The Fortune Cookie

Plot synopsis:
CBS cameraman Harry Hinkle (Jack Lemmon) gets injured when football player Luther "Boom Boom" Jackson (Ron Rich) of the Cleveland Browns runs into him while he is running a hand-held sideline camera during a home game at Municipal Stadium. Harry's injuries are minor, but his conniving lawyer brother-in-law William H. "Whiplash Willie" Gingrich (Walter Matthau) convinces him to pretend that his leg and hand have been partially paralyzed, so they can receive a huge indemnity from the insurance company. Harry reluctantly goes along with the scheme because he is still in love with his ex-wife, Sandy (Judi West), and being injured might bring her back.
The insurance company lawyers at O'Brien, Thompson and Kincaid (Harry Holcombe, Les Tremayne, and Lauren Gilbert) suspect that the paralysis is a fake. All but one of their medical experts say that it is real, convinced by the remnants of a compressed vertebra Hinkle suffered as a child, and Hinkle's responses, helped by the numbing shots of novocaine Gingrich has had a paroled dentist (Ned Glass) give him. The one holdout, German Professor Winterhalter (Sig Ruman), is convinced that Hinkle is a fake.
With no medical evidence to base their case on, O'Brien, Thompson and Kincaid hire Cleveland's best private detective, Chester Purkey (Cliff Osmond), to keep Hinkle under constant surveillance. However, Gingrich sees Purkey entering the apartment building across the street and lets Hinkle know they are being watched and recorded – and after Sandy returns, warns him not to indulge in any hanky-panky with her. Knowing now that he has a way to feed the insurance company lawyers misinformation, through the watching P.I.s, he incorporates the "Harry Hinkle Foundation", a non-profit charity to which all the proceeds of any settlement are to go, above and beyond actual medical expenses. When Sandy questions Gingrich about this in private, he tells her that it's just a scam to put pressure on the insurance company to settle, and that there will be enough money in the settlement for everyone to get some.
Hinkle begins to enjoy having Sandy back again, but he also starts to see how Boom-Boom's guilt over the accident is affecting him, especially when he is booed by the fans for his lackluster performance on the field, and then grounded by the team for getting drunk and involved in a bar fight. Hinkle wants Gingirch to help out Boom-Boom by representing him, but, to Hinkle's displeasure, Gingrich says he is too busy negotiating with O'Brien, Thompson & Kincaid. Hinkle also finds out that Sandy is back by his side strictly out of greed, to get enough money to put on a first class singing act and play the Persian Room.
Hinkle shows up with the $200,000 settlement check, and shouts up from the street to Purkey that the game is over. When Gingrich brings the check upstairs, Hinkle is distressed by the avaricious behavior of Sandy. Meanwhile, Purkey has a plan to get Hinkle to break down: he shows up at the apartment to collect his hidden microphones, and while he is there begins to make racist remarks about Boom-Boom and "our black brothers" getting out of hand. Hinkle, incensed, jumps up out his wheelchair and decks Purkey, who gets up and yells across the street to his assistant Max (Noam Pitlik) to find out if he got the shot. Told that he's not sure because "It's a little dark", Hinkle asks Purkey if he'd like a second take, turns on a light and advises the cameraman how to set his exposure. He then punches Purkey again, and follows up by going on a tear around the apartment, swinging from curtain rods and bouncing on the bed, all to show that he is not actually injured. Sandy is crawling on the floor looking for her lost contact lens, and just before he leaves the apartment, Hinkle roughly pushes her down to the ground with his foot.
Purkey is packing up his equipment to leave, but Gingrich tell him to keep rolling, and launches into a speech about his having no idea that his client (Hinkle) was deceiving him, but announcing his intention of suing the insurance company lawyers for invasion of privacy, and reporting Purkey's racist remarks to various organizations. As he proceeds, a crunching sound lets him know that he's just stepped on Sandy's contact lens.
Hinkle drives to the football stadium where he meets Boom-Boom sitting on the bench on the field, ready to leave the team, and perhaps become a wrestler named "The Dark Angel". Hinkle manages to snap Boom-Boom out of his funk, and the two run down the fields passing and lateraling a football back and forth between them.

