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Poster for The Fortune Cookie
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Released
1966 · FILM

The Fortune Cookie

Injured cameraman Harry Hinkle teams up with his scheming lawyer brother‑in‑law to sue for a million dollars, only to have his greed collide with an opportunistic ex‑wife and the moral fallout of their fraudulent claim.

“Is he a spy? A security risk? Is he unfaithful? Or is he a nice, normal shnook - out to make a million bucks by sheer accident!”

Directed by
Billy Wilder
Written by
Billy Wilder, I A L Diamond
Rated
MPA · NR
Runtime
125 min
ComedyRomance

Synopsis

TV cameraman Harry Hinkle is injured while filming a football game. Seeing financial opportunity, his unscrupulous ambulance-chasing lawyer brother-in-law, Willie Gingrich, becomes involved and convinces Harry to exaggerate his injuries in order to claim $1 million in pain and suffering.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Director of Photography
Writers
Director

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

A crew of 45+ credited

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Daniel MandellShot by Joseph LashelleScored by Andre Previn

Box Office

1966 · Box office

⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 1.8× its budget

Why 2.5×?

Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).

Worldwide gross

$6.8M

Budget$3.7M
Worldwide gross$6.8M
break-even (2.5×)

Also known as

  • Der Glückspilzde
  • En bandeja de plataes
  • La Grande Combinefr
  • Non per soldi... ma per denaroit

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