloyd, a limousine driver, falls in love with Mary Swanson (Lauren Holly) whom he drives to the airport. She leaves her briefcase at the terminal and Lloyd, not knowing it contains ransom money for her kidnapped husband Bobby, retrieves it and attempts to return it to her but is unsuccessful as her Aspen-bound plane has already departed.

Back at their apartment, Lloyd and Harry meet up dispirited, as they have both lost their jobs. The pair are followed by two thugs, Joe "Mental" Mentalino (Mike Starr) and J.P Shay (Karen Duffy), two of Bobby's kidnappers who are in pursuit of the briefcase. Mistaking the crooks for debt collectors, they flee the apartment with the briefcase and return later. Upset over their situation, Lloyd suggests they leave Providence and head to Aspen in pursuit of Mary, hoping that she can "plug [them] into the social pipeline" and return the briefcase. Harry initially refuses but soon agrees to Lloyd's proposal. Mental and Shay learn of the duo's intentions and follow them.

During their cross-country trip, the duo encounter a variety of incidents along the way. Posing as a hitchhiker, Mental is picked up by Harry and Lloyd, but during a stop for lunch the duo unintentionally kill him with rat poison (which Mental planned to use on them). Drawing near to 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 is able to persuade him to continue their trip after trading their van for a moped.

The duo arrive in Aspen but are unable to locate Mary. After a short scuffle, the briefcase comes open and they discover the money. Needing a place to stay, they "borrow" some of the money for a luxurious hotel room, but also buy new clothes and a Lamborghini Diablo. They discover that Mary and her family are hosting a gala and prepare to attend. At the dinner gala, Harry gets a "date" with Mary and lies to Lloyd that he has gotten him a date with her. After waiting for Mary the whole next day, Lloyd finds out Harry had betrayed him.

After incapacitating Harry by putting laxatives in his drink, 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 (Charles Rocket), a confidant of the Swansons who is behind the kidnapping of Mary's husband, arrives and demands that Lloyd give him the briefcase, only to see most of the money gone. Infuriated, Nicholas takes Lloyd and Mary hostage, as well as Harry after he returns to the hotel. After debating who to kill first, Harry allows Nicholas to shoot him. However, Harry survives, having worn a bullet-proof vest the FBI had provided. An FBI team immediately raids the hotel room and arrest Nicholas, as well as Shay. Mary and her husband Bobby are reunited.

The film ends with Harry and Lloyd wandering down a desert road. All the items they bought with the ransom money were confiscated and their moped has broken down. The two unknowingly turn down the chance to be oil boys to 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[edit]

• Jim Carrey as Lloyd Christmas; a chip-toothed, mischievous loser who has 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 driving a limousine.
• Jeff Daniels as Harry Dunne; Lloyd's best friend. A good-natured dog groomer who has a dog-shaped van. 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.
• Lauren Holly as Mary Swanson, a wealthy heiress whose husband, Bobby, has been kidnapped.
• 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.
• Mike Starr as Joe "Mental/Gas-Man" Mentalino, a criminal who works as a henchman for Nicholas Andre.
• Karen Duffy as J.P. Shay, Mental's female accomplice.
• 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.
• Cam Neely as Sea Bass, a trucker who gets into frequent confrontations with Lloyd and Harry on their way to Aspen.
• Joe Baker as Barnard
• Brad Lockerman as Bobby Swanson, Mary's husband who is kidnapped for a ransom from the Swansons.
• Lin Shaye as Mrs. Neugeboren
• Teri Garr as Helen Swanson
• Hank Brandt as Karl Swanson
• Harland Williams as Pennsylvania State Trooper
• Brady Bluhm as Billy in (Apartment) 4C, the Blind Kid
• Rob Moran as Bartender
• Lisa Stothard as Austrian Bus Stop Beauty
• Connie Sawyer as Elderly Woman
• Fred Stoller as Anxious man at phone

Production[edit]

Jeff Daniels as Harry Dunne

Jim Carrey, based on the box-office success of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), received a salary of $7 million for this film.^[4]

Steve Martin and Martin Short both turned down the role of Lloyd.^[5]

Location[edit]

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.^{[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[edit]

Dumb and Dumber: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Soundtrack album by Various Artists
Released	November 22, 1994
Genre	Soundtrack
Length	46:51
Label	RCA

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
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.

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

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[edit]

Critical response[edit]

Dumb and Dumber received mixed reviews from critics. The film currently garners an overall 63% "fresh" approval rating on the Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes.^[6] 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 "Generally unfavorable reviews".^[7]

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),^[8] most reviews were positive. Stephen Holden of The New York Times called Jim Carrey "the new Jerry Lewis,"^[9] 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.^[10]

The movie has since acquired the status of a cult classic.^[11]

Awards[edit]

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.^[12]

Box office[edit]

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.^[13]

Legacy[edit]

Animated series[edit]

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.^{[citation needed]}

Prequel[edit]

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 moderate success, grossing approximately $39.2 million worldwide against a $19 million budget, as opposed to the original film's far greater $279 million worldwide gross against a $17 million budget.

Sequel[edit]

On October 26, 2011, it was announced that Sean Anders and John Morris had been hired to write the script for a sequel to Dumb and Dumber.^[14]

On April 1, 2012, it was announced that Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels had been signed to the sequel, and that principal photography would begin in September. The Farrelly brothers will direct and write the script.^[15][16]

On September 25, 2012, The Farrelly brothers stated on their Twitter that the sequel's script is close to completion.^[17] It was also confirmed that the sequel's title will be Dumb and Dumber To [sic]. On October 1, 2012, it was reported that the script is complete and that the original actors, Carrey and Daniels, will in fact be reprising their roles. Part of the plot will reportedly involve one of the characters having sired a child and needing to find the child in order to obtain a kidney.^[18]

On January 15, 2013, it was reported that Peter Farrelly explained, "It’s going well. We have a great script and now we are just trying to get it made. I love the script. It’s exactly like the first one. We pick up 20 years later. We explain what they’ve done for the last 17 or 18 years. We take off from that and it’s just a lot of laughs. It’s at Warner Bros., and right now it’s being financed outside the studio, but it will be released by Warner Bros. And that’s all being worked out right now. If you liked Dumb and Dumber, you’ll like this because it’s the same and more. It’s really fun. It's being made through Warner Bros. but now we have several financiers that are negotiating with the studio and trying to make the best deal. Whichever one does will make the movie. It’s going to be made through Warner Bros. and released by Warner Bros. but financed by an outside financer."^[19]

On January 23, 2013, Peter Farrelly told Entertainment Weekly that the film does not have a firm green light, and that negotiations are still being worked out.^[20]

On April 18, 2013, the Farrellys used their Twitter page to announce that Australian band Empire of the Sun will be doing the music score.^[21]

On June 10, 2013, it was announced that Warner Bros. has decided not to move forward with the sequel but has allowed the film to be pitched at other studios.^[22]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Dumb and Dumber

• Dumb and Dumber at the Internet Movie Database
• Dumb and Dumber at AllRovi
• Dumb and Dumber at Rotten Tomatoes