The Fortune
Encyclopedia
The Fortune is a 1975
American
comedy film
starring Jack Nicholson
and Warren Beatty
, and directed by Mike Nichols
. The screenplay by Adrien Joyce
focuses on two bumbling con men
who plot to steal the money of a wealthy young heiress.
), the millionaire heiress to a sanitary napkin
fortune. She is in love with the already married Nicky, but because the Mann Act
prohibits him from taking her across state lines and then engaging in immoral relations, he proposes she marry Oscar and then carry on an affair with the man she really 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 two men try everything they can to separate Freddie from her inheritance, without success but with enough determination to arouse her suspicions. When she announces she plans to donate all her money to charity, Nicky and Oscar panic and come to the conclusion murder might be their only recourse if they're going to achieve their goal.
was unable to stir interest in his and Robert Towne
's screenplay for Shampoo
, the project about an amoral hairdresser he had been developing since 1967, he bundled it with the more appealing The Fortune and convinced Columbia Pictures
head David Begelman
to finance both films. The fact 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 had been critical and commercial flops.
The working relation between the screenwriter and director was amiable until Eastman began to object to the many cuts Nichols was making to the script and his determination to make it less satirical
and more slapstick, and she eventually was fired from the production.
Nichols originally wanted Bette Midler
to portray Freddie, but he changed his mind when, seemingly unaware of who he was, she insulted him by asking what films he previously had made. He ultimately cast relative newcomer Stockard Channing
, whose credits were limited to a few television
appearances and a minor role in the Barbra Streisand
film Up the Sandbox
, in the role.
Because the start of principal photography on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
was delayed, Jack Nicholson
, 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 the woman Nicholson believed was his sister was actually his mother, and the woman who raised him was really his grandmother. Then close friend Cass Elliot
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 Nicholson never discussed in later interviews and biographies.
The film was shot on location in Albuquerque, New Mexico
, as well as on a segment of street constructed in the corner of the former RKO Forty Acres
backlot where the "Stalag 13" sets for TV's "Hogan's Heroes" had been located during the lot's Desilu and later ownership. Nichols did not direct another film for seven years.
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
and Billy Wilder
, 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
, 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 said 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."
in The Other Side of the Mountain
.
1975 in film
The year 1975 in film involved some significant events, with Steven Spielberg's thriller Jaws topping the box office.-Events:*March 26 - The film version of The Who's Tommy premieres in London....
American
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
comedy film
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
starring Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
and Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...
, and directed by Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols is a German-born American television, stage and film director, writer, producer and comedian. He began his career in the 1950s as one half of the comedy duo Nichols and May, along with Elaine May. In 1968 he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film The Graduate...
. The screenplay by Adrien Joyce
Carole Eastman
Carole Eastman , was an American screenwriter. Among her relatively few credits were screenplays for Monte Hellman's The Shooting , Bob Rafelson's Five Easy Pieces , and Mike Nichols’s The Fortune...
focuses on two bumbling con men
Confidence trick
A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence. A confidence artist is an individual working alone or in concert with others who exploits characteristics of the human psyche such as dishonesty and honesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility,...
who plot to steal the money of a wealthy young heiress.
Plot
Nicky Wilson (Beatty) and Oscar Sullivan (Nicholson) are inept scam artists who see pay dirt in the guise of Fredericka Quintessa Bigard (Stockard ChanningStockard Channing
Stockard Channing is an American stage, film and television actress. She is known for her portrayal of First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the NBC television series The West Wing; for playing Betty Rizzo in the film Grease; and for her role as Ouisa Kittredge in the play Six Degrees of Separation and its...
), the millionaire heiress to a sanitary napkin
Sanitary napkin
A sanitary napkin, sanitary towel, sanitary pad, menstrual pad, maxi pad, or pad is an absorbent item worn by a woman while she is menstruating, recovering from vaginal surgery, for lochia , abortion, or any other situation where it is necessary to absorb a flow of blood from a woman's vagina.These...
fortune. She is in love with the already married Nicky, but because the Mann Act
Mann Act
The White-Slave Traffic Act, better known as the Mann Act, is a United States law, passed June 25, 1910 . It is named after Congressman James Robert Mann, and in its original form prohibited white slavery and the interstate transport of females for “immoral purposes”...
prohibits him from taking her across state lines and then engaging in immoral relations, he proposes she marry Oscar and then carry on an affair with the man she really wants. Oscar, who is wanted for embezzlement
Embezzlement
Embezzlement is the act of dishonestly appropriating or secreting assets by one or more individuals to whom such assets have been entrusted....
