Poster from TMDB
OverviewAI-generated
The Fortune Cookie is a 1966 American comedy film directed by Billy Wilder, who also produced the movie and co-wrote the screenplay with I. A. L. Diamond. The cast includes Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Ron Rich, and Cliff Osmond. The film was shot in black-and-white with cinematography by Joseph LaShelle and editing by Daniel Mandell. The musical score was composed by André Previn.
Set in Ohio, the narrative involves themes of shadowing, American football, brother-in-law relationships, wheelchairs, and honesty. The production was handled by Phalanx Productions and Jalem Productions, with distribution by United Artists and Netflix. The film has a runtime of 125 minutes and was released in various formats, including video on demand through providers such as Amazon Prime Video and fuboTV.
The movie received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and was nominated for Best Writing, Original Screenplay. It holds review scores of 7.6/10, 96%, and 63/100. The production budget was $3,705,000, and the revenue reached $6,800,000. It is recognized in the Academy Award Best Supporting Actor collection.
Synthesized by Vinony from 46 facts across 5 sources: Wikidata, TMDb, OMDb, IMDb, Vinony collections. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Film · TMDB
7.2TV cameraman Harry Hinkle is injured while filming a football game. Seeing big dollar signs, his unscrupulous ambulance-chasing lawyer brother-in-law Willie Gingrich enters the picture, and convinces Harry to overstate his injuries and claim $1 million in pain and suffering. Harry's similarly-minded ex-wife suddenly reappears in an attempt to rekindle their relationship.
Cast
- Jack Lemmon as Harry Hinkle
- Walter Matthau as Willie Gingrich
- Ron Rich as Boom Boom Jackson
- Judi West as Sandy Hinkle
- Cliff Osmond as Purkey
- Lurene Tuttle as Mother Hinkle
Themes
- shadowing
- american football
- brother-in-law
- wheelchair
- honesty
- insurance fraud
- cinematographer
- fortune cookie
- private investigator
- black and white
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Ratings
IMDb
7.2/10
15,906 votes
Rotten Tomatoes
96%
Metacritic
63/100
- Year
- 1966
- Runtime
- 125 min
- Genres
- Comedy, Romance
- Rated
- Approved
- Awards
- Won 1 Oscar. 3 wins & 5 nominations total
via OMDb · IMDb
Key facts
- Directed by
- Billy Wilder
- Written by
- Billy Wilder, I. A. L. Diamond
- Produced by
- Billy Wilder
- Starring
- Jack Lemmon , Walter Matthau , Ron Rich , Cliff Osmond , Judi West
- Cinematography
- Joseph LaShelle
- Edited by
- Daniel Mandell
- Music by
- André Previn
- Production companies
- The Mirisch Corporation , Phalanx Productions, Jalem Productions
- Distributed by
- United Artists
- Release date
- October 19, 1966 ( 1966-10-19 ) (New York City)
- Running time
- 125 minutes
- Language
- English
- Budget
- $3.7 million
- Box office
- $6.8 million
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- film
- Genre
- comedy film
- Country of origin
- United States
- Original language
- English language
- Director
- Billy Wilder
- Screenwriter
- Billy Wilder
- Cast member
- Billy Beck
- Composer
- André Previn
- Producer
- Billy Wilder
- Production company
- The Mirisch Company
- Cinematographer
- Joseph LaShelle
- Narrative location
- Ohio
- Duration
- 125
- FilmAffinity ID
- 907289
- Distribution format
- video on demand
Show 10 more facts
- publication date
- 1966-10-27
- film editor
- Daniel Mandell
- title
- The Fortune Cookie
- color
- black-and-white
- distributed by
- Netflix
- assessment
- Bechdel test
- review score
- 63/100
- Commons category
- The Fortune Cookie
- capital cost
- 3705000
- box office
- 6000000
Sources (15)
via Wikidata · CC0
~9 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The Fortune Cookie (released in the United Kingdom as Meet Whiplash Willie) is a 1966 American black comedy film directed, produced and co-written by Billy Wilder. It is the first film in which Jack Lemmon collaborated with Walter Matthau. Matthau won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance. The film was co-produced by Wilder's Phalanx Productions in cooperation with Lemmon's independent film production company, Jalem Productions.
Plot
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “The Fortune Cookie” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.