BEFORE: Happy Chinese New Year! Here's a "Fortune Cookie" for you - it was either this film or "Breakfast at Tiffany's" tonight, and from the clips I've seen, Mickey Rooney playing a Chinese man seems quite racist...
I'm not sure if this one qualifies as a straight-up romance, but the IMDB puts it in that category, along with comedy. Such are the perils of scheduling films before watching them, but at least it keeps my linking alive one more day, as Walter Matthau carries over from "Cactus Flower".
THE PLOT: A crooked lawyer persuades his brother-in-law to feign a serious injury.
AFTER: This one starts with a big football game on CBS - which ties in with last week's Super Bowl. I didn't talk much about it at the time, I just did my job and tracked the ads this year, since I didn't care about either team. References are made to "30 million" people watching the game, which suggests a mid-1960's playoff game, but that's not possible - why? Because the Cleveland Browns are seen playing. ZING!
Concessions have to be made to the year this was made - this was before tort reform, but also back when a million dollars seemed like an amazing amount of money. Last week I caught a few minutes of a documentary called "Hot Coffee", about that infamous lawsuit against McDonald's after a woman was scalded by the titular beverage. You might have an opinion already about the validity of that case, but the film changed mine in 5 minutes - that woman needed serious skin grafts.
I served on a jury once where the case was a construction-site accident. We never had to assign damages, since the two parties were working on a settlement the whole time - whenever the jury members left the room, the proposed amounts got a little closer together, apparently.
But this film clearly concerns a fraudulent suit - the romance part comes when the "injured" man realizes that with some sympathy, he can convince his ex-wife to return to him. Which also might seem like a good idea at first, but not if you think it through. This does fit in with "Cactus Flower", "Same Time, Next Year" and "Picture Perfect", because it starts with one lie that then must be supported by dozens more, and eventually starts to unravel.
While I don't condone insurance fraud, I still thought that the ambulance-chasing lawyer made some good points - who's to say that a back injury won't manifest itself later on? Or a head injury - some NFL players have trouble years later, and those guys wear helmets! The guy's at least due something for "pain and suffering", even if it's just for being a Browns fan...
ASIDE: Jeez, remember back when you could smoke inside a hospital? No, me neither...
Still, it feels I may have gotten a bit off-track, in a month that should be devoted to more romantic endeavors. So I'll try to right the ship tomorrow...
Also starring Jack Lemmon (last seen in "Missing"), Ron Rich, Judi West, Cliff Osmond with a cameo from William "Father Mulcahy" Christopher.
RATING: 4 out of 10 x-rays
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