MisterWhiplash
Jack Lemmon's cameraman Hinkle didn't know he was going to get pummeled on the field by a football player moving way too fast. But he also didn't know that his brother in law, good old Gingrich (man that name, hey, who knew then what we know now), a lawyer who is known as a whiplash-style bottom-feeder, sees an opportunity: via an old injury from when he was a kid, make him THE guy to go up against the insurance company where those grumps never pay out! Except that, yeah, that's how Gingrich sees it, and puts forward the scam to make Hinkle seem totally nerve damaged and practically crippled by what happened to sue the companies involved with the TV network and so on. What could go wrong? How about Hinkle's ex, who Hinkle is no fan of in the slightest (the "B" word comes out and this is 1966, right when this was just allowed for like the first time almost in a movie), and the football player who tackled Hinkle, who is the one really genuine guy out to do whatever he can to make up for what he did. Will he be ruined too, by way of the guilt eating him up inside? It's hard not to compare this to another cynical view of humanity in action, Ace in the Hole, where Billy Wilder's scope was about the press and how prescient that seemed to sensationalized news coverage. I think Fortune Cookie is funnier, though only a little, as it has stretches where Wilder (and co-writer Diamonds) is more comfortable having his characters settling in to the fakery that they set up for themselves, with Matthau, earning the hell his Oscar for his work here, leading the orchestration of the scam and having to keep it up with the other lawyers, the football player, and two detectives doing an almost comical level of surveillance. But it's no less cutting a view of how people try and rationalize to themselves what is right and what is wrong as Ace was; another film decades later, American Hustle, would look at the same world but even deeper into the con part of it, though a difference here is that Wilder expects other characters (for the most part) will believe the injuries Hinkle carries with him.In this sense it's also an off-shoot of Irma la Douce, however I prefer this take on people creating fake worlds since that one the onus was on one character, and it was just too farcical to take seriously (at least for my taste, it may vary for others). With The Fortune Cookie, part of the success is Lemmon and Mathtau together, but it's also how other characters look at them; in a way this movie works not just because of them, but because of Ron Rich as the football player, as the straight man who is good enough to react to a force of acting nature like Lemmon. They all make this story into a rich black comedy where the tone is maybe saltier than what Wilder did before (or it just fits into what he did already, only now it's into the world of lawyers and how funny it is to see guys in a room suss out a settlement, which you wouldn't think is funny but... Matthau). Adding to all of this is a great structure, separated by title cards like it's a book, but each chapter is humorous too.Is it a little bleak? Yeah, maybe. But by the end Wilder does provide not so much hope but a part of the reality that is somewhat reassuring: if you can fess up to what you did, and you're not a d*** about it, it opens up a friendship or connection to another person. Hint: it's not with the ex-wife.
ironhorse_iv
Marked as the first pairing of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, who subsequently worked together on 11 future additional films, the Fortune Cookie directed by Billy Wilder, was a tasty delight. The movie tells the story of a crooked lawyer, Willie Gingrich (Walter Matthau) whom persuades his brother-in-law, a CBS sport-cameraman Harry Hinkle (Jack Lemmon), to feign a serious injury, so that, both can receive a huge indemnity from the insurance company. Without spoiling the movie, too much, I have to say, while it's not the funniest movie, in Billy Wilder's filmography, but it's by far, my favorite John Lemmon & Billy Wilder film, they shot together. Jack Lemmon was near-perfect in this film. He wasn't so over the top, here, like his previous roles. The way, he acted like he was injury, honestly made me believe, he was indeed stuck being wheelchair bound, at times. Walter Matthau as Willie Gingrich, was just as hysterical and wonderful as Jack Lemmon. Matthau won his Academy Award Oscar for Best Supporting Actor playing bottom feeding lawyer, Whiplash Willie from this film. I think he deserve that win, big time. Walter Matthau really put, everything in this role. Mad props, go to the fact that Walter return to the role, after suffering a heart attack. He had slimmed from 190 to 160 pounds by the time filming was completed, and had to wear a heavy black coat to conceal the weight loss. That's shows, how driven, he was, to this film. Despite, his character being a shyster, Walter had enough charm with his attitude, to make Whiplash Willie, a bit likable. The chemistry between Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau is so far, the best thing in the film. They bonded so well. So, it was no surprise that they would remain friends the rest of their lives. The snobbish Lemmon and the bad-tempered Matthau provided the perfect counter-point. The supporting characters were pretty good, as well. While, his character was a bit underdeveloped, I kinda Ron Rich as Luther "Boom-Boom" Jackson. A lot of people, criticize his character as a man-servant, but I don't think it, that way. He felt guilty, for 'injuring', Harry, so he just wanted to help. He had that All-American Boy-Scout charm. It hasn't nothing to do with his race. One of my favorite characters in this film has to be Cliff Osmond as Chester Purkey, Private Eye Insurance investigator. I love the whole cat-and-mouse game starts between him and Gingrich. The only character that I didn't like, was Judi West as Sadie