“YOU CANNOT FOOL EVERYONE ALL THE TIME”

By Raymond Benson

Abraham Lincoln once famously said, “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” That utterance is evoked in the course of Billy Wilder’s 1966 acerbic comedy, The Fortune Cookie and it certainly applies to the legal goings-on as instigated by “Whiplash Willie” Gingrich (Walter Matthau), an unscrupulous lawyer who sets out to commit fraud against an insurance company for big bucks.

While it’s arguable that the great Billy Wilder continued to make good films into the 1970s, The Fortune Cookie might be his last superb one. It’s no Some Like it Hot or The Apartment, but the picture manages to evoke many laughs and also exhibits what is perhaps the quintessential performance by Matthau.

Jack Lemmon is sports news cameraman Harry Hinkle. During a Cleveland Browns game, player “Boom Boom” Jackson (Ron Rich) accidentally runs—hard—into Hinkle and knocks him for a loop. The stunned Hinkle is taken to the hospital, and Jackson feels badly. Hinkle’s brother-in-law is Gingrich, who cooks up a scheme to make a million dollars in a lawsuit against the Browns, Cleveland, and anyone else that could be a target. He convinces the unwilling Hinkle to play along and behave much more injured than he really is (he’s actually just fine). Hinkle’s ex-wife, Sandy (Judi West), with whom Hinkle is still in love, joins in on the charade because she believes she’ll get a big payoff. The opposing law firm sends out investigator Clifford Purkey (Cliff Osmond) to spy on Hinkle to gain evidence that the whole thing is a sham. Meanwhile, poor Jackson is so distraught about the accident that his ability on the football field declines until he must consider resigning. Then things get crazier.

Written by Wilder and his authoring partner since 1957, I. A. L. Diamond, Cookie is a tour-de-force vehicle for Walter Matthau, who deservedly won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his performance. The script and the character emphasize every strength the actor has, from his blustering vocal delivery to his hound dog facial expressions. He is very funny. Lemmon, who received top billing, is also good—Hinkle is a stereotypical “Jack Lemmon role”—but this is a movie that belongs to Matthau.

The Dynamic Trio: Lemmon, Wilder and Matthau.

Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray looks marvelous in its widescreen, glorious black and white (yes, Hollywood still made black and white pictures in the mid-60s). It comes with a new audio commentary by film historian Joseph McBride and optional English subtitles. Supplements include two short clips introduced by filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff from a filmed tribute to I. A. L. Diamond—a speech by Wilder about his friend and collaborator, and a scene written by Diamond during his school years, performed by Lemmon and Matthau and “directed” by Wilder. There is also a short clip from Lemmon that was a call for extras to show up at the Cleveland Browns’ stadium for a chance to be “in” the movie. Finally, there is a Trailers From Hell analysis of the trailer with Chris Wilkinson and theatrical trailers from other Kino Lorber titles.

By the way, the “I. A. L.” of Diamond’s name stood for “Interscholastic Algebra League” (his real name was Itzek)!

The Fortune Cookie is for fans of Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond, Jack Lemmon, and especially Walter Matthau. Fun stuff.