Fresh
...another bittersweet comedy commentary on contemporary US mores.
Variety Staff, Variety
The Fortune Cookie
Is he a spy? A security risk? Is he unfaithful? Or is he a nice, normal shnook - out to make a million bucks by sheer accident!
1966 · 2h 5m · Approved
Comedy
Directed by
Billy Wilder
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The Fortune Cookie
Overview
TV cameraman Harry Hinkle is injured while filming a football game. Seeing big dollar signs, his unscrupulous ambulance-chasing lawyer brother-in-law Willie Gingrich enters the picture, and convinces Harry to overstate his injuries and claim $1 million in pain and suffering. Harry's similarly-minded ex-wife suddenly reappears in an attempt to rekindle their relationship.
Director and cast
- Billy Wilder Director
- Jack Lemmon as Harry Hinkle
- Walter Matthau as Willie Gingrich
- Ron Rich as Boom Boom Jackson
- Judi West as Sandy Hinkle
- Cliff Osmond as Purkey
- Lurene Tuttle as Mother Hinkle
- Harry Holcombe as O'Brien
- Les Tremayne as Thompson
- Marge Redmond as Charlotte Gingrich
- Ann Shoemaker as Sister Veronica
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
96%
Tomatometer
Fresh
Wildly funny in spots...
Don Druker, Chicago Reader
Fresh
Mr. Wilder's last film and a comedy of unrelieved vulgarity, but it has style and taste.
Vincent Canby, New York Times
Fresh
The friction between the laughs and the cynicism generates more heat than most Hollywood comedies even aim at...
Time Out
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