The Fortune

There's a saying among film critics that only someone of considerable talent could make a really bad movie.  Director Mike Nichols contributed to the decade's wave of '20s nostalgia with 1975's THE FORTUNE.  Bogdanovich did it several times, and failed almost as often.  Even James Ivory had a whack at it.  Maybe these guys tried too hard.  Labored were these movies.  Overbudgeted.  Nichols' stab is especially odious.  An astonishingly inept and unfunny film that is as about as heavy handed a farce as I've seen.  I'm still in disbelief that the Coen Brothers cite this as one of their favorites.  It would lead to their own screwball dud, INTOLERABLE CRUELTY. 

Penned by Adrien Joyce, Carole Eastman's pseudonym, THE FORTUNE tells the tale of two swindlers named Nicky (Warren Beatty) and Oscar (Jack Nicholson) who try to cash in on the fortune of sanitary napkin heiress Frederika Bigard (Stockard Channing).  By essentially kidnapping her.  She loves Nicky, but has to marry Oscar after they head to California 'cause Nicky's already married and The Mann Act states you can't take a woman across state lines for purposes of immorality.  We are reminded of this several times during the movie.  Once at their destination, it becomes evident that these idiots may have to kill their quarry as she announces that she wants to give her money to charity. 

The set up is game.  The plot of a thousand similar comedies.  Shame that Adrien Joyce's script doesn't develop a single element to any amusement.   Nichols aids and abets with unsure, miscalculated attempts at comic timing again and again. The movie is positively laughless.  Nearly every scene concludes without payoff or punctuation, often on the most random of notes.  I've rarely seen anything like it.  Beatty, Nicholson, and Channing (who is appealing in her first major role) have zero chemistry.  Zero.  The leading men were never really known for their slapstick chops and it's evident at every moment.  Here they're like amateurs, mugging their way even through quieter moments.   It almost makes me want to take back all the bad things I've said about ISHTAR!

The film was expected to be a sure fire hit but was anything but.  Nichols would not direct another feature for several years (save the 1980 concert film GILDA LIVE), rather retreating back to the Broadway stage.  I feel badly for dissing a film with so much talent involved, but maybe it really did take their collective abilities to botch this promising project so expertly.

P.S. - Another demerit for wasting Scatman Crothers in a nothing part!