The Man With Two Brains

"German Detective: "You're playing God!" Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr: "Somebody's got to!""

A 1983 comedy film starring Steve Martin as Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr (it's pronounced exactly how it's spelled), a brilliant but arrogant neurosurgeon newly married to a monstrous gold-digging Black Widow (Kathleen Turner), who belatedly meets and falls in love with his soulmate, Anne Uumellmahaye (Sissy Spacek) whose one tiny defect is that she's a disembodied brain in a jar. Hfuhruhurr naturally attempts to find a body into which to transplant her. Hilarity Ensues. (No, really!)

Like all of Martin's early movie work, it's pretty much gag-a-minute, with two particular highlights being Hfuhruhurr facing the world's strictest drunk-driving test, and the identity of The Elevator Killer.


 * And I Must Scream: Since she lacks a body, let alone sensory organs, Anne can't see, hear, feel, or sense anything at all aside from Hfuhruhurr's voice . It's no small miracle she remained sane! Now consider all the brains Necessiter keeps in jars...
 * Bigger on the Inside: Dr. Necessiter's apartment.
 * Black Widow: Dolores.
 * Brain In a Jar: Lots of them.
 * The Cameo:, who turns out to be the Elevator Killer.
 * Cargo Ship: A good and long part of the movie involves Hfuhruhurr trying to be romantic with Anne's Brain In a Jar, including taking her rowing and putting wax lips on the glass. It all stays PG, though.
 * Came Back Wrong: Necessiter's previous attempts to resurrect a brain-in-a-jar in a new living body. He probably shouldn't have tried to transplant a brilliant doctor into a gorilla...
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Dr. Hfuhruhurr.
 * Companion Cube: Hfuhruhurr carries around a little Barbie doll representing his first, deceased wife, and often speaks to it as though it were really her. Anne's jar could also qualify.
 * Convenient Coma: After.
 * Cute but Cacophonic: A prostitute that Hfuhruhurr.
 * Dead Man Writing
 * Evilutionary Biologist: Necessiter, though his experiments are solely For Science!! instead of any actual evil, and he's completely unaware that (at least some of) his brains are still fully conscious.
 * Femme Fatale: Dolores to the point of (intentional) parody.
 * Fun with Foreign Languages
 * Fun with Subtitles
 * Gold Digger: Dolores, with a vengeance.
 * A God Am I: Hfuhruhurr gets a wee bit unhinged when
 * Groin Attack: Hfuhruhurr does this to Dolores while they scuffle. He nails her right in the balls.
 * Heel Realization: Hfuhruhurr very nearly.
 * Homage: Donovan's Brain. It's Dr. Hfuhruhurr's favorite film, too.
 * Insufferable Genius
 * Love Makes You Evil: Or at least willing to kill.
 * Little Professor Dialog
 * Mad Scientist: ...several. Necessiter is only the most obvious one.
 * Mindlink Mates: Hfuhruhurr and Anne, natch. Why they share this Psychic Link is never explained.
 * The Mourning After: Hfuhruhurr for his first wife.
 * Ms. Fanservice: Dolores, again, it's parodied. She's so hot, in a deleted scene she makes a bellhop instantly go through puberty.
 * N-Word Privileges: Parodied when Dolores growls at Hfuhruhurr, "I'll get you for this, you nigger kike wop!"
 * Non-Fatal Explosions: Combined with Soft Water.
 * Ramming Always Works: The Viennese police ask Necessiter's neighbor for a battering ram to break into the doctor's apartment, and get one. Through a series of errors, they ram all the way across and fly out the building into a pool.
 * Right Through the Wall: Necessiter's awesome apartment has "stone walls" made of paper. His butler even punches through one to demonstrate. He does not get along well with his neighbors.
 * Selective Obliviousness: Hfuhruhurr never sees, or unwittingly chooses not to see, that Dolores is cheating on him with nearly every male she comes across.
 * Serial Killer: The Elevator Killer, who injects window cleaner into his victims.
 * Sorry, Ociffer...: Dr Hfuhruhurr is stopped by a traffic cop while attending a conference in Austria; when asked if he has been drinking, he replies "No, I dron't dink... don't drink".
 * Switch to English: Dr. Hfuhruhurr gets pulled over by a German-speaking policeman. When he replies to the policeman in English, the policeman says, "Oh, you speak English! Good!" and directs his partner to turn off the subtitles.
 * Talking to the Dead: Hfuhruhurr asks the soul of his departed former wife for a little sign, even the smallest sign, that she disapproves his marriage to Dolores. After the entire house shakes and spectral voices wail "NOOOOOO!" and short out the lights for a minute or two, he decides that not getting even a little sign from her means she's OK with it.
 * Later, he's slightly upset that she didn't give him any warning.
 * The Unpronounceable: "Hfuhruhurr." Various characters take unsuccessful stabs at it, though the doctor claims it's pronounced exactly as it's spelled. He pronounces it "Hoff-hhhhaaarrrrrr." Anne Uumellmahaye is another example, though her name is pronounced more or less how it's spelled: "Uuuuhhhh-mell-muh-hay." The fact that they can both pronounce each other's names perfectly on the first attempt is a sign that they're soulmates.