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Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

It seems ironic that three doomed projects that Mike Nichols directed starred Jack Nicholson ("The Fortune", "Heartburn" and What Planet Are You From?"). Nicholson along with Meryl Streep was in "Heartburn" and Warren Beatty and in "The Fortune" which marked the debut of Stockard Channing of "Grease" fame.I have a problem of watching stupid people commit some of the dumbest things. It makes me cringe to see such talented performers like Beatty, Nicholson and Channing would lower their standards to playing these characters. Even awful films like "Ishtar" directed by Nichols and starring Beatty has more things going for over the abominable "The Fortune". This movie takes its place in the annals of other 1970's stinkers like "The Frisco Kid" that starred an odd pairing of Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford and was directed by Robert Aldrich (both were period pieces with "The Frisco Kid" set in 1850's while "The Fortune" was set in the roaring 1920's).Due to the restriction of the Mann Act, it was against the law that a man to transport a woman across state lines for purposes that were deem immoral, which was at the time having sex outside of wedlock. To avoid such penalization, the cautious Nicky (Warren Beatty), who's struggling from divorcing his wife, manipulates his friend Oscar (Jack Nicholson) to marry Frederica (Stockard Channing), who's about to become extremely wealthy. She was oblivious when her husband arrived at the wedding ceremony drunk orchestrated by Nicky. The three travel by berths from the East to Los Angeles and settle in a stucco house that is owned by a workaholic Mrs. Gould (Florence Stanley).Oscar wants to go over some nuptial agreements to this marriage and property matters (which also means intercourse to prevent this marriage from being null and void). Nicky is harried at his friend's neediness and idiocy to the person he falsely claims he loves.Once Freddie knows that she's being conned by the two men who are after her fortune, she starts becoming vocal about donating the fortune she's about to receive. This means that the boys must do something drastic before she does such a task. The antics are awkward and lacks in anything logical even for a screwball comedy. There's no wit or reasonable approach to their schemes to the point where you don't really care for the characters.It's a complex procedure as to find the right ingredient for a comedy to work, but it's even more complex into unravel how a comedy can flop. I mean the script was written by Carole Eastman who in past wrote several films in which Nicholson starred in like "The Shooting" and "Five Easy Pieces". You have a very capable director Mike Nichols who has been more successful in adaptations like "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Angels in America". And we have top quality stars here like Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson and Stockard Channing who have had great success in the movie world. So where did we go wrong? I can play the blame game to just about anyone, but the culprits behind this abomination goes to writer Eastman and director Nichols. Eastman wrote pedestrian dialogue, awful characters, the plot devices are incoherent and she had the chance to edit out these abysmal devices and try to make it work. The horrible comical timing is partly Nichols to blame as well as the thespians. It's not he was a stranger to them (he directed Nicholson in the 1971 classic "Carnal Knowledge"). Beatty does not have much humour implanted in him, but had his moments in "Bulworth" which he directed himself.Sure there may have been some people who found this film funny and you know what? That's fine you are all entitled to your opinions. It's no surprise that the Coen Brothers like it (especially Joel). To each their own I say. If you are curious to see this movie, well do not let me stop you. I just will not consider watching it again, ever.

A flat-out perfect classic farce. It's a blend of sophisticated and low comedy, delicious, masterful comedy acting by actors at the top of their form. The classic dialogue walks the fine line between silliness and believability extremely well. Photography, production design, costumes and score are all top-flight. The actors have a field day with these larger-than-life but universal characters – they are expert farceurs. Beatty channels Barrymore and gives one of his best performances and he is VERY handsome! Nicholson is equally good in a rare truly comic role, and Channing is just fantastic - she easily earns her top billing (in her first starring role!), as is Florence Stanley as a latter-day Thelma Ritter.It's like a soufflé - delicious but nearly impossible to pull off. Mike Nichols is a genius comedy director (he's not bad with drama either!). This film is incredibly well paced, setting the right tone and balance throughout - it reminds me of Hawks' His Girl Friday and Bringing Up Baby. It has the same twisted logic and just laugh-out-loud humor. It's just really, really funny. It has a terrific screenplay by Carole Eastman, who also wrote Five Easy Pieces (talk about extremes). If 30s films could have been this sexually frank you could imagine Cagney or Tracy in the Beatty role, Cary Grant as Nicholson and Jean Arthur or Irene Dunne as Channing doing this kind of material.I was shocked to read so many strongly negative reactions to this film here on IMDb, but I didn't get this film on my first go-round either. I think it's never found an audience because it's sophisticated and a bit obtuse; also, standards have fallen so low that many people can only accept comedies they've experienced before and feel safe with.I'm looking forward to many re-viewings and sharing it with friends.

I had a hard time figuring out what was going on, and while there were comedy, it was very dark and delivered by actors not well-suited to my particular taste.Stockard Channing was the mistress to Warren Beatty's character (I'm not that familiar with him but certainly wouldn't have recognized him). And she was rich ("The Fortune" of the title) and knew that's all Beatty wanted her for. But in order to comply with the Mann act, she had to be married to Jack Nicholson's character (legally). Beatty claimed Nicholson was his brother. Explaining the naughty antics to the landlady (Florence Stanley, someone I've liked a lot over the years) turned out to be a challenge, but somehow they met them. It seems Nicholson wanted to do what he could legally, even though the whole thing was a scam so Beatty could do what Nicholson was doing. All of this took a while for me to figure out, since I kept thinking I knew what was going on and then kept being proved wrong.What made this movie truly worthwhile was the zany ending. Very funny, lots of action and confusion--but this time it was the good kind of confusion.

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.