The Fortune Cookie (1966)

Load of rubbish!!

The first must-see film of the year.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Jack Lemmon is Harry Hinkle, a CBS cameraman, who gets injured when football player Luther "Boom Boom" Jackson (Ron Rich) runs into him.Walter Matthau is Harry's lawyer brother-in-law "Whiplash Willie" Gingrich, who realizes they could make some dough with the minor injury by making it look like a bigger injury.In The Fortune Cookie (1966) we have the power trio Billy Wilder, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.You just can't go wrong with these three.This movie started the partnership of Lemmon and Matthau, who appeared in 10 films together.And the writer, alongside the director, is I.A.L. Diamond, who wrote 12 films together with Wilder.Other performances in this movie include Judi West, who's fantastic as Sandy.Ron Rich is superb as "Boom Boom".Cliff Osmond, who appeared in four Billy Wilder films, is great as Purkey.Marge Redmond is very good as Charlotte Gingrich.Sig Ruman, who passed away the next year, is terrific as Professor Winterhalter.One of the funniest scenes is with him, where he makes the diagnosis: fake.There are many other funny scenes in this movie.It is also a very intelligent movie of a topic that has some reality basis.There are those sleazebag lawyers out there working on their schemes.Of course those sleazebag lawyers aren't quite like Walter Matthau, who makes the character somewhat likable.Lemmon's character is also very interesting, who is forced to deal with moral issues.It's a real delight to watch Jack and Walter together for the first time.

......and not for the better, either. Movie NOT recommended for anyone under fifty, (I'll tell you why in a minute.).Showing my age here, but I saw this movie in 1966 with my parents. Believe it or not, the premise of this movie was a COMEDY in 1966. I mean, suing the NFL and the City of Cleveland cause a cameraman got knocked down by a running back? A lawsuit like this was considered OUTLANDISH in those days, which was why the picture was almost unbelievable in the 1960s. Nowadays it would considered routine, and that's why no one under 50 should see this film- they'd say, "What's wrong with that?" Great acting by Matthau, almost every line hysterical.Always a pleasure to watch, again and again........

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.

Another wonderful Billy Wilder comedy where an unscrupulous attorney, played by Oscar winner Walter Matthau, sues the pants off an insurance company when his brother-in-law is injured at a football game.The wonderful cast consisting of Matthau, Jack Lemmon, Judi West and others are just perfect here.This is a definite film of soul searching and doing in the end what is right.A heavily smoking Matthau(he would suffer a heart attack after finishing the film) suits the bill perfectly as a lawyer who can't be trusted. He is up to all sorts of chicanery during this film only with the intention of gaining the all-mighty dollar. Ditto for Judi West, who portrays Lemmon's ex-husband. She is now ready to stage a comeback with her ex-husband so that she can get part of the money to pursue a singing career.As for Lemmon, he shows that basic same vulnerability that we saw in "Some Like it Hot." He was always such a good natured victim, exploited for his kindness.