The Man With Two Brains

Carl Reiner, USA 1983, 93 minutes

Any film which features a talking brain, a serial elevator killer and a surgeon going by the name of Hfuhruhurr is either going to be hilariously funny or fall as flat as a dead pilchard. Luckily this film falls in the former. Steve Martin stars as the man with the incredibly unlikely moniker: Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr, the world's leading brain surgeon and inventor of the screw-top, zip-lock technique for neuro-surgery.

Plot is mainly irrelevant in this screwball slapstick, but for what it's worth, this is a brief summary: boy meets girl; boy runs over girl; they fall in love; they get married; they go on honeymoon; boy gets taken into the laboratory of certified boffin; boy meets disembodied brain floating in jar. Tragedy awaits...

Steve Martin plays the physical comedy well and Kathleen Turner simply oozes sexual appeal as "the scum queen". Sissy Spacek, as the voice of the equally improbably named Anne Uumellmahaye, has a slightly more limited part yet manages to sound charming and attractive anyway. Where Carl Reiner's film fails slightly is in its overenthusiasm to get to the next gag, pulling the plot to pieces. Nevertheless this is one of Martin and Reiner's better collaborations and well worth watching.

"A milestone in dumb comedy. ****" - Empire

Review by Neil Chue Hong
Taken from EUFS Programme 1996-97