The Fortune
| The Fortune | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Mike Nichols |
| Produced by | Don Devlin Mike Nichols |
| Written by | Adrien Joyce |
| Starring |
Warren Beatty Jack Nicholson Florence Stanley Richard B. Shull Tom Newman John Fiedler Scatman Crothers |
| Music by |
José Padilla Sánchez David Shire |
| Cinematography | John A. Alonzo |
| Edited by | Stu Linder |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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88 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
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 fortune of a wealthy young heiress, played by in her first film starring role.
Nicky Wilson (Beatty) and Oscar Sullivan (Nicholson) are inept 1920s scam artists who see pay dirt in the guise of Fredericka Quintessa 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.
When Warren Beatty was unable to stir interest in his and Robert Towne's screenplay for Shampoo, 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 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.
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