Greatest Film Scenes
and Moments



The Man With Two Brains (1983)

 



Written by Tim Dirks

Title Screen
Movie Title/Year and Scene Descriptions
Screenshots

The Man With Two Brains (1983)

In director Carl Reiner's sci-fi comedy:

  • the opening car interview of brilliant brain neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr (Steve Martin), a widower and the inventor of the easy-access "Screw-Top Brain" surgery technique explaining his choice of science for his career: ("I don't know if I was interested so much in the science as I was the slime that goes along with it. Snakes and frogs. And when I saw how slimy the human brain was, I-I knew that's what I wanted to do with the rest of my life")
  • the accident that claimed the life of gold-digger Dolores Benedict (Kathleen Turner)
  • and then Dr. Hfuhruhurr's series of long, complicated instructions to a little-girl bystander to call paramedics to an accident scene, who repeated or recited back his detailed directions perfectly, and then added her own medical diagnosis and criticism: ("ER, North Bank General Hospital, 932-1000. Set up O.R. 6, contact anesthesiologist Isadore Tourick, 472-2112, beep 12. Ambulance with paramedics and light IV, D-5, and W, KVO...Sounds like a subdural hematoma to me"); incensed, Hfuhruhurr barked back: "Three years of nursery school and you think you know it all. Well, you're still wet behind the ears. It's not a subdural hematoma. It's epidural. Ha!"
  • the pubic-hair shaving scene in the hospitl operating room , when Dr. Hfuhruhurr questioned his assistant orderly, who was shaving or grooming the genital area of his patient Dolores before brain surgery, in honor of Valentine's Day: ("- What is that? - It's a vagina. - I know what it is. I mean, what are you doing? - Shaving her. - This is a brain operation. - I know. - What's that supposed to be - a heart? - Yes, sir. Clive and I thought that since it's Valentine's Day, that... - You don't have to shave her anywhere. We'll be using my Cranial Screwtop method of entry into the brain. - Fine. Yes, sir. - I never wanna see that again. I suppose if it were Christmas, you'd hang ornaments on it.")
  • Hfuhruhrr's gift of a book of poems written by John Lilyson to his hospitalized wife Dolores Benedict, including "Pointy Birds": ("Oh pointy birds, oh pointy pointy, anoint my head, anointy-nointy...") - Lilyson "died in 1894. He was the first person ever to be hit by a car"; as she activated the mechanical bed's lower portion to rise - to bring him closer for their lips to kiss, he lovingly spoke: ("Poor little bird. So fragile. So naive. So childlike. So shy. So chaste. So innocent") - and they were soon married, bedside
  • the scene of seductive, gold-digging, teasing femme fatale Dolores in a skimpy nightgown with Dr. Hfuhruhrr's before their first anticipated night of sex together: ("Does this do anything for you?...Good. I want our first night together to be exciting....I hope the waiting hasn't been too hard on you. There's something I have to tell you. This fits very snug. And you may have some trouble getting it off me. You may have to tear it off my body") - he was cooperatively ready: "I can tear. I like tearing"; however, Dr. Hfuhruhurr had frustrated reactions to her feigned illness (of debilitating headaches) to delay the consummation of her marriage to him (causing him to erotically tongue an X-ray of her skull, run up walls and break doorknobs off from pent-up tension)
  • the "citizen's divorce" scene during a European business trip, when Dr. Hfuhruhurr caught his wife propositioning a client in their Viennese hotel bedroom for $15,000 to just touch her rear-end; after throwing the man out, he claimed that she was ruining their marriage, and she retorted: ("Why? Because you don't want me to work? You don't want me to earn my own money? Have my own career?"); he asserted: ("You call this a career!...Dolores, I'm making a citizen's divorce...By the powers vested in me, I hereby declare our marriage null and void. E pluribus unum")
  • the classic scene of widowed Dr. Hfuhruhurr driving with his dead ("dead drunk") wife Dolores Benedict in the seat next to him, when he was stopped by a Viennese Austrian policeman (Warwick Sims) for speeding; he was required to pass an impossible drunk-driving test with these instructions: ("Get out of the car. Stretch out your arms and touch your nose with your finger. Now walk this white line. Come back. On your hands. One hand. Now, roll over, turn over and flip-flop. All right. Now juggle these, do a tap dance and sing the 'Catalina Magdalena Hoopensteiner Wallendiner' song"); Dr. Hfuhruhurr passed and was not suspected of being drunk, but complained: "God damn, your drug tests are hard!"
"Citizen's Divorce" Scene
Impossible Drunk-Driving Test
  • Hfuhruhurr's love affair after he realized he could communicate telepathically with pickled disembodied brain # 21 (inside a jar in a Vienna doctor's laboratory), named Anne Uumellmahaye (voice of Sissy Spacek), who at first introduced herself: ("Anne. Anne Uumellmahaye"); he spelled it out for confirmation: ("U-U-M-E-L-L-M-A-H-A-Y-E") - and soon, he placed a pair of wax rubber lips on her to kiss
  • also the funny encounter, in his search for a body for his 'brain' soulmate, with a dumb, big-breasted, aggravatingly-voiced American hooker named Fran (Randi Brooks) and her reaction to being injected with window cleaner in her behind so that he could insert Anne's brain into her body: "I don't mind!"
  • the revelation of the identity of the serial Elevator Killer who killed Dolores: Merv Griffin (Himself) in a cameo role, who explained: ("I've always just loved to kill. I've really enjoyed it. But then I got famous, and - it's just too hard for me. And so many witnesses. I mean, everybody recognized me. I couldn't even work anymore. I'd hear: 'Who's that lurking over there? Isn't that Merv Griffin?'")
  • and the funny ending - after Anne's brain had been transplanted into Dolores' body - in which Anne's compulsive overeating caused Dolores' body to inflate - Hfuhruhurr sweetly overlooked her weight problem (although he struggled to carry her over the threshold after their wedding -- with his knees buckling) during the end credits, with the statement: ("Merv Griffin did not turn himself in and is at large. If you have any information as to his whereabouts, call your local theatre manager")

Dr. Hfuhruhurr Explaining Career Choice

Death of Dolores Benedict

Instructions for Paramedic

Pubic Hair Shaving

Kissing Patient

Dolores - Seductive and Teasing

Licking X-ray of Dolores' Skull


Love Affair with Disembodied Brain

Fran (Randi Brooks)

Serial Elevator Killer - Merv Griffin

Ending

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