Man with Two Brains, The
Entry updated 30 January 2017. Tagged: Film.
Film (1983). Aspen Film Society. Directed by Carl Reiner. Written by Reiner, Steve Martin, George Gipe. Cast includes Steve Martin, Kathleen Turner and David Warner. 93 minutes, cut to 86 minutes. Colour.
Pastiche is the essence of most Steve Martin comedies; his self-indulgent acting style becomes rapidly tiresome when his performances are not focused by a good director, but Reiner is good, and this is a genuinely funny film spoofing the disembodied-brain Gothic tradition of Donovan's Brain (1953). Kathleen Turner plays the man-destroying bitch whom brain surgeon Hfuhruhurr (Martin) falls in love with and marries, though she refuses sex. He transfers his affections to a bodiless brain, provided by a Mad Scientist (Warner), with which he forms a telepathic relationship. The wife is killed by a serial murderer, Hfuhruhurr grafts the beloved brain into her head, and all ends happily. [PN]
see also: Brain in a Box.
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