Notable for contriving the first -- and one of the best -- pairings of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, this acerbic, late-career Billy Wilder gem marries his penchant for hand-wringing morality plays with a dark, melancholy tone reminiscent of his glum masterpiece The Apartment, made six years earlier. The Fortune Cookie actually benefits from having a villain not quite as insidious as Fred MacMurray's J.D. Sheldrake: Matthau's affable shyster Willie Gingrich. Despite his unrepentant opportunism, Gingrich serves as a benevolent life force: If not for his less-than-airtight scam, Lemmon's Harry Hinckle would never be forced to own up to the havoc that only a meek wallflower like himself could create -- almost by default. The supporting cast is no less splendid, with the under-worked Judi West making a sly turn as the alternately world-weary and kittenish ex-wife who sees Hinckle as a renewed meal ticket, and the subdued Ron Rich as the impossibly selfless football star whose generosity almost does him in -- financially as well as professionally. Wilder's career was made up of films that heartbreakingly detailed the intersection of guilt and guile, and, in its own unassuming way, The Fortune Cookie is no exception. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Notable for contriving the first -- and one of the best -- pairings of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, this acerbic, late-career Billy Wilder gem marries his penchant for hand-wringing morality plays with a dark, melancholy tone reminiscent of his glum masterpiece The Apartment, made six years earlier. The Fortune Cookie actually benefits from having a villain not quite as insidious as Fred MacMurray's J.D. Sheldrake: Matthau's affable shyster Willie Gingrich. Despite his unrepentant opportunism, Gingrich serves as a benevolent life force: If not for his less-than-airtight scam, Lemmon's Harry Hinckle would never be forced to own up to the havoc that only a meek wallflower like himself could create -- almost by default. The supporting cast is no less splendid, with the under-worked Judi West making a sly turn as the alternately world-weary and kittenish ex-wife who sees Hinckle as a renewed meal ticket, and the subdued Ron Rich as the impossibly selfless football star whose generosity almost does him in -- financially as well as professionally. Wilder's career was made up of films that heartbreakingly detailed the intersection of guilt and guile, and, in its own unassuming way, The Fortune Cookie is no exception. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
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