"The Fortune Cookie" was directed by the classic movie director, Billy Wilder. Wilder has 6 movies in the Keith 150 collection. That is second only to Hitchcock who has 12 on the list. All other filmmakers only have three or less on the list.
Wilder was known for writing all his own films. His most important collaborator was fellow writer I.A.L. Diamond. Together they wrote most of Wilder’s best movies. (“The Apartment”, “Fortune Cookie”, “Front Page”, “Irma La Douce”, “One Two Three”, and “Some Like it Hot”)
What is interesting about Billy Wilder is that he also developed three well recognized movies in other genres besides comedies.
“Lost Weekend” is a melodrama that is an unblinking look at a recovering alcoholic. It is a harrowing movie including a nightmare sequence that probably inspired Polanski when he was making Repulsion. It has one of my favorite lines, which was said to the main character “One drink is too many and a hundred is not enough!” However, it ended up being just a person-with-disease movie, and I did not get a lot out of it.
“Sunset Blvd.”, which is probably his best-known film, is drama about an unemployed writer living off a old actress that took him in. Many people love this movie for its last scene: “I’m ready for my close up Mr. DeMille” I was bothered by the narrative structure of the movie. Screenwriting 101 will tell you never to use voice-overs and I think voice-overs by dead people during a flashback are just a cop-out. There was no reason that Joe Gillis had to die at the beginning, other than to be a cheap trick to engage the audience and allow voice-over when the narrative got choppy. I find it particularly ironic that this indictment of the Hollywood system is most loved by viewers enthralled by everything Hollywood.
“Double Indemnity” has become one of the three classic film noirs. (The others being “The Postman Always Rings Twice” and “Out of the Past”). It is a witty, tightly edited, stylized thriller. Edward G. Robinson gives a stellar performance against his often typecast gangster roles.
Billy Wilder was best known for his sharply written witty comedies. Indeed “Some Like it Hot” has deservedly shown up at the top of the best comedies of all time by the critics. (Although the people’s choice for best comedy of all time is Dumb and Dumber!)
"Some Like it Hot" casts a naive Jack Lemmon with a fast talking Tony Curtis. Two musicians Jerry played by Lemmon and Joe played by Curtis witness a mafia killing. Joe devises a plan to sneak out of town in a female band dressed as women. The schemes that Curtis' character cooks up gets Lemmon's character into deeper and deeper trouble.
"The Fortune Cookie", casts a naive Jack Lemmon with a fast talking Walter Matthau. Whiplash Willie played by Matthau convinces Harry Hinkle played Lemmon to fake an injury to collect insurance money. Similar to "Some like it Hot", the schemes that Matthau's character cooks up get Lemmon's character into deeper and deeper trouble.
Unfortunately, "The Fortune Cookie" is not as enjoyable as "Some Like It Hot" for two reason. The first reason is the film is a little too long causing some parts to drag. The second reason is the tone of "The Fortune Cookie" is darker due to two characters in the story.
The first is Boom-Boom Jackson, the football player who thinks he has paralyzed Harry. The guilt of this action drives him to despair. The result is more grim than funny. Of course that could just be me. In "The Apartment", I also thought the suicide attempt was more grim than funny. The other character is Sandy who is Harry's ex-wife. She is a self obsessed neurotic bitch. She has no redeemable qualities and a little of her goes along way. The scenes with her start to grate on your nerves and you lose respect for Harry because he is taken in by this woman. That being said, it is hard to beat any Billy Wilder comedy.
In 1966, Wilder decided to team up Jack Lemmon to make "The Fortune Cookie". This was Lemmon fourth film with Wilder ("Some like it Hot","The Apartment","Irma la Douce") and he would go on to star in three more ("Front Page","Avanti!", and "Buddy, Buddy")
According to IMDB, Jack Lemmon had two other actors proposed to costar with him: Frank Sinatra and Jackie Gleason. Lemmon had insisted on Walter Matthau. They went on to star in 9 other films together. (10 if you want to include Oliver Stone's JFK)
This was Matthau's first movie with Wilder and his breakout role. Matthau is now known for fast talking swindlers like Whiplash Willie in "The Fortune Cookie". Interestingly, just three year before Matthau was generically cast in "Charade" as an United States ambassador.
Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, and Billy Wilder would go onto to make in only two more movies together. ("The Front Page" and "Buddy, Buddy") However, both were critical and commercial failures. Even the great Billy Wilder couldn't do better than the classic "His Girl Friday" which was based on the same story as "The Front Page".
Billy Wilder retired in 1970 after a string of unpopular films. When he was accused of being out of touch with the time, he fired back saying: “Who would want to be in touch with these times”. One of the only jobs to get him out of retirement was a writing assignment for "Schindler's List" This was very personal to him since his mother and step-father died at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Wilder himself later died at his home in March of 2002.
One of my favorite quotes by him is:
"A bad play folds and is forgotten, but in pictures we don't bury our dead. When you think it's out of your system, your daughter sees it on television and says, My father is an idiot."
Review by Keith MacCrimmon