The Fortune Cookie (1966)

Walter Matthau: Willie Gingrich

Photos 

Quotes 

• Harry Hinkle : Florida and Mustangs and foxes, how are you gonna pay for all of this?

  Willie Gingrich : Our credit is good.

  Harry Hinkle : Well don't you think we better wait 'til we see some of that insurance money?

  Willie Gingrich : Wait? Who waits nowadays? Take the government. When they shoot a billion dollars worth of hardware into space, do you think they pay cash? It's all on the Diner's Club!

• [to kids making a lot of noise] 

  Willie Gingrich : Why don't you kids go play on the freeway?

• Willie Gingrich : I'm his brother-in-law, Sister. And this is his mother, Sister, and this is my wife, his sister, Sister.

• Willie Gingrich : Unwed mothers? I'm for that!

• Willie Gingrich : He's gonna give you a shot to help you pass those tests.

  Harry Hinkle : Oh, I'm not gonna take any shots from a waiter!

  Willie Gingrich : What do you mean "waiter?" This is Doc Schindler, from Chicago.

  Doc Schindler : Howdy.

  Willie Gingrich : Those insurance guys think they're such geniuses. What they forget is every time they build a better mousetrap, the mice gets smarter, too.

  Harry Hinkle : You'll be careful, won't you, Doc?

  Doc Schindler : I better be, because I'm on parole.

  Harry Hinkle : Parole?

  Doc Schindler : They caught me tampering with a horse at Arlington Park.

  Harry Hinkle : A veterinary?

  Willie Gingrich : Well actually, he's a dentist.

  Doc Schindler : What do you want?

  Willie Gingrich : Right arm and left leg. Make them good and numb.

  Doc Schindler : Oh, *numb*.

  Willie Gingrich : Sure, we want those nerves blocked!

  Doc Schindler : Oh, then I better use the Novocain, because with this stuff, he'll run the mile in 1:34 flat.

• Charlotte Gingrich : [as their kids skateboard around the hospital's halls]  Children! Jeffery, Ginger, cut that out. This is a hospital.

  Willie Gingrich : Let 'em. If they're gonna break a leg, this is the place to do it.

• Willie Gingrich : What about Mrs. Cunningham vs. Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Ohio, number eighty-nine twenty-seven. Mrs. Cunningham, en route to Cincinnati to visit dying uncle, gets trapped in the toilet on account of a faulty lock. The car is hitched to another train. Mrs. Cunningham winds up in San Bernadino California. By this time, the uncle is dead and she's cut out of the will, so she sues the railroad for damages. Does this ring a bell?

  O'Brien : Never heard of it!

  Willie Gingrich : None of this has? Because you, gentlemen, represented the railroad.

  O'Brien : We did?

  Willie Gingrich : And lost the case.

• Willie Gingrich : What're you watchin'?

  Harry Hinkle : [Watching television]  An old movie about Abraham Lincoln.

  Willie Gingrich : Lincoln! Great President. Lousy lawyer.

• Sister Veronica : Doesn't it do your heart good? I have a hunch he'll be up and around in no time.

  Willie Gingrich : Huh, huh, huh. Now look, sister, I asked you to pray for him, but we don't want any miracles.

• Willie Gingrich : Now tell me, Mr. Cimoli, exactly how did you break your hip?

  Mr. Cimoli : It's my *pelvis*!

  Willie Gingrich : All right, your pelvis. How did it happen?

  Mr. Cimoli : Well I was coming out of the store, and there it was on the sidewalk.

  Willie Gingrich : What?

  Mr. Cimoli : [Shows Gingrich a banana peel]  This.

  Willie Gingrich : I see. And you were coming out of *what* store?

  Mr. Cimoli : Nat's Delicatessen, on Euclid Avenue.

  Willie Gingrich : Too bad.

  Mr. Cimoli : Oh, such pain.

  Willie Gingrich : I mean too bad it didn't happen further down the street in front of the May Company. From *them* you can collect. Couldn't you have dragged yourself another twenty feet?

• Harry Hinkle : [as Mother Hinkle weeps over him]  I'll be all right, Mother.

  Willie Gingrich : Sure he will. Every week you read in Time Magazine how they're transplanting kidneys and making new spines out of fiberglass. Don't you think the doctors read that stuff, too?

