Twins promotional bath towel
Twins is a 1988 comedy film produced and directed by Ivan Reitman about unlikely twins (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito) who were separated at birth. The core of the film is the relationship between DeVito's streetwise character and Arnold's intellectual persona. The original music score was composed by Georges Delerue and Randy Edelman. It can be viewed daily on ITV2.
Plot
Julius and Vincent Benedict are fraternal twins; the results of a secret experiment carried out at a genetics laboratory to produce the perfect child, using sperm donated by six different fathers. The mother, Mary Ann Benedict (who was thought to have died while giving birth to Vincent and Julius) was told that the children died at birth. Accepting this, she had gone on to become a successful artist. The program was considered a failure and shut down because of the conception of the twins, one inheriting the "desirable traits", and the other, the "genetic trash".
In fact, the children both survived. Vincent was placed in an orphanage run by nuns in Los Angeles, California whilst Julius was taken to an unnamed South Pacific island and raised by Professor Werner (one of the scientists involved in the experiment) like a modern Doc Savage to become highly intelligent, physically very strong and spiritually pure. He learned to speak twelve languages, and excelled in mathematics, history, science and literature. He was not told about his younger brother until his 35th birthday.[1]
In Los Angeles, with no-one but himself to rely on, Vincent escaped from the orphanage as soon as he was old enough and developed into the ultimate lowlife, involved in shady business deals and car theft and in debt to loan sharks. He is also a womanizer and a smart aleck with a lust for money. He is about to be beaten up by the loan sharks when he is arrested for unpaid parking fines.
Julius is told about his unknown brother by Werner, and comes to Los Angeles to look for him. Highly intelligent, but extremely naïve about the real world his more worldly brother inhabits, he bails Vincent out of jail, and meets Vincent's on-off-on girlfriend Linda Mason. Knowing little about women, Julius doesn't understand the flirtatious advances of her blonde sister Marnie (who dislikes Vincent), but eventually falls in love with her.
Using a stolen Cadillac that's carrying a secret prototype fuel injector, which Vincent is delivering to a rival industrialist in Houston, Texas, the two couples go on a cross-country journey to track down the scientist who was in charge of the experiment, and pressure him to reveal the location of their mother, who they find out has founded an art colony. Visiting the colony, they're informed their mother died and leave. In reality, the woman who told them of the passing is in fact their mother, but she didn't believe the story, fearing they were land speculators and since she didn't even knew she had twins. Little do they know that the real contract delivery man for the injector, a hitman known only as "The Webster", is tracking them. This man has the uncomfortable habit of killing the people who cross him in his business (including his contractors) if they see his face, in order to preserve his identity.
While Julius seems to accept their mother's death, Vincent however is angry and disappointed, taking it out on Linda and Julius. Vincent storms off, leaving Julius and the girls stranded in New Mexico, and delivers the stolen property in return for five million dollars. But as Vincent is about to return home with the money, the industrialist, Donald "Beetroot" McKinley, is shot and killed by the Webster. Julius saves him from being killed by the Webster, after Linda told him where Vincent was going despite promising earlier that she wouldn't tell. A cat-and-mouse chase ensues, but Julius is able to stall the Webster long enough for Vincent to release a heavy chain onto his head, killing the Webster and buring him in a mountain of chains. Vincent and Julius make amends, and Julius implores a reluctant Vincent to return the money and the stolen engine. Vincent agrees, but secretly skims off one million.
They return the money, marry the sisters, and use the $50,000 reward money to start up a legitimate consulting business, utilizing Julius's knowledge and Vincent's questionable business savvy. As a result of the publicity, their mother tracks them down and they are tearfully reunited (after she tracks down the scientist who told her they died and punches him for lying to her). In the end, both brothers end up having pairs of twins with their respective wives.
Production
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito, and Hulk Hogan have all revealed in interviews that Schwarzenegger and DeVito were given the option of doing this movie or Suburban Commando.[citation needed] Had DeVito and Schwarzenegger made Suburban Commando, Hulk Hogan and Christopher Lloyd would have made this movie.[citation needed] Only Hogan and DeVito state that Vincent would have been hassled by horse racing bookies instead of loan sharks.
Cast
See also
References
External links