Tags: satire

Review:
As the movie progresses Lemmon gets further disenchanted with the pending cash settlement for his fake injuries and in his own inimitable way blows the whistle on his brother-in-law, Whiplash Willie (Matthau.) I found Wilder's use of Cliff Ormond and Noam Pitlik as the bumbling private eye surveillance team to be reminiscent of Jackie Gleason and Art Carney on the Honeymooners, or even a latter day type of slapstick in the style of Abbot and Costello.
Finally caught it on TCM yesterday, and was able to watch it "fresh," compared to "The Odd Couple" or "The Front Page," which one might already know all about.A fine study in contrasts at work here; Matthau, as the shyster lawyer has something resembling a family life, while Lemmon, ostensibly the nice guy, is shown to be very lonely, still stuck in the apartment his wife left him in (and aren't those exteriors filmed in Cleveland?
Of course it was directed by Billy Wilder, still at or near the height of his film career with a string of great successes from THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR, THE LOST WEEKEND, and SUNSET BOULDVARD through SOME LIKE IT HOT and THE APARTMENT.
And when he made it in 1965 it was to star Jack Lemmon, who had demonstrated his comic qualities in three other Wilder films: SOME LIKE IT HOT, THE APARTMENT, and IRMA LA DOUCE.
In fact, the screenplay was originally supposed to be MEET WHIPLASH WILLY, the final name of the film when shown in England.What surprised many people was the casting of Walter Matthau as "Whiplash Willie" Gingrich, the shyster brother-in-law to Lemmon's Harry Hinkle.
There are some lines in THE FORTUNE COOKIE that sound ready made for Kovacs - for example, when he writes a figure down as a settlement figure, and when the other lawyers make their counter-offers Matthau repeats it each time, looks at the paper, and says, very quietly, "That isn't it!" One can easily see Kovacs saying the same thing the same way.If, as I suspect, THE FORTUNE COOKIE was an idea of Wilder's and Diamond's for a few years, it is just possible that Lemmon suggested Kovacs for the role of Gingrich.
Amazingly original and intelligent comedy by Billy Wilder that has CBS cameraman Jack Lemmon injured one day by a football player while covering a Cleveland Browns game.
Enter  brother-in-law lawyer Walter Matthau (in a very well-deserved Oscar-winning role) who convinces Lemmon to fake various injuries so the duo can sue CBS, the NFL and the Cleveland Browns all for negligence.
Lemmon is a not-too-bright sports cameraman who gets knocked over by a football player (Ron Rich) and is persuaded by his crooked, ambulance-chasing brother-in-law lawyer (Matthau) to fake an injury for the insurance money.
If I had to buy a single movie showing Walter Matthau's genius as an actor, this may be the one, for as good as Jack Lemmon always is in a movie, Walter shines here as the shyster brother-in-law lawyer, and the Best Supporting Oscar was awarded to him rightly for this role.
Walter Matthau won an Oscar for his flamboyant role in the film, and he has a number of good moments, although Jack Lemmon also shines, bringing in his usual charm to every scene.
This is why they were "The Odd Couple." In fact, this movie includes three of the greatest film makers to ever work/play in Hollywood: Bill Wilder, Jack Lemmon and Matthau.
"The Fortune Cookie" is a light, lovable con/slapstick film about Harry Hinkle (Jack Lemmon), a sports cameraman who is accidentally knocked down by NFL star Boom Boom Jackson (Ron Rich) at a football game.
The other performances, from Lemmon, Rich and Judi West as Hinkle's gold-digging ex-wife, are all well-played, Rich gives the most notable performance as the guilt-ridden Boom Boom.The style, direction and other componets of the film are well too...but in the end Matthau's performance is the only real benefit of this film, but it's a big benefit, and gets a 7.5/10 from me..
Matthau won a Supporting Actor Oscar for his cheerful mugging, but it's Ron Rich as a sympathetic football player who gives the film's best performance.
Herein we have, the late, great Jack Lemmon playing Harry Hinkle, a standard cameraman working with a TV crew covering a Cleveland Browns football game.
The movie is wonderful as Lemmon and Matthau are a superb team under the direction of their favorite director Billy Wilder.
Well, how can you resist watching the acting abilities of both Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, even more so when they are appearing together.And, there are some fine performances by supporting cast members, including Judi West (with whom I was not at all familiar) as the sort-of ex-wife who is out for $$$.
When a cameraman is knocked over during a Cleveland Browns game, the sharks move in - or should I say shark - in the form of "Whiplash Willie," his brother-in-law, in "The Fortune Cookie," a 1966 film written and directed by Billy Wilder.Lemmon plays Harry Hinkle, a television cameraman, who is involved in a freak accident during a football game, when he is knocked over by "Boom Boom" Jackson.
