The Fortune Cookie
Two years before their legendary pairing in The Odd Couple, Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon teamed up for Billy Wilder’s The Fortune Cookie. Though the great potential of this duo is apparent in their first movie together, it’s far from another Wilder masterpiece.
Lemmon is cameraman Harry Hinkle. While covering a football game, he is accidentally knocked out by Luther “Boom Boom” Jackson (Ron Rich). The injury turns out to be minor, but Harry’s brother-in-law, crooked lawyer Willie Gingrich (Matthau), persuades him to feign paralysis so he can prepare a profitable lawsuit. Harry plays along in hopes of winning back his estranged wife, Sandy (Judi West), but starts to feel guilty as he becomes friends with Boom Boom.
Matthau rightfully won an Oscar for his portrayal of “Whiplash Willie.” He is the ultimate sleazeball, and endlessly entertaining to watch. Lemmon, as the moral straight man, is the perfect foil. He and Matthau play off each other fantastically, especially in their hospital scenes together. Things get significantly duller when Harry goes back home and Sandy returns, partially because scenes between Harry and Willie get trumped by scenes between Harry and Sandy.
This is unfortunate, not just because Lemmon and Matthau are so great together, but also because the character, Sandy, borders on misogynistic. She is a manipulative, heartless gold digger with no redeeming qualities, whom Harry still inexplicably loves. Their final confrontation is so spiteful it’s uncomfortable. Sandy makes you long for Wilder’s Sugar Kane, Fran Kubelik or even Norma Desmond – all flawed female characters, but engaging nonetheless.
While The Fortune Cookie is not even in the same league as Double Indemnity or Some Like It Hot, it boasts some reliably sharp Wilder dialogue and brought together one of classic cinema’s best-loved pairs. As Harry repeatedly says in the movie, “You can fool all of the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time!” Wilder was a genius screenwriter and director who often put us under his spell, but, as The Fortune Cookie shows, he couldn’t beguile all of us all of the time.