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
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, the two men try everything they can to separate Freddie from her inheritance, without success but with enough determination to arouse her suspicions. When she announces she plans to donate all her money to charity, Nicky and Oscar panic and come to the conclusion murder might be their only recourse if they're going to achieve their goal.
Production
When Warren BeattyWarren Beatty
Warren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...
was unable to stir interest in his and Robert Towne
Robert Towne
Robert Towne is an American screenwriter and director. His most notable work may be his Academy Award-winning original screenplay for Roman Polanski's Chinatown .-Film:...
's screenplay for Shampoo
Shampoo (film)
Shampoo is a 1975 satirical film written by Robert Towne and directed by Hal Ashby. It stars Warren Beatty, Julie Christie and Goldie Hawn, with Lee Grant, Jack Warden, Tony Bill and in an early film appearance, Carrie Fisher....
, the project about an amoral hairdresser he had been developing since 1967, he bundled it with the more appealing The Fortune and convinced Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
head David Begelman
David Begelman
David Begelman was a Hollywood producer who was involved in a studio embezzlement scandal in the 1970s.-Agent and studio head:...
to finance both films. The fact Carole Eastman
Carole Eastman
Carole Eastman , was an American screenwriter. Among her relatively few credits were screenplays for Monte Hellman's The Shooting , Bob Rafelson's Five Easy Pieces , and Mike Nichols’s The Fortune...
, 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 (film)
Catch-22 is a 1970 satirical war film adapted from the book of the same name by Joseph Heller. Considered a black comedy revolving around the "lunatic characters" of Heller's satirical anti-war novel, it was the work of a talented production team which included director Mike Nichols and...
and The Day of the Dolphin
The Day of the Dolphin
The Day of the Dolphin is a 1973 American science-fiction thriller film directed by Mike Nichols and starring George C. Scott. Loosely based on the 1967 novel, Un animal doué de raison , by French writer Robert Merle, the screenplay was written by Buck Henry.-Plot:A brilliant and driven scientist,...
, both of which had been critical and commercial flops.
The working relation between the screenwriter and director was amiable until Eastman began to object to the many cuts Nichols was making to the script and his determination to make it less satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
and more slapstick, and she eventually was fired from the production.
Nichols originally wanted Bette Midler
Bette Midler
Bette Midler is an American singer, actress, and comedian, also known by her informal stage name, The Divine Miss M. She became famous as a cabaret and concert headliner, and went on to star in successful and acclaimed films such as The Rose, Ruthless People, Beaches, and For The Boys...
to portray Freddie, but he changed his mind when, seemingly unaware of who he was, she insulted him by asking what films he previously had made. He ultimately cast relative newcomer Stockard Channing
Stockard Channing
Stockard Channing is an American stage, film and television actress. She is known for her portrayal of First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the NBC television series The West Wing; for playing Betty Rizzo in the film Grease; and for her role as Ouisa Kittredge in the play Six Degrees of Separation and its...
, whose credits were limited to a few television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
appearances and a minor role in the Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
film Up the Sandbox
Up the Sandbox
Up The Sandbox is a 1972 American comedy film directed by Irvin Kershner.Paul Zindel's screenplay, based on the novel by Anne Roiphe, focuses on Margaret Reynolds, a young New York City wife and mother who, neglected by her husband and bored with her daily existence, slips into increasingly bizarre...
, in the role.
Because the start of principal photography on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (film)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a 1975 American drama film directed by Miloš Forman and based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Ken Kesey....
was delayed, Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
, who had worked with Nichols on Carnal Knowledge
Carnal knowledge
Carnal knowledge is an archaic or legal euphemism for sexual intercourse. The term derives from the Biblical usage of the verb know/knew, as in the King James and other versions, a euphemism for sexual conduct...
