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''The Fortune'' is a 1975 American
black comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the old ...
starring
Jack Nicholson John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an American retired actor and filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time. In many of his films, he played rebels against the social structure. He received numerous ...
and
Warren Beatty Henry Warren Beatty ( né Beaty; born March 30, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker, whose career spans over six decades. He was nominated for 15 Academy Awards, including four for Best Actor, four for Best Picture, two for Best Director, ...
, and directed by
Mike Nichols Mike Nichols (born Michael Igor Peschkowsky; November 6, 1931 – November 19, 2014) was an American film and theater director, producer, actor, and comedian. He was noted for his ability to work across a range of genres and for his aptitude fo ...
. The screenplay by Adrien Joyce focuses on two bumbling con men who plot to steal the fortune of a wealthy young heiress, played by
Stockard Channing Stockard Channing (born Susan Antonia Williams Stockard; February 13, 1944) is an American actress. She is known for playing Betty Rizzo in the film '' Grease'' (1978) and First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the NBC television series ''The West Wing'' ...
in her first film starring role.


Plot

Nicky Wilson (Beatty) and Oscar Sullivan (Nicholson) are inept 1920s scam artists in Northeastern United States who see pay dirt in the guise of Fredericka Quintessa "Freddie" Bigard (
Stockard Channing Stockard Channing (born Susan Antonia Williams Stockard; February 13, 1944) is an American actress. She is known for playing Betty Rizzo in the film '' Grease'' (1978) and First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the NBC television series ''The West Wing'' ...
), the millionaire heiress to a
sanitary napkin Sanitation refers to public health conditions related to clean drinking water and treatment and disposal of human excreta and sewage. Preventing human contact with feces is part of sanitation, as is hand washing with soap. Sanitation syste ...
fortune. She loves the already married Nicky, but because the
Mann Act The White-Slave Traffic Act, also called the Mann Act, is a United States federal law, passed June 25, 1910 (ch. 395, ; ''codified as amended at'' ). It is named after Congressman James Robert Mann of Illinois. In its original form the act m ...
prohibits him from taking her across state lines and engaging in immoral relations, he proposes that she marry Oscar and then carry on an affair with the man she wants. Oscar, who is wanted for embezzlement and anxious to get out of town, is happy to comply with the plan, although he intends to claim his spousal privileges after they are wed. Once they reach Los Angeles, the men try everything they can to separate Freddie from her inheritance without success, but with sufficient determination to arouse her suspicions. When she announces her plan to donate her money to charity, Nicky and Oscar conclude that murder might be their only recourse if they're going to get rich quick. Eventually arrested for the murder, Nicky and Oscar confess everything to the Los Angeles Police Department. This leads to unusual complications when the arresting detective meets the very-alive Freddie, who passed out and was oblivious to the entire "murder", and is shocked to hear the story.


Cast


Production

When
Warren Beatty Henry Warren Beatty ( né Beaty; born March 30, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker, whose career spans over six decades. He was nominated for 15 Academy Awards, including four for Best Actor, four for Best Picture, two for Best Director, ...
was unable to stir interest in his and
Robert Towne Robert Towne (born Robert Bertram Schwartz;'' Easy Riders, Raging Bulls'' by Peter Biskind page 30, 1999 Bloomsbury edition November 23, 1934) is an American screenwriter, producer, director and actor. He started with writing films for Roger Co ...
's screenplay for ''
Shampoo Shampoo () is a hair care product, typically in the form of a viscous liquid, that is used for cleaning hair. Less commonly, shampoo is available in solid bar format. Shampoo is used by applying it to wet hair, massaging the product into the ...
'' about a befuddled but seductive hairdresser, which he had been developing since 1967, he bundled it with the more appealing ''The Fortune'' and convinced
Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mul ...
head
David Begelman David Begelman (August 26, 1921 – August 7, 1995) was an American film producer, film executive and talent agent who was involved in a studio embezzlement scandal in the 1970s. Life and career Begelman was born to a Jewish family in New Yor ...
to finance both films. The fact that Carole Eastman, writing under the pen name Adrien Joyce, had yet to complete her 240-page script fazed Beatty less than it did director Mike Nichols, who needed a box-office hit after ''
Catch-22 ''Catch-22'' is a satirical war novel by American author Joseph Heller. He began writing it in 1953; the novel was first published in 1961. Often cited as one of the most significant novels of the twentieth century, it uses a distinctive non-chr ...
'' and '' The Day of the Dolphin'', both of which were critical and commercial flops. The working relation between the screenwriter and director was amiable until Eastman objected to the many cuts Nichols was making to the script and his determination to make it less
satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or ...
and more
slapstick Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. Slapstick may involve both intentional violence and violence by mishap, often resulting from inept use of props such ...
, and she was fired from the production.Turner Classic Movies
/ref> Nichols wanted
Bette Midler Bette Midler (;'' Inside the Actors Studio'', 2004 born December 1, 1945) is an American singer, actress, comedian and author. Throughout her career, which spans over five decades, Midler has received numerous accolades, including four Golden ...
to portray Freddie, but he changed his mind when, seemingly unaware of his career, Midler insulted him by asking what films he previously made. He ultimately cast relative newcomer
Stockard Channing Stockard Channing (born Susan Antonia Williams Stockard; February 13, 1944) is an American actress. She is known for playing Betty Rizzo in the film '' Grease'' (1978) and First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the NBC television series ''The West Wing'' ...
, whose credits were limited to a few television appearances and a minor role in the
Barbra Streisand Barbara Joan "Barbra" Streisand (; born April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress and director. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success in multiple fields of entertainment, and is among the few performers awar ...
film '' Up the Sandbox''. Because the start of principal photography on '' One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' was delayed,
Jack Nicholson John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an American retired actor and filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time. In many of his films, he played rebels against the social structure. He received numerous ...
, who had worked with Nichols on '' Carnal Knowledge'', was available for the role of Oscar Sullivan. During filming, the actor was forced to deal with two events that impacted his personal life. First, a fact checker working on a biographical piece for ''Time'' discovered that the woman Nicholson believed was his sister was actually his mother, and the woman who raised him was his grandmother. Then his close friend
Cass Elliot Ellen Naomi Cohen (September 19, 1941 – July 29, 1974), known professionally as Mama Cass and later on as Cass Elliot, was an American singer and voice actress. She was a member of the singing group the Mamas & the Papas. After the group bro ...
died in her sleep, and rumors about the cause of her death circulated in the media. These two events, linked with the film's eventual failure, made ''The Fortune'' a subject that Nicholson never discussed in interviews and biographies. The film was shot on location in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and on a segment of street constructed in the corner of the former RKO Forty Acres back lot where the "Stalag 13" sets for TV's ''
Hogan's Heroes ''Hogan's Heroes'' is an American television sitcom set in a Nazi German prisoner-of-war (POW) camp during World War II. It ran for 168 episodes (six seasons) from September 17, 1965, to April 4, 1971, on the CBS network, the longest broadcas ...
'' were located. The apartment building was a ''The Day of the Locust'' set. Nichols did not direct another film for seven years.