Hinkle. It wasn't, because her character was one-dimensional selfish or the actress portraying her didn't do a good job. It was, because how late, in the film, she appeared. For somebody, that supposed help, the good nature, Harry to go along with the scheme. She really doesn't get, much screen-time for odd reason. While, this movie has some of Billy Wilder's most famous trademarks, such as feature characters who try to change their identity, women often represented as dangerous, lust, greed and manipulative, and last often cynical but humorous, sweet and sour dialogue. There was one thing that this movie was missing from the great Hollywood provocateur. It didn't have that great narration. With no narration, the movie moves like a book, instead of a film; from chapter title screen to chapter title screen. While, this seem like nitpicking. The way, the film does its story-telling, makes it seem like the source was taken from a famous book, than an original work. It was a bit weird. This movie might be one of the very earlier films, that I can remember, that had product placement. Like Wilder's previous film, 1961's One, Two, Three, which feature the Coca-Cola company; this film has the National Football League (NFL), and Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) intertwining with the script; giving the movie, a sense of realism. While the film does somewhat make those companies look bad, due to how stubborn, their insurance companies were; it does give some insight, of what these companies were going, through at, the time. The first Super Bowl was only a year, away after all. I like how Billy Wilder shot the opening sequence during an actual Vikings-Browns game on October 31, 1965. Surprising, this might be the only footage of that game, as networks at the time, commonly wiped broadcast sports tapes at the time, and recorded over with different content to save cost. So, if you ever, like to see an old school football game, before the 1970 merger. Between the NFL and AFL (American Football League). Here is your chance! Even if you're not a football fan, this is a great film. The movie had a great story that influence other works, such as 1990's TV Shows like Simpsons and Wing's episodes, where they tackle a similar premise. Overall: The fortune cookie is worth a bite, into. It is poignant as it is funny, and I highly recommend it to any generation.
Steffi_P
Whereas these days a successful movie series means endless spin-offs and sequels, there was a time when there were brilliant creative teams who got together time and again, producing a kind of motion picture brand that you could trust. The series of comedies written by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, directed by Wilder and (many of them) starring Jack Lemmon are such neat works of professionalism and congruent talent that during their heyday in the 1960s they provided a guarantee of smoothly intelligent yet undemanding entertainment.Billy Wilder had one of the most apparently laid back directorial styles of his era. He barely moves the camera, and his shots tend last as long as is practical. But within this fixed frame he juggles everything with expertise. He uses the cinemascope ratio to keep various elements on the screen – for example the camera and microphones which keep stealing into shot as a reminder of the private eyes that are bugging the flat. This idea of keeping things in view without making them centre of attention also applies to Wilder's presentation of comedy. There's a great example where Walter Matthau is on the phone at one edge of the frame, while the rest of the screen reveals the interior of his home. His children skate around while his wife prepares dinner, which culminates in an incidental gag, punctuating the scene, while Matthau's phone conversation remains what the scene is about. This is very much Wilder's way – not to make the jokes leap out at you but to weave them into the background, noticeable but never forced.Lead man Jack Lemmon was by now a familiar piece of Wilder furniture, and you can see why. He has a slightly exaggerated look, with a duck-like face and a manic way of moving, and yet he can also "do normal" and convince us that he is an everyman. Still, this time around he is upstaged by an exuberant Walter Matthau. There are many great facets to Matthau's performance – his sudden overt gestures, his ability to move his hat as if it were part of his body, the way he paces around, managing to get closest to the camera as his voice reaches a bizarre crescendo or his facial expression is at its most absurdly comical. However I think what really makes him fit in here is the way, although he gets all the funniest lines, he doesn't show them off, simply delivering them as if they were the natural thing for his character to say, which of course makes them all the funnier. It's also a lot like Wilder's style of weaving the comedy into the narrative material rather than hammering the jokes home.But what about this narrative material, sharply scripted by Wilder and Diamond? The Fortune Cookie is ostensibly about an insurance scam, but gradually the friendship between Jack Lemmon and the football player who accidentally injured him emerges as the main story arc. It's almost like a love story between two men. I'm not implying anything homoerotic here, simply that the story is structured like a romance with a friendship taking the place of the love angle. The fact that Boom Boom (played by the little-known Ron Rich) is black is not drawn attention to or made an issue of, and this is rather interesting. This picture was made at the height of the civil rights movement, but it is not making an overt point about race, nor is it even a political picture. But it works as a nicely harmonious accompaniment to what was going on in the streets at the time. Wilder comedies could calmly cover areas other pictures couldn't even touch without making a mess.