, 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
Fact checker
A fact checker is the person who checks factual assertions in non-fictional text, usually intended for publication in a periodical, to determine their veracity and correctness...
working on a biographical piece for Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
discovered the woman Nicholson believed was his sister was actually his mother, and the woman who raised him was really his grandmother. Then close friend Cass Elliot
Cass Elliot
Cass Elliot , born Ellen Naomi Cohen and also known as Mama Cass, was an American singer and member of The Mamas & the Papas. After the group broke up, she released five solo albums. Elliot was found dead in her room in London, England, from an apparent heart attack after two weeks of sold-out...
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 Nicholson never discussed in later interviews and biographies.
The film was shot on location in Albuquerque, New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Albuquerque is the largest city in the state of New Mexico, United States. It is the county seat of Bernalillo County and is situated in the central part of the state, straddling the Rio Grande. The city population was 545,852 as of the 2010 Census and ranks as the 32nd-largest city in the U.S. As...
, as well as on a segment of street constructed in the corner of the former RKO Forty Acres
RKO Forty Acres
Forty Acres was a film studio backlot that belonged to RKO Pictures and later Desilu Productions, located in Culver City, California. Best known as Forty Acres, or "the back forty", it had other names such as "Desilu Culver", the "RKO backlot" and "Pathé 40 Acre Ranch" depending on which studio...
backlot where the "Stalag 13" sets for TV's "Hogan's Heroes" had been located during the lot's Desilu and later ownership. Nichols did not direct another film for seven years.
Cast
- Stockard ChanningStockard ChanningStockard Channing is an American stage, film and television actress. She is known for her portrayal of First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the NBC television series The West Wing; for playing Betty Rizzo in the film Grease; and for her role as Ouisa Kittredge in the play Six Degrees of Separation and its...
Fredrika Quintessa Bigard - Jack NicholsonJack NicholsonJohn Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
Oscar Sullivan - Warren BeattyWarren BeattyWarren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...
Nicky Wilson - Ian WolfeIan WolfeIan Wolfe was an American actor whose films date from 1934 to 1990. Until 1934, he worked as a theatre actor. Wolfe mostly found work as a character actor, appearing in over 270 films...
Justice of the Peace - Florence StanleyFlorence StanleyFlorence Stanley was an American actress of stage, film, and television.-Early life and career:Florence Stanley was born as Florence Schwartz in Chicago, the daughter of Hanna and Jack Schwartz. She began a long career on stage, film and TV starting in the 1940s...
Mrs. Gould - Richard B. ShullRichard B. ShullRichard Bruce Shull was an American character actor.-Career:Shull was born in Evanston, Illinois, the son of Zana Marie , a court stenographer, and Ulysses Homer Shull, a manufacturing executive. Shull attended the University of Iowa and served in the U.S. Army before starting his Broadway career...
Chief Detective Sergeant Jack Power
Critical reception
Vincent CanbyVincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...
of the New York Times called the film "very funny," "manically scatterbrained," and "a marvelous attempt to recreate a kind of farce
Farce
In theatre, a farce is a comedy which aims at entertaining the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant, and improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include word play, and a fast-paced plot whose speed usually increases,...
that, with the notable exceptions of a handful of films by Blake Edwards
Blake Edwards
Blake Edwards was an American film director, screenwriter and producer.Edwards' career began in the 1940s as an actor, but he soon turned to writing radio scripts at Columbia Pictures...
and Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...
, disappeared after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
." 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
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
, satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
, situation
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
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
The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936 that involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters to con a mob boss . The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who previously directed Newman and Redford in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Created by...
, 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 said 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
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
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
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
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 and nominations
Stockard Channing was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress but lost to Marilyn HassettMarilyn Hassett
Marilyn Hassett is an American screen and television actress.-Biography:Hassett is best known for her portrayal of Jill Kinmont is the film The Other Side of the Mountain , which was directed by Larry Peerce, who chose her for the lead from several hundred hopefuls...
in The Other Side of the Mountain
The Other Side of the Mountain
The Other Side of the Mountain is a 1975 American film based on a true story of ski racing champion Jill Kinmont.In early 1955, Kinmont was the national champion in slalom and was a top U.S. prospect for a medal in the 1956 Winter Olympics, a year away...
.