The Fortune Cookie (1966)
Country: US
Technical: bw/scope 125m
Director: Billy Wilder
Cast: Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon
Synopsis:
A sports commentator is injured at a ball game he is covering, so his crooked brother-in-law persuades him to court compensation payment by having himself confined to his apartment with his neck in a brace.
Review:
There's nearly always something rather bitter-tasting about a Wilder comedy, and this one is franker and more uncomfortable than most. It makes it harder for us to laugh: the mother who is perpetually crying, okay, but the football player turning to drink out of guilt? The picture needs a little more pace for this not to jar; on the other hand its very prolixity is every bit as typical of the mature Wilder. Matthau, however, redeems many a moral misgiving, and carried off the Oscar.
Country: US
Technical: bw/scope 125m
Director: Billy Wilder
Cast: Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon
Synopsis:
A sports commentator is injured at a ball game he is covering, so his crooked brother-in-law persuades him to court compensation payment by having himself confined to his apartment with his neck in a brace.
Review:
There's nearly always something rather bitter-tasting about a Wilder comedy, and this one is franker and more uncomfortable than most. It makes it harder for us to laugh: the mother who is perpetually crying, okay, but the football player turning to drink out of guilt? The picture needs a little more pace for this not to jar; on the other hand its very prolixity is every bit as typical of the mature Wilder. Matthau, however, redeems many a moral misgiving, and carried off the Oscar.
Country: US
Technical: bw/scope 125m
Director: Billy Wilder
Cast: Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon
Synopsis:
A sports commentator is injured at a ball game he is covering, so his crooked brother-in-law persuades him to court compensation payment by having himself confined to his apartment with his neck in a brace.
Review:
There's nearly always something rather bitter-tasting about a Wilder comedy, and this one is franker and more uncomfortable than most. It makes it harder for us to laugh: the mother who is perpetually crying, okay, but the football player turning to drink out of guilt? The picture needs a little more pace for this not to jar; on the other hand its very prolixity is every bit as typical of the mature Wilder. Matthau, however, redeems many a moral misgiving, and carried off the Oscar.