The Fortune ** (1975, Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, Stockard Channing) – Classic Movie Review 7217

Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty star in Mike Nichols’s 1975 flop farcical comedy The Fortune as bumbling conmen who abduct an heiress. Stockard Channing is charming and amusing as the heiress. 

‘It takes three to tango (if you don’t count the chicken)’.

Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty star in director Mike Nichols’s stridently over-confident 1975 flop farcical comedy The Fortune as bumbling conmen Oscar and Nicky, who abduct heiress Freddie (Stockard Channing) and then try to bump her off when they find out that she is actually penniless.

Stockard Channing is charming and amusing, while director Nichols invests his film with a twitchy style and a polished, stylish 1920s look. But Carol Eastman’s screwball screenplay is not anywhere nearly funny enough. She is writing credited under the pen name of Adrien Joyce. Sadly, the two male stars look like amateur ditherers at this kind of slapstick comedy, even if Nicholson does manage a welcome degree of winsomeness.

Columbia Pictures head David Begelman agreed with Warren Beatty to finance both this film and the apparently less appealing Shampoo. At that point, Carole Eastman had not completed her epic 240-page script, which worried Mike Nichols. But later Eastman was fired from the production when she objected to the many cuts Nichols was making to the script and his determination to make it less satirical and more slapstick.

Minor pleasures in the movie mostly come from the supporting cast (Scatman Crothers, Florence Stanley, Richard B Shull, John Fiedler, Tom Newman, Ian Wolfe, Rose Michtom, Brian Avery. Dub Taylor, Nira Barab [Catlin Adams], Christopher Guest), while David Shire’s score also helps, as does Richard Sylbert’s handsome and classy production designs, as well as John A Alonzo’s Technicolor cinematography.

Channing’s quality turn was rewarded by a Golden Globe nomination for Best Acting Debut in a Motion Picture – Actress, at least a nod in the right direction. She is a three-time Golden Globe nominee, and a one-time Oscar nominee – for Six Degrees of Separation (1993). It was not her film debut: she had uncredited roles in The Hospital (1971) and the Barbra Streisand film Up the Sandbox (1972).

The Fortune’s short running time of just 88 minutes suggests some jittery late-in-the-day cutting, even after Nichols’s many cuts to the script. But, perhaps inevitably, it failed to take the hoped-for box-office fortune. You would not think that a movie with all this sophisticated wit and talent involved could be this ordinary and uninspired, but it is.

The Fortune also features in the cast Jim Antonio, Vic Vallaro, Joe Tornatore, Kathryn Grody and George Roberts.

It took only $3.5 million at the box office, a flop. Mike Nichols needed a box-office hit after his commercial flops Catch-22 and The Day of the Dolphin, but that did not happen and he did not direct another film for seven years: Silkwood, released in in 1983. Ironically, Shampoo was a great success. It cost $4 million and grossed $60 million. Beatty had been developing Shampoo since 1967 and been unable to raise interest in it till he put it together with the apparently more appealing The Fortune as a package for Columbia Pictures. Hindsight is 20/20, but, hey, nobody knows anything.

The Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer – Actress award was first introduced at the fifth Golden Globe Awards in 1948, won by Lois Maxwell for the 1947 film That Hagen Girl. From 1976 to 1979, the award was called Best Acting Debut in a Motion Picture – Actress. From 1980 to 1983, the Golden Globe award was called New Star of the Year in a Motion Picture – Actress. The final recipient was Sandahl Bergman for the 1982 film Conan the Barbarian and the category was discontinued after the 1983 ceremony.

Allegedly, Nichols dropped the idea of Bette Midler playing Freddie when she insulted him by asking what films he had made previously. This gave Channing her chance.

Nichols had worked with Jack Nicholson on Carnal Knowledge, and he was suddenly available for The Fortune because shooting on One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was delayed.

The Fortune was shot on location in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and on part of street built in the corner of the former RKO Forty Acres back lot. The apartment building was a set for The Day of the Locust.

The cast are Jack Nicholson as Oscar Sullivan, Warren Beatty as Nicky Wilson, Stockard Channing as Fredrika ‘Freddie’ Quintessa Bigard, Florence Stanley as Mrs Gould, Richard B Shull as Detective Sgt Power, John Fiedler as Police Photographer, Scatman Crothers as Fisherman, Kathryn Grody as Police Secretary, Ian Wolfe as Justice of the Peace, Dub Taylor as Rattlesnake Tom, Christopher Guest as Boy Lover, Tom Newman, Ian Wolfe, Rose Michtom, Brian Avery. Dub Taylor, Nira Barab [Catlin Adams], Jim Antonio, Vic Vallaro, Joe Tornatore, and George Roberts.

Release date: May 20, 1975.

Given her astounding subsequent career, Stockard Channing has won far fewer awards than expected. They include three Emmy Awards (out of 14 nominations), two Screen Actors Guild Awards (out of 11 nominations), one Drama Desk Award (out of 7 nominations), and one Tony Award (out of 7 nominations). She has also won a 2003 GLAAD Media Award as Herself and a 2003 London Film Critics’ Circle Award for Actress of the Year for The Business of Strangers.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7,217

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com