Warren Beatty & Jack Nicholson In Mike Nichols’ THE FORTUNE
The Fortune is a slapstick black comedy starring Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson as a pair of hapless conmen attempting to score cash from Stockard Channing’s heiress (amongst other things).
The Mike Nichols directed film was unjustly panned on its initial release in 1975 ( and it’s still largely forgotten). The Fortune is no masterpiece, but it has been unfairly over-looked over the decades. The film has a strong pedigree – the screenplay was written by Five Easy Pieces screenwriter Carole Eastman under pseudonym Adrien Joyce.
Today The Fortune is a tremendous little curio and old friends Beatty and Nicholson give it their all. They’re a blast to watch and make one hell of a comedic double act.
In 2018 Powerhouse Films’ Indicator Series released a great blu-ray of The Fortune. The disc features a commentary with critic and film historian Nick Pinkerto and a fantastic chat between Mike Nichols and Elaine May, recorded after a screening of May’s Ishtar (another under-rated film) at New York’s Walter Reade Theater in 2006.
