While certainly not the best Walter Matthau-Jack Lemmon vehicle ever produced—and at best a middling Billy Wilder movie—it’s still nice to see this perfectly likable comedy make the format jump to Blu-ray (it was never easy to find in VHS or DVD).
What makes this satire of the then-growing trend of high-dollar personal injury lawsuits worthwhile is partly Jack Lemmon’s usual infectious comedic verve: evident in his portrayal of a TV cameraman who’s broadsided on the sidelines while filming an NFL game by 220-lb Cleveland Browns player Luther Boom Boom Jackson (Ron Rich). But Lemmon is coerced by his comically sleazy lawyer brother-in-law (Walter Matthau) to play up his non-injuries as serious enough to merit a life-altering windfall of a lawsuit.
Matthau’s pitch-perfect performance as “Whiplash Willie” is the saving grace of this sardonic but otherwise slightly tepid comedy. Matthau’s spot-on embodiment of the lowest form of “ambulance chaser” carries the film and overshadows even Lemmon’s conflicted reluctant victim and potential get-rich-quick plaintiff Harry Hinkle. Lemmon’s character spends much of the movie in a neck brace and a wheelchair, trying to outwit the opposing legal team who are convinced he’s a fake, and so they hire an Oliver Hardy-esque private detective (Cliff Osmond) to prove it.
Mostly what keeps this film from being a bona fide classic is the supporting cast: the acting deficiencies of Rich as the NFL star Jackson who accidentally “injures” Hinkle and Judi West (as Hinkle’s sexy but scheming wife) are on full display here, made even more evident by having the unfortunate distinction of having to share the screen with two of the greatest comedic actors of all time.
While short of a lost classic, The Fortune Cookie’s cynical take on the money-for-nothing American Dream still merits a look—especially now in this snazzy new Blu-ray repackaging, complete with all the expected extras, including some insightful commentary by film historian and Wilder expert Joseph McBride. Recommended.