The Fortune Cookie - Production

Production

  • This was the first film to feature the movie partnership of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.
  • They acted together in 10 movies:
    • The Fortune Cookie (1966)
    • The Odd Couple (1968)
    • The Front Page (1974)
    • Buddy Buddy (1981)
    • JFK (1991) (The duo shared no screen time in this film)
    • Grumpy Old Men (1993)
    • The Grass Harp (1995)
    • Grumpier Old Men (1995)
    • Out to Sea (1997)
    • The Odd Couple II (1998)
    • Lemmon also directed Matthau (and had a brief cameo appearance) in Kotch (1971).
  • Production was halted for weeks after Walter Matthau had a heart attack. He had slimmed from 190 to 160 pounds by the time filming was completed, and had to wear a heavy black coat to conceal the weight loss.
  • Jack Lemmon originally had two other actors proposed to star with him. They were Frank Sinatra and Jackie Gleason, but Lemmon insisted that he do the picture with Walter Matthau.
  • Scenes were filmed at the Minnesota Vikings vs. Cleveland Browns game, held at Cleveland Municipal Stadium on the afternoon of Halloween 1965, with the Vikings beating the Browns, 27-17.

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Famous quotes containing the word production:

    “Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.”
    —W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)

    “The problem of culture is seldom grasped correctly. The goal of a culture is not the greatest possible happiness of a people, nor is it the unhindered development of all their talents; instead, culture shows itself in the correct proportion of these developments. Its aim points beyond earthly happiness: the production of great works is the aim of culture.”
    —Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    “An art whose limits depend on a moving image, mass audience, and industrial production is bound to differ from an art whose limits depend on language, a limited audience, and individual creation. In short, the filmed novel, in spite of certain resemblances, will inevitably become a different artistic entity from the novel on which it is based.”
    —George Bluestone, U.S. educator, critic. “The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film,” Novels Into Film, Johns Hopkins Press (1957)