Leave it to Billy Wilder and partner I.A.L. Diamond to write such a witty, cynical script about a man with a conscience up against a man who will stop at nothing to cheat the insurance company.Walter Matthau is an absolute riot as Willie, and won the Academy Award for his performance.
This sets us up to watch the dynamic duo of Walter Matthau {Willie} & Jack Lemmon {Harry} try and fake major injury to garner a big pay out.
While convincing the doctors and insurance people that he is actually injured is not going to be easy, thus it makes for some truly funny sequences.As you would expect from Wilder & I.A.L Diamond, the script sizzles with wit and cynicism {perfect material here for Matthau who won the best supporting Oscar}, and although the running plot strand of Boom Boom Jackson's guilt and subsequent career jolt tamper the film down a touch, it's still a winner that can be pleasantly sampled from time to time.
Everyone knocks it, but you'd be surprised just how many guys choose to re-enlist." Yes. The Fortune Cookie (from 1966) may have been noticeably overlong at 2 hours & 6 minutes, but, for the most part, it was a surprisingly engaging, little comedy that was clearly power-driven by Walter Matthau's over-bearing, dry-witted performance as the cynical, All-American, shyster-lawyer, Willie "Whiplash" Gingrich.When Willie's brother-in-law, Harry Hinkel (cameraman for CBS) is accidentally knocked over a barricade by the 220 lb.
Billy Wilder produced a great film and also wrote this screen play which featured Jack Lemmon, ( Harry Hinkle) who was a TV Camera man working on a football field and is accidentally knocked over by by an all star team player and suffers injuries.
Jack Lemmon is good as the cameraman who reluctantly agrees to lawyer brother-in-law Walter Matthau's lawsuit scheme.
Matthau sees dollar signs, and he milks Lemmon's injury for all it's worth.Matthau is great in this movie, his cynical ambulance-chasing attorney was a role that won him a well-deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
Despite the slow pacing, THE FORTUNE COOKIE is a fine little comedythat helmed the beginning of the fantastic series of team-ups of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.
The latter won his Oscar award for best actor in this movie portraying the conniving attorney Willie Gingrich, or better known as "Whiplash." Whiplash convinces his brother-in-law Harry (Lemmon), a sports cameraman, to fake an injury after anaccident on a football field.
"The Fortune Cookie" was the beginning of a classic film pairing of Jack Lemmon with Walter Matthau.
One can only wish that their careers were not ended, but all good things must pass, yet their work together will live long after them.This film has Jack Lemmon playing the role of Harry Hinkle, a CBS sports photographer, who is mildly injured at a professional football game when a running back is tackled out of bounds, and plows right into Lemmon's position, flattening the cameraman at the same time.
Lemmon is rushed to the hospital to recuperate from his mild injury, but enters his scheming lawyer brother-in-law, Whiplash Willie Gingrich, portrayed with great aplomb by Walter Matthau.
Whiplash Willie sees the opportunity to  gain some major cash payouts by the network for endangering his "client" and from there, the laughs abound.In watching this film, one can give credit to the actors, Lemmon and Matthau, and also show some gratitude for the efforts by Billy Wilder in writing and directing this film.
Passable Billy Wilder comedy; the first pairing of the Jack Lemmon-Walter Matthau team.
Walter Matthau, who won a deserved Oscar (thought probably a sympathy Oscar, since he had a heart attack during the making of the film), plays the crooked lawyer who plans to milk an insurance company after his brother-in-law, Lemmon, a cameraman for the Cleveland Browns, is run down by a football player.
In this, the first movie starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau as a comedy team, reporter Lemmon gets injured at a football game, leading his lawyer friend Matthau to seek a massive settlement (that is, if Lemmon can pretend to be badly injured for a long time).
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.
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.
The Fortune Cookie marked a great film breakthrough for Walter Matthau especially since he won his Oscar for it!.
And then, Billy Wilder cast him here to play shyster lawyer William "Whiplash Willie" Gingrich opposite leading man Jack Lemmon leading to a fruitful collaboration in movies for the next several years that paired Lemmon and Matthau together with Wilder making at least one more good film with them (The Front Page as the next one after that he made with them-Buddy Buddy-marked a less-than-glorious-end to his directing career).