• Willie Gingrich : Oh, doc, any ruptures, broken bones, internal bleeding?

  Intern : [Smiling]  I don't think so.

  Willie Gingrich : You don't think so? How long you been out of medical school?

  Intern : Four months.

  Willie Gingrich : That long, huh?

• Willie Gingrich : What's the matter? You feel sorry for insurance companies?

• Willie Gingrich : Get back in bed. Get into bed!

  Harry Hinkle : Okay! But only because it's draughty and l got no pants.

• Willie Gingrich : You guys should really bone up on negligence.

• [justifying why Willie should cheat his insurance company] 

  Willie Gingrich : What's wrong? Insurance companies have too much - they have to microfilm it.

• O'Brien : We've been going over the hospital report.

  Willie Gingrich : Discouraging, isn't it?

  O'Brien : Naturally, we don't accept it at face value.

  Willie Gingrich : I wouldn't, either.

  Thompson : Look, Gingrich, let's stop horsing around. We demand the right to have our own doctors examine Hinkle.

  Willie Gingrich : You got it.

  Kincaid : Unless you agree to it, we'll get a court order and force you.

  Willie Gingrich : I agree to it.

  O'Brien : Now don't give us any trouble, Gingrich. We know your reputation... what do you mean you "agree to it?"

• Willie Gingrich : I'm his brother-in-law, sister.

  Sister Veronica : I see.

  Willie Gingrich : And this is his mother, sister. And this is my wife, his sister, sister.

  Sister Veronica : How do you do.

• Willie Gingrich : You know, Harry. I've seen guys carry a torch before, but you're the champ. You could carry it from Greece to Mexico City to open the next Olympic games.

• Willie Gingrich : Are you sure?

  Dr. Krugman : Why do you think I'm wearing this outfit - 'cause I'm a barber?

  Willie Gingrich : Oh, I don't mean to question your comp...

  Dr. Krugman : So don't kibitz.

• Mr. Cimoli : Hey, how much do you think my pain is worth?

  Willie Gingrich : By itself, nothing. So, it's a good thing you came to me. Before we're through with them, we'll have them begging for mercy

  Mr. Cimoli : Who's them?

  Willie Gingrich : That I haven't figured out yet. But don't go away. I'll think if maybe...

• Harry Hinkle : [as Doc Schindler gives him a shot of Novocain in the leg]  What if I get an infection from this?

  Willie Gingrich : So, we sue the hospital for using dirty needles.

• Willie Gingrich : Did he hurt himself?

  Mother Hinkle : Spent two months in bed. He had a compressed vertebra.

  Willie Gingrich : Compressed vertebra, huh?

• Willie Gingrich : l don't want my brother-in-law to be a nobody. I wanna see you in a fastback Mustang, Italian silk suits, a decent apartment, a go-go baby all the way!

• Willie Gingrich : Whatever happened to all those beautiful nurses you see on television? Would you mind leaving us alone for a little while?

  Ugly Nurse : I'd be delighted.

• Willie Gingrich : Think of your mother. Think of your mother, Harry. Bronchitis every winter. She shouldn't be in Cleveland. She should be in Florida, baking her chest.

• Harry Hinkle : Of all the miserable broads. I don't know what l ever saw in her in the first place. Cooks like a pig and smokes in bed! Used to walk around like a zombie because her nail polish was always wet. That's unless she was crawling on her knees trying to find her contact lenses. Best thing that ever happened to me was when she cut out!

  Willie Gingrich : Still crazy about her, huh?

• Harry Hinkle : Look, Willie, l'm not sayin' l'm any better than the next guy. Maybe l add a few bucks on my expense account, but an out-and-out fake like this, l'm not...

  Willie Gingrich : Fake? We got 83,000 eyewitnesses. Another 30 million watched it on television. They saw you get hit by a 220 pound monster. They saw you take a spill over that tarpaulin - which shouldn't have been there in the first place. We got a clear-cut case of negligence.

• Willie Gingrich : Lemme guess. You want to settle.

  O'Brien : Settle?

  Willie Gingrich : You don't want to settle?

  O'Brien : Certainly not.

  Willie Gingrich : That settles that.

