The Fortune Cookie

Later on, Lemmon is back home from the hospital, but still feels pressured to continue this charade. Unbeknownst to him, a detective hired from the insurance company has camped out across the street, to spy on him.

The most peculiar thing about this film is that it appears to be schmaltzy at times. Many things involving the ex-wife are scored with sentimental music, and the football player is so eager to please that we expect something heartwarming to occur. Geez, this doesn't sound like Billy Wilder. But, of course, this sentimentality is a trick; the music, and the basic situation seem to tell us that this will be sappy and heartwarming, while the details subtly suggest something else, and the results undercut the superficiality. And when the movie does end on a sentimental note, it is fairly well-earned, since the feeling we get is that there is at least a couple of people in the world (and in the film) who are, well, less corrupt than all the rest.

The humor here is more apparent than in some of Wilder's films, but that's mostly because The Fortune Cookie is more of a pure comedy than something such as Stalag 17 or The Apartment. Some of the humor involves odd gags, such as the insurance guys telling the detective that Matthau's character would steal one of your fingers if he could.

This first Lemmon-Matthau teaming is definitely a worthwhile one. Lemmon plays the sort of Wilder hero he's done in The Apartment and Some Like it Hot -- the sort who has a good heart but allows himself to be a pushover when it comes to outside, more corrupt, influences. And Matthau is brilliant (he won an Oscar) as Whiplash Willie. He plays this guy exactly as he ought to be -- an opportunist to the nth degree. There isn't a drop of heart or sentimentality in this character, who is willing to go so far as to create a charity in Lemmon's name, in hopes that the insurance company will back off. Even the way this guy talks, the sound of his voice, his mannerisms, tells you what sort of guy this lawyer is.

Overall, The Fortune Cookie is a valuable entry in Billy Wilder's career. It shows that Wilder still had the stuff this late in the game.

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