Product Description

Widowed, world-famous neurosurgeon Michael Hfuhruhurr (Steve Martin) is trapped in a loveless marriage with Dolores Benedict (Kathleen Turner), who is only interested in Hfuhruhurr's money. On a trip to Vienna to attend a medical conference, Hfuhruhurr falls in love with a bottled brain (voiced by Sissy Spacek), and finds himself in the middle of murders committed by the elevator killer. Year: 1983 Director: Carl Reiner Starring: Steve Martin, Kathleen Turner, David Warner, Paul Benedict, Richard Brestoff, James Cromwell

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24247 in DVD
• Brand: WARNER HOME VIDEO
• Released on: 1999-03-30
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 93 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
Meet Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr (Steve Martin), the famous brain surgeon. Perhaps the name is not unfamiliar, though it is unpronounceable; the good doctor is the inventor of the celebrated "screw-top" method of brain surgery, in which the top of the skull twists off as easily as the lid of a pickle jar. The man may be a medical genius, but his talent for love leaves something to be desired, which explains his marriage to a gold-digging vixen (Kathleen Turner). Ah, but Dr. Hfuhruhurr may yet find true love, in the form of the disembodied brain he discovers in the lab of a mad scientist--David Warner, gone the Frankenstein route. (Lovely image: Hfuhruhurr in a rowboat, taking the brain out for a romantic ride on the lake.) Thus, in its own utterly goofy way, does The Man with Two Brains delve into the eternal dilemma of male indecision: does a man fall in love with a woman's body, or with her mind? Along the way, of course, there are gags both highbrow and very, very lowbrow, a mind-body split that might be why critics have tended to prefer the more sophisticated slapstick of All of Me (directed, like this film, by Carl Reiner) and Roxanne among the early Steve Martin outings. Still, this is one of Martin's funniest pictures, and a game Kathleen Turner, fresh off her Body Heat success, ably spoofs her own sultry image. The cerebral love object is voiced by Sissy Spacek. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews

Nice movie, bare bones DVD
This is a nice Steve Martin movie, with some good laughs. It's enjoyable and funny. Not the funniest thing ever, but certainly not bad. I'd give it 4 stars.

The DVD is the simplest I've seen. The sound is in mono (! ), there are no special features, no subtitles, nothing. There is a scene selection menu, which is entirely textual. There's supposed to be close captioning, but I have no idea how to get at that. I wish they had normal subtitles.

In short, there's a reason that this DVD is inexpensive, but this doesn't detract much from the enjoyable movie (except that I would have liked subtitles, as English is not my native language, and having things spelled out helps).

"Into the mud, Scum Queen!"
I give this movie four stars, but three stars for the release. I don't understand why this movie couldn't be released with both wide screen and full screen format, but there you go. With this DVD, we only get the full screen release. That doesn't take away from how funny the movie is, and maybe I am just being nit picky as is my way sometimes....

Anyway, Steve Martin stars as Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr, a world-renowned brain surgeon, who has developed a new method of brain surgery called the cranial screw top method. It involves unscrewing the top of a person's skull for easy access and much faster recovery time.

Suffering the recent loss of his wife, he accidentally hits a woman named Dolores, played by Kathleen Turner, with his car. She suffers a massive head injury, and Steve Martin is the only one who can save her. She also bears a remarkable resemblance to his deceased wife. He saves her, they fall in love, and get married. Only problem is she is a conniving, cheating, lying, evil woman who's main interest is money and infuriating her husbands, making the veins stand out on their foreheads.

During their honeymoon trip to Europe, Dr. Hfuhruhurr meets a fellow scientist who has perfected a method of keeping brains alive in jars. During a visit, one of these brains, that of a woman, begins to talk to him, through telepathy of some sort, and they develop a relationship. Realizing his feelings are growing for this bodiless brain, he drifts away from his wife and even begins scheming to replace his wife's brain with that of Anne, the brain in the jar.

There's a lot more, but that's the gist. This is a very funny sci-fi comedy movie, in the vein of a Young Frankenstein, but not as good. This is what I call 'old style' Steve Martin, the more rowdy, raucous, animated Steve from the old days of SNL and The Jerk, before he became more refined and sophisticated. I still think he's funny now, but I just never got into that whole Father of the Bride/LA Story comedy. Lots of sight gags, some slapstick and profanity, and a little nudity, which give this movie an R rating. No extras, no wide screen format, but still a lot of fun. A good, stupid adult comedy with one of my favorite lines that I think only Steve Martin could have delivered as well as he did which is the quote I used in the title of this review.

The DVD is missing a few scenes from the movie...
Although I enjoyed this movie, I wanted to make any potential buyers aware that the DVD is missing a few scenes from the original movie: The scene where the Bellboy in the elevator goes through puberty in 10 seconds is missing, and the whole sequence where Ann Uh-Mel-Muh-Hay's brain is damaged and she forgets the letter "Z" ("A ebra lives in a oo") is missing.

Other than that the DVD is a good transfer of the movie, and I highly recommend it.