• Willie Gingrich : I picked up some stuff at your apartment. Robe, slippers - your Playboy pajamas with the bunnies.

• Harry Hinkle : Hello, Mother. Hi, Charlotte.

  Mother Hinkle : My poor baby. What have they done to you?

  Willie Gingrich : He's wearing a corset, Mother. Everybody wears a corset. You wear a corset, Charlotte wears a corset.

  Charlotte Gingrich : I wear a girdle!

• Mr. Cimoli : Say, how much do you think my pelvis is worth?

  Willie Gingrich : By itself, nothing. So it's a good thing you came to me. Before we're through, we'll have them begging for mercy.

  Mr. Cimoli : Well, who's "them"?

  Willie Gingrich : That l haven't figured out yet.

• Willie Gingrich : I'm considering suing the United Fruit Company. There should be a printed warning on every banana peel. Those things can be hazardous to your health. Carry on, gentlemen.

• Willie Gingrich : To see O'Brien, Thompson and Kincaid.

  The Lawyers' Receptionist : And you are?

  Willie Gingrich : Gingrich, Gingrich and Gingrich.

• Harry Hinkle : [laying in a hospital bed]  Could l have that cigarette?

  Willie Gingrich : Cigarette? Is it all right if he smokes?

  Dr. Krugman : Personally, l gave it up. But if you gotta smoke, blow a little bit my way.

• Dr. Krugman : So, we open the kid up, and what do we find? Three buttons, a thumbtack, and 27 cents in change.

  Willie Gingrich : Morning, Doctor.

  Dr. Krugman : Morning. Parents couldn't afford to pay for the operation, so l kept the 27 cents.

• Willie Gingrich : I wish you'd tell him to stay away from here.

  Harry Hinkle : Why? He's a nice guy.

  Willie Gingrich : That's what l mean!

• Harry Hinkle : I don't want that. Would you take it away? Take everything away.

  Ugly Nurse : Are you sure?

  Harry Hinkle : You eat it.

  Ugly Nurse : Don't you even want the fortune cookie? Come on. You've got to open your fortune cookie.

  Harry Hinkle : Oh...

  Willie Gingrich : What does it say?

  Harry Hinkle : "You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all the time..."

  Willie Gingrich : Let me see that. Those Chinese. What do they know?

• O'Brien : In return for a release from all future claims, we're willing to compensate your client with a lump sum. Say $2,000. Fair enough?

  Willie Gingrich : It may be fair, but it's not enough. I had a slightly different figure in mind. Say 500,000?

  O'Brien : 500,000? You're being grotesque!

• Willie Gingrich : Look, Harry. We know we're bugged, but they don't know *we* know.

• Willie Gingrich : The only way to speed up the action, is to goose 'em a little.

• Willie Gingrich : I can't wait to see that pretty puss again. Why doesn't Boom Boom pick her up, huh?

  Harry Hinkle : Boom Boom?

• Sandy Hinkle : Hey, Santa Claus. Can l ask you a question?

  Willie Gingrich : Sure, little girl. Would you like to sit on my lap?

• Willie Gingrich : Eighty-three thousand matches. I hope it doesn't rain.

• Sandy Hinkle : Don't snow me. I know it's a fraud.

  Willie Gingrich : I wish you wouldn't use words like that.

• Willie Gingrich : All the money he gets from the insurance company, over and above his actual medical expenses, is going to go into the Harry Hinkle Foundation to help the handicapped.

• Willie Gingrich : Melba toast? Skinless and boneless sardines? Tootsie Rolls? Low-calorie yogurt? How about some pepperoni pizza?

• Willie Gingrich : Worry not. There'll be enough for everybody.

  Sandy Hinkle : I'll do what l can.

  Willie Gingrich : That's a good kid.

  [spanks Sandy's behind as she turns to walk away] 

  Willie Gingrich : Hey, put on a little weight, haven't ya? l'd say about seven pound.

• Willie Gingrich : Anybody care for cocoa? Ovaltine? Sauerkraut juice? Delaware Punch?

• Sandy Hinkle : "Everything's Coming up Roses" - that's what l want to open with. Four guys carry me on in a big basket full of flowers. I'm wearing a tight red sequined gown and they're in tails, white tie, top hats and canes.

  Willie Gingrich : Socko, baby, socko!