The Fortune

When I read about "Silkwood" in a movie encyclopedia, the caption said that Mike Nichols's career had come to a halt eight years earlier with "The Fortune". Watching the latter, I laughed but also felt like the movie was a little bit low for the director of "The Graduate" and "Catch-22". Portraying uptight Warren Beatty and over-conspicuous Jack Nicholson transporting Stockard Channing to California for what were deemed immoral purposes by the Mann Act in the 1920s, it seems like much of the flick consists of Beatty getting angry at Nicholson for not taking their predicament too seriously. But the last twenty minutes were a hoot, I will say that.

So, this may be Mike Nichols's only movie that you sit around in your underwear and watch. I gotta pity the characters for having a landlady like the one portrayed in the movie. Also starring Scatman Crothers (that's right, the cook from "The Shining") and a very young Christopher Guest.

Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, and Stockard Channing are at their comedic best in this movie. It's kind of one of those goofy 'buddy' movies where Nicholson and Beatty play off each other marvelously with Channing thrown into a great ditzy role. If you want to see comedy acting at its finest...

During the 1920's, the Mann-Act criminalizes transporting women across State lines for immoral purposes. Nicky Wilson (Warren Beatty) and Oscar Sullivan (Jack Nicholson) are inept con-artists trying to take rich heiress Fredericka Quintessa Bigard (Stockard Channing). She falls for Nicky but he's already married. Oscar marries Freddie in order to run away to L.A. across state lines. Her father threatens to disown her. The boys fight over her for her money.

This movie threw me. I expected good characters, and good acting from a Mike Nichols movie but he adds a screwball element to his comedy this time. I didn't see it coming. It takes me a little time to get used to it. I'm shaken by Oscar suddenly walking the wing on the plane. I don't think it's Nichols' strong suit. It's a lot of wacky screwball comedy that don't really generate laughs. The energy isn't there. He needs quicker edits and sharper gags. His brand of comedy isn't quite that. At its core, there are the three great actors and they shine.

It is easy to see why i had never heard of this movie before because it is so bad and it's hard to see a cast this great in a movie so bad. Hard to believe this was directed by Mike Nichols and stars Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson. The movie is set in the 1920's in which there is a law that saw you cannot take a woman across state lines for immoral purposes. Beatty is in love with Stockard Channing and has Nicholson get married to her and the movie doesn't make it clear why Beatty didn't marry her in the first place. Beatty is going to pose as her brother and they are going to California. It then turns out that both of them are only interested in her money and she isn't too happy about that. The movie is pretty bad and this movie deserves to be unknown.

Ramshackle farce with a few funny moments, mainly thanks to Nicholson's largely inspired comedic work, but little else. Mike Nichols is adept at coasting along on clever scripts,but he's clearly unable to salvage wayward material like this. In particular, the running gag which comprises the last half hour or so of the film wears incredibly thin. Beatty and Channing seem to be trying,to little avail, while Nicholson walks away with the film. He's particularly adroit in the first 20 minutes,before the film gets lost in it's own series of ambling vignettes. Still can't hold a candle to the old W.C. Fields or Laurel & Hardy films. Watch one of those instead.