Outrageous Fortune movie storyline. In New York City, Lauren Ames (Shelley Long) and Sandy Brozinsky (Bette Midler) take an immediate dislike to each other when they meet for the first time while auditioning for an acting class under the great Russian acting teacher Stanislav Korzenowski (Robert Prosky).
Sandy, whose last film was a low-budget grade-B movie titled ‘Ninja Vixens’, is brash and crass and decides to audition on a whim, while the prim and proper, Yale-educated Lauren has practiced for hours on Ophelia’s monologue from Hamlet. Both women are accepted, but Sandy gets in on a scholarship, while Lauren must borrow $5,000 from her well-to-do parents, even though she already owes them $32,000.
While working her day job at a costume shop, Lauren meets grammar school teacher Michael Santers (Peter Coyote) who is looking for a pumpkin costume for one of his students. When the shop does not have the costume, Lauren offers to make it for him. Michael accompanies Lauren home and the two have sex. They begin dating, but unknown to Lauren, Michael is also sleeping with Sandy.
When Michael picks up Lauren after class, he realizes it is their three-week anniversary and has the taxi stop at a florist shop. Immediately after he enters the shop, a bomb explodes and the building is engulfed in flames. A terrorist group claims responsibility. Presuming Michael dead, Lauren goes to the morgue wanting to see his body, but a moment later, Sandy also arrives. The two women scuffle upon realizing they were sleeping with the same man. When they look at the body, the face is burned beyond recognition, but they realize it cannot be Michael because the penis is far too small.
Lauren and Sandy report this to police, who laugh them out of the office. They go to Lauren’s apartment hoping Michael will be there, but find Russian mobsters searching for evidence that Michael is still alive. Eluding the gangsters, they go to a tobacco shop and learn Michael was in there just a few hours earlier. Following a lead, they pretend to be policewomen and go to drug dealers on the Lower East Side, who report Michael purchased a fake passport under the name “John Strauss.”
At the airport, Lauren impersonates a Russian wife searching for her runaway husband where the ladies learn from the ticket clerk that their wayward lover is on a flight to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and purchase tickets to go there. Meanwhile, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent Joe Atkins (John Schuck) and his men have been following the pair, hoping they will lead them to Michael. They try to stop them before they can board the airplane, but the women create a diversion using stolen cash they found which Michael left behind and get on the plane safely.
Sandy and Lauren land in Albuquerque at the same time that Atkins and his men arrive in a private plane. They elude the CIA