The Man with Two Brains Is Completely Ridiculous and That's Why It Works
Nerdy Up North Podcast
The setup
Brilliant brain surgeon Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr falls for the beautiful Dolores Benedict after saving her life, only to discover that she is manipulative, cruel and far more interested in controlling him than actually loving him. Things become even stranger when Michael meets another scientist who has discovered a way to keep human brains alive and he finds himself falling in love with a disembodied brain.
I remembered The Man with Two Brains as something I watched when I was younger, but watching it again made me realise two things. First, I definitely should not have been watching this as a kid. Second, this is still ridiculously funny.
It has almost every kind of comedy thrown into it. There is slapstick, stupid wordplay, physical comedy, dad jokes, completely ridiculous situations and moments that feel like they were created purely because somebody thought they would be funny.
Steve Martin is completely committed to every bit. That is what makes this kind of film work. If the actors acted like they knew everything was stupid, the whole thing would fall apart. Instead he treats every ridiculous situation like it is completely serious.
Kathleen Turner is just as important because she absolutely holds her own against him. Dolores could easily have just been the attractive woman standing next to Steve Martin, but Turner makes her genuinely funny and completely horrible at the same time.
David Warner is brilliant as well. Some of the scenes between him and Martin are basically two great actors having completely ridiculous arguments while somehow making them believable.
There is also a weird Frankenstein story hiding underneath everything. You have scientists playing God, experiments with brains and Michael eventually trying to find a body for the woman he has fallen in love with. It sounds like horror when you describe it, but the comedy completely takes over.
It is definitely a film from another time. There are jokes, nudity and scenes that caught me completely off guard because my childhood memory had apparently decided this was a family comedy.
But I laughed all the way through it. There is something I really miss about films being allowed to have one completely stupid idea and just fully committing to it.
Positives
Steve Martin giving everything to the physical comedy; Kathleen Turner matching him scene for scene; David Warner; completely ridiculous humour; brilliant running jokes; a genuinely bizarre concept; loads of different styles of comedy; huge nostalgia value.
Negatives
Some jokes and sexual humour have definitely dated; absolutely not as family friendly as childhood memories might suggest; the humour is so deliberately stupid that it simply won't work for everyone.
Verdict
The Man with Two Brains is ridiculous, immature, clever, stupid and completely committed to its own nonsense. Steve Martin is on fire, Kathleen Turner is brilliant and the whole thing feels like a type of comedy we just don't get very often anymore. If you like early Steve Martin and haven't seen this, fix that.
