The Fortune Cookie (English alternative title: Meet Whiplash Willie ) is a 1966 black comedy film starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in collaboration on their first screen. It was produced and directed by Billy Wilder from a script by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond.
Video The Fortune Cookie
Plot
CBS cameraman Harry Hinkle (Jack Lemmon) was injured when football player Luther "Boom Boom" Jackson (Ron Rich) of Cleveland Browns ran up to him as he ran a hand-held sideline camera during a home game at the Municipal Stadium. Harry's injury is small, but his brother-in-law's lawyer William H. "Whiplash Willie" Gingrich (Walter Matthau) convinces him to pretend that his legs and arms have been partially paralyzed, so they can receive substantial compensation from the company's insurance. Harry reluctantly follows the scheme because he still loves his ex-wife Sandy (Judi West), and the injury may bring him back.
Insurance lawyers in O'Brien, Thompson, and Kincaid (Harry Holcombe, Les Tremayne, and Lauren Gilbert) suspect that the paralysis is fake. All but one of their medical experts said it was real, convinced by the remnants of the compressed spine Hinkle suffered as a child, and Hinkle's response, helped by the numbing shot of novocaine Gingrich had had an abandoned dentist (Ned Glass ) gave him. The emptiness of one, Professor German Winterhalter (Sig Ruman), is convinced that Hinkle is a fake.
Without medical evidence to base their case on, O'Brien, Thompson and Kincaid hired the best private detective, Chester Purkey (Cliff Osmond), to keep Hinkle under constant scrutiny. However, Gingrich sees Purkey entering the apartment building across the street and letting Hinkle know they are being watched and recorded - and after Sandy returns, warns him not to have fun with him. Knowing now that he has a way to feed the wrong insurance company lawyers, through a supervising PI, he merges the "Harry Hinkle Foundation", a non-profit charity that all proceeds from any settlement must go, above and beyond the real cost of treatment. When Sandy questioned Gingrich about this personally, he told him that it was just a scam to press the insurance company to settle down, and that there would be enough money in the settlement for everyone to get some.
Hinkle began to enjoy Sandy back, but he also began to see how Boom-Boom's feelings for the accident affected him, especially when he was booed by the fans for his lackluster performance on the pitch, and then forced by the team to get drunk and engage in fights in the bar. Hinkle wants Gingrich to help Boom-Boom by representing him, but, to Hinkle's displeasure, Gingrich says he's too busy negotiating with O'Brien, Thompson & Kincaid. Hinkle also finds that Sandy returns to her side strictly for greed, to earn enough money to do first class acting and play in the Persian Room.
Hinkle shows up with a $ 200,000 deposit check, and shouts from the street to Purkey that the game is over. When Gingrich carried the check upstairs, Hinkle felt depressed by Sandy's spooky behavior. Meanwhile, Purkey had a plan to make Hinkle break up: he appeared in the apartment to collect the hidden microphone, and when he was there started making racist remarks about Boom-Boom and "our black brothers" being out of control. Hinkle, furious, jumped out of his wheelchair and Purkey's deck, who got up and shouted across the street to his assistant Max (Noam Pitlik) to find out if he had a chance. Told that he was not sure because "It's a little dark", Hinkle asks Purkey if he wants to take a second, turn on the lights and suggest the cameraman how to manage his exposure. He then presses Purkey again, and follows up by crying around the apartment, swinging from the curtain rod and bouncing on the bed, all to show that he's not really hurt. Sandy was crawling on the floor looking for his lost contact lens, and just before he left the apartment, Hinkle rudely pushed him to the ground with his feet.
Purkey packs his gear to go, but Gingrich tells him to keep rolling over, and launches a speech about him who does not know that his client (Hinkle) cheats him, but announces his intent to sue the insurance company lawyer for a privacy violation, and reports Purkey racist statements to various organizations. As he continued, the crackling sound made him know that he had just stepped on Sandy's contact lenses.
Hinkle drives to a soccer stadium where he meets Boom-Boom sitting on a bench on the pitch, ready to leave the team, and may become a wrestler named "The Dark Angel". Hinkle managed to spew the Boom-Boom out of his funk, and the two ran down past the fields and made football back and forth between them.
Maps The Fortune Cookie
Cast
Production
This is the first film featuring a partnership film Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, who appeared together in ten films:
Jack Lemmon initially had two other actors proposed to star in him - Frank Sinatra and Jackie Gleason - but Lemmon insisted that he did a drawing with Walter Matthau. Film production was halted for weeks after Walter Matthau suffered a heart attack. By the time Matthau was well enough to work, and the shooting started again, he had lost weight from 190 to 160 pounds, and had to wear a thick black coat and padded clothes to hide his weight.
The scene was filmed in the Minnesota Viking game versus Cleveland Browns, held at the Cleveland Stadium on the afternoon of Halloween 1965, where the Vikers beat Browns 27-17. "Saint Mark's Hospital" in this movie is St. Amal's Hospital The newly completed Vincent, a curved building considered ultramodern at the time. An exterior scene was filmed on East 24th Street outside the older section of the hospital. The Terminal Tower serves as the exterior of the law firm. In one scene, one can see the Erieview Tower and the steel frame of Federal Building Anthony J. Celebrezze being built.
Some of Cleveland's extras were used in the film, including Mary Morgan, who, so infatuated with the role she played, went on to achieve a master's degree in theater from Case Western Reserve University. Morgan then helped form the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival with an Academy Award winner in the future and a Cleveland native Tom Hanks.
Box office
The Fortune Cookie earned $ 6 million in the North American box office, making it the 24th movie of 1966. The film earned $ 6.8 million worldwide.
Awards and honors
Walter Matthau won an Oscar in 1966 for Best Supporting Actor for the film. The film also received an Oscar nomination for Art Direction-Set Decoration (Robert Luthardt, Edward G. Boyle), Best Cinematography (Black-White), and Best Writing, Stories and Scenarios. Walter Matthau was also nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Actor - Musical/Comedy.
See also
- List of American films of 1966
References
Catatan
Tautan eksternal
- Cookie Fortune by Katalog Film Film Amerika
- Cookie Fortune of IMDb
- Fortune Cookie of Database Film TCM
- Cookie Fortune by AllMovie
Source of the article : Wikipedia
0 Comments