Reception


Critical reception

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for '' The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death i ...
of ''The New York Times'' called the film "very funny", "manically scatterbrained", and "a marvelous attempt to recreate a kind of farce that, with the notable exceptions of a handful of films by
Blake Edwards Blake Edwards (born William Blake Crump; July 26, 1922 – December 15, 2010) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Edwards began his career in the 1940s as an actor, but he soon began writing screenplays and radio s ...
and
Billy Wilder Billy Wilder (; ; born Samuel Wilder; June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an Austrian-American filmmaker. His career in Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Classic Hol ...
, disappeared after World War II." He added "''The Fortune'' does have sequences that sag, and there are moments when it's obvious that farce is not exactly the native art of any of the people involved. One occasionally is aware of the tremendous effort that has gone into a particular effect, though that doesn't spoil it for me. The endeavor is nobly conceived in an era that has just about abandoned farce in favor of parody, satire, situation and/or wise-crack comedy, all of which Mr. Nichols already can do with – perhaps – too great an ease. ''The Fortune'' will probably be compared to ''
The Sting ''The Sting'' is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936, involving a complicated plot by two professional grifters (Paul Newman and Robert Redford) to con a mob boss ( Robert Shaw).'' Variety'' film review; December 12, 1973, page ...
'', because of the overlapping of the eras and the con-man theme. Incorrectly, though. ''The Sting'' is an adventure. ''The Fortune'' is farce of a rare order." ''Time Out London'' stated it
starts promisingly as a sardonic comedy...but once in California lethargy settles in. The film becomes almost static, a series of stagy, glossy tableaux: such lack of momentum may be an adequate assessment of the characters' limited capacity for development, but it has a disastrous effect on the film's pacing. Events degenerate into miscalculated farce and underline Nichols' continuing slick superficiality. Adrien Joyce's much hacked-about script sounds as though it was once excellent: a pity everyone treats it so off-handedly.
Channel 4 called it a "flat-footed attempt to revive the 1930s screwball comedy" but liked the leads, commenting "The trio's timing and delivery almost rescue the movie from degenerating into bad farce." ''TV Guide'' rated it four stars, calling it "an offbeat but often hilarious comedy" and adding, the film "works well through the fine performances of the leads and the superb timing of director Nichols." It concluded, "Full of period and period-sounding music, ''The Fortune'' is cold to the core – agreeably disagreeable amusement."''TV Guide'' review
/ref>


Awards

Stockard Channing was nominated for the
Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress The Golden Globe for New Star of the Year – Actress was an award given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association at their annual Golden Globe Awards. History The award was first introduced at the 5th Golden Globe Awards in 1948 where it was g ...
.


See also

* List of American films of 1975


References


External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fortune, The 1975 films 1970s black comedy films American black comedy films American screwball comedy films Columbia Pictures films 1970s English-language films Films directed by Mike Nichols Films scored by David Shire Films set in Los Angeles Films set in the 1920s Films with screenplays by Carole Eastman 1975 comedy films 1975 drama films 1970s American films