In summary, The Fortune Cookie was one of the better comedies from a period-the late '60s-not always known for great funny films with Matthau winning his well-deserved Oscar for this role..
Billy Wilder directed, and Walter Matthau won the Best Supporting Actor award for his sleazy con man performance.
THE FORTUNE COOKIE is Billy Wilder's last Black & White feature and marked the first collaboration of the comedy two-hander Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau (ten more times would follow).
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..
The wonderful, over-the-top performance by Walter Matthau as "Whiplash" Willie Gingrich clashes somewhat jarringly with the serious plot line of the troubled football player, portrayed rather woodenly by Ron Rich.
Judi West and Cliff Osmond deliver finely tuned, restrained comedic performances that complement Matthau's Fieldsian shyster, but Ron Rich's "Boom-Boom" Jackson is sadly underdeveloped and one-dimensional, as if Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond were reluctant to have an African-American character made light of.
When one puts the film into historical context, this is understandable, yet one can't help but think that the viewing audiences of 1966 were probably ready for a less than dead serious black man, and had "Boom-Boom" been included in the fun, this could have been, if not a breakthrough film, at least a much better one, and possibly another Wilder/Diamond classic.All that having being said, this is a very funny movie, delivering plenty of outright horselaughs, and it is worth seeing for Matthau's performance alone.
"The Fortune Cookie" stars Jack Lemmon as a reporter injured while covering a football game and Walter Matthau as the wise-cracking lawyer trying to sue the hospital and football player by faking the injury to be worse than it was.
If you like Jack Lemmon, you will enjoy this film, as he does a great job as always, but the film is a must-see for Walter Matthau fans, as this is the role that won him his supporting actor Oscar, well deserved.
First there's Hinkle's ambulance chasing brother-in-law Willie Gingrich (Walter Matthau in an Oscar winning performance) who wants him to pretend to be more seriously injured than he really is to get a big insurance settlement.
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.
Each scene is like its own self- contained play, beginning with Jack Lemmon's CBS cameraman Henry Hinkle covering a Browns game in Cleveland.
Such is the manner in which each and every story advance is treated, given whole substantial scenes, as Henry is visited in the hospital by his conniving lawyer brother-in-law "Whiplash Willie" Gingrich, played by a hilarious Walter Matthau in a much-deserved Oscar-winning performance, who convinces him to pretend that his legs have been paralyzed so they can make a killing off the insurance company.
Without Jack Lemmon and Walter Mattau, both pretty good, this so-so and dull storywould have been a real flop, compared to Billy Wilder director's best work.The gags are quiet flat, and frankly I expected much better...I admit it is nevertheless pleasant to look at, and only for the acting...but the whole movie in itself is nothing special, almost boring.I doubt I'd like to see it again, even in a far future...Nothing to be compared to the fantastic One, Two, Three or Kiss me Stupid !
This movie was the first pairing of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, and they work together well, with an especially good performance by Matthau as an unscrupulous lawyer who convinces his brother-in-law Hinkel to exaggerate the nature of his injuries he sustained as a CBS cameraman at a Cleveland Browns football game when a black football player accidentally runs into him.
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.
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.
The chemistry between Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau is so far, the best thing in the film.
The reasons for that are both because of plot problems as well as common flaws in Wilder's later work.(Warning: spoilers follow) Plotwise, the main problem with this film is that its entire basis  that Jack Lemmon's Harry Hinkle character goes along with his brother-in-law's scheme  is never believable.
This is a period piece story where Jack Lemmon(Harry Hinkle) plays a Network TV Camera man who is hurt in a sideline collision at an NFL Football game.
Just like the classic noir 'Double Indemnity (1944),' characters attempt to undeservedly extort indemnity from an insurance company, an optimistic scheme that is doomed from the beginning.In 'The Fortune Cookie (1966),' Lemmon plays Harry Hinkle, an honest sports cameraman who accidentally collides with an imposing but kindly American Football player, "Boom Boom" Jackson (Ron Rich), during a game.
Hinkle's crooked brother-in-law lawyer, "Whiplash" Willie Gingrich (Matthau) hatches a brilliant scheme to fraudulently claim $1 million from the insurance company.
Walter Matthau won his Academy Award for his role in "The Fortune Cookie." As Willie Gingrich, he concocts a get-rich scheme.
He and brother-in-law Harry Hinkle (played by Jack Lemmon) will take the insurance companies to the cleaners.