When a cameraman is knocked over during a Cleveland Browns game, the sharks move in - or should I say shark - in the form of "Whiplash Willie," his brother-in-law, in "The Fortune Cookie," a 1966 film written and directed by Billy Wilder.
Lemmon plays Harry Hinkle, a television cameraman, who is involved in a freak accident during a football game, when he is knocked over by "Boom Boom" Jackson. As soon as his brother-in-law, attorney Willie Gingrich (Matthau) hears that Harry suffered a compressed vertebrae in his youth (from jumping off of a garage roof without opening his umbrella), he warns his hospitalized victim not to get well. He has a paroled dentist come in and shoot him up with drugs so that he can pass the insurance medical tests, puts him in a wheelchair, a collar, and a corset, and takes him home to recover. Meanwhile, the insurance company has a camera on him and his apartment bugged. Harry's tramp ex-wife (Judi West), an aspiring singer, comes back to him as soon as she smells money to jump-start her career. The guilt-stricken Boom Boom becomes his servant. Boom Boom's football game suffers, and he turns to drink. Whiplash Willie, in the meantime, is negotiating a $200,000 settlement.
Insurance fraud and ambulance chasers are still very topical. One has only to look at the number of commercials for attorneys telling you an accident is worth big bucks. Leave it to Billy Wilder and partner I.A.L. Diamond to write such a witty, cynical script about a man with a conscience up against a man who will stop at nothing to cheat the insurance company.
Walter Matthau is an absolute riot as Willie, and won the Academy Award for his performance. Willie is an obvious cheat who knows all the angles and is able to get around them. Lemmon is great as a lonely man who goes along with the subterfuge with the carrot of his ex-wife returning dangling in front of him. Ron Rich gives a natural, sympathetic performance as Boom Boom, the devastated football player.
The script is very witty and the performances are great. Billy Wilder was one of film's greatest writers and directors, and in "The Fortune Cookie," he shows he's still got what it takes.
