''The Fortune'' is a 1975 American black comedy film starring

Jack Nicholson John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an American retired actor and filmmaker. Nicholson is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of the 20th century, often playing rebels fighting against the social structure. Over his five-de ...

and

Warren Beatty Henry Warren Beatty (né Beaty; born March 30, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker. His career has spanned over six decades, and he has received an Academy Award and three Golden Globe Awards. He also received the Irving G. Thalberg Memor ...

, and directed by Mike Nichols. The screenplay by Carole Eastman (credited under the pseudonym 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. List of awards and nominations received by Stockard Channing, Her accolades include three Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, and a nomination for an Acade ...

in her first film starring role.

Plot

Nicky Wilson and Oscar Sullivan are inept 1920s scam artists in the

Northeastern United States The Northeastern United States (also referred to as the Northeast, the East Coast, or the American Northeast) is List of regions of the United States, census regions United States Census Bureau. Located on the East Coast of the United States, ...

who see pay dirt in the guise of Fredericka Quintessa "Freddie" Bigard, the millionaire heiress to a sanitary napkin fortune. She loves the already married Nicky, but because the Mann Act 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

was unable to stir interest in his and Robert Towne's screenplay for '' Shampoo'' 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., Trade name, doing business as Columbia Pictures, is an American film Production company, production and Film distributor, distribution company that is the flagship unit of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group ...

head David Begelman 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'' 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 arts, visual, literature, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently Nonfiction, non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ...

and more slapstick, and she was fired from the production. Nichols wanted Bette Midler 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

, 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, songwriter, producer, and director. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success across multiple fields of entertainment, being the ...

film '' Up the Sandbox''. Because the start of principal photography on '' One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' was delayed,

, 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 Cass Elliot, was an American singer. She was also known as "Mama Cass", a name she reportedly disliked. Elliot was a member of the singing group the Mamas & the P ...

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 RKO Forty Acres was a film studio backlot in the United States, owned by RKO Pictures (and later Desilu Productions), located in Culver City, California. Best known as Forty Acres and "the back forty," it was also called "Desilu Culver," the "RKO ...

back lot where the "Stalag 13" sets for TV's '' Hogan's Heroes'' 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 was 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 in 2000. ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' 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 and screenwriter. Edwards began his career in the 1940s as an actor, but he soon began writing screenplays and radio scripts ...

and

Billy Wilder Billy Wilder (; ; born Samuel Wilder; June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an American filmmaker and screenwriter. His career in Hollywood (film industry), Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of the most brilliant and ver ...

, 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 1936, it involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters (Paul Newman and Robert Redford) to con a mob boss ( Robert Shaw). The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who had dir ...

'', 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:

he filmstarts 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.

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...

'' 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."

Awards

Stockard Channing was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress.

References

External links

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