The Man with Two Brains (1983)

Easily the best collaboration between Martin and Reiner in their long movie errm...collaborations. Its Martin's second zany wacky off the wall movie after 'The Jerk' which wasn't as madcap as this. In this work of genius Martin is set free to basically come up with as much lunacy as he possibly can and boy does he.

The plot is somewhat sensible I guess, a brain surgeon falls for the sexy Kathleen Turner only to eventually discover she is a gold digger and doesn't give a shit about anyone really. In the mean time Martin falls in love with a disembodied brain (in a jar) and decides to try and rescue it with a new fresh sexy body.

The whole idea is basically a B-movie homage to various ridiculous horror concepts and at the same time an influence for many future raunchy trashy 80's teen comedies, it serves dual purpose. Its not exactly a full spoof but it comes close at times, its just an insane comedy with surreal touches of outlandish humour that borders on spoof.

Most of the funny moments tend to be sexual innuendo or sight gags, some childish some clever and witty, whilst others are clearly in there just for the hell of it, probably created on the spot. Take Martin's character name for instance...'Dr Hfuhruhurr', we here Martin say his name properly right at the start but from then on almost everybody pronounces it differently as they struggle to say it, most just give up. This is such a stupid gag ,its infantile, but it works so brilliantly every time yet you don't really know why. You know its stupid but seeing all the various characters pronounce it so randomly is just so fudging funny. The joke is even extended to a few other characters also, you'd think it would get old but it still manages to make you smile.

What hit me was how old the film looked, it was released in 83 but it looks like a 70's flick to me. Everything really looks so dated nowadays but I think some of it is deliberate, made to look cheap like an old fashioned mad scientist movie. Naturally the fake castle laboratory within the apartment (nice switch) is the cheesy stereotypical mad scientist vibe for this kind of thing. I like how they include that simply for that reason and actually say that in the film hehe could almost be a Leslie Nielsen vehicle.

Its also easy to forget how hot Turner was back in the day, she smoulders here as the evil temptress or black widow. I also like the various bits of ass on display too (yeah sue me). I do recall watching this as a kid and thinking it was a dirty film, to a kid the material shown is quite kinky and revealing for sure, the dialog is also pretty smutty and only now as an adult do I appreciate it, much like all the humour.

This has to be Martin's best film or close to, its such a shame he never really did anymore off the wall flicks like this. There is so much that works here, so many little gags and visual nuggets that are admittedly so daft (the very quick human pinball scene) you just can't help but like it (unless you dislike Steve Martin's style of course). Its rude crazy and predictable (with a brief bit of in your face racism!) but for me its probably one of the best comedies made.

'The only time we doctors should accept death is when it's caused by our own incompetence'

10/10