The Fortune Cookie




Of course he's upset. He's a lawyer - he's paid to be upset.

Billy Wilder does something of a repeat of The Apartment, but something is lost in the process.

When a cameraman named Harry Hinkle (Jack Lemmon) is bowled over at a football game, Whiplash Willie (Walter Matthau), his attorney brother-in-law, arranges to sue the insurance companies big. Harry is a nice guy and initially resists Willie's pleas to pretend to be hurt more than he really is. However, promises that his faithless but beautiful wife (Judi West) will come back have Harry reluctantly going along with Willie's plans. Meanwhile, Boom Boom Jackson (Ron Rich), the star football player that ran into Harry, is wallowing in guilt as he tries to make everything up to Harry.

The concept isn't exactly quick for making big laughs, but never let it be said that Billy Wilder didn't know how to write a comedy. At points it's almost too funny, because the humor comes in bursts that makes the rest trudge along in comparison. The movie is really too long for what it tries for; it probably would've been near perfect at an hour and a half. Still, it's practically worth it all just to see Harry Hinkle, the overly optimistic nice guy that he is, dancing around in his electric wheelchair whenever he catches news of his wife. But the real show stealer is just about any scene that Whiplash Willie happens to be in. The guy is so unabashedly flaky, but written so fast and smooth (being a lord of loopholes) that he's far too hilarious to hate, even with implications of him once having an affair with Harry's wife. Although she's every bit the floozy she's cracked up to be, the final rebuke still does seem a bit too cruel.

But there's a strict level of professionalism that can be expected with Wilder's direction. Everything from the opening football game to the medical stuff all rings with truth, even when The Fortune Cookie isn't being all that serious. The tone isn't exactly light-hearted, but it's hardly stiff and sober either. It's really just a story about the inevitable triumph of the good guy over the bad people, reinforcing the idea that you can't fool everyone forever, and it's probably far better that way. The side stuff like Boom Boom Jackson's subplot is also more soulful than it is funny, underlining good people getting dragged down by one means or another.

Lemmon is the main character and perhaps a bit boring when compared to some of the others, but he shines in his own "nice guy in a self-induced pinch" sort of way. Or maybe it just seems like that because Mathau is constantly overshadowing him with the far juicier part. Mathau more than deserved his Best Supporting Actor Oscar, as he's simply nothing more than absolutely sidesplitting. This was their first on screen pairing in what would become a deep friendship that spanned eleven movies together. The rest of the cast put in great turns as well, especially Ron Rich as the troubled Boom Boom Jackson, and Judi West as the deceptively silky former Mrs. Hinkle.

It's a relatively obscure movie and may really have been the beginning of Billy Wilder's downfall, but The Fortune Cookie manages to give a favorable reading and tastes good on top of it.



-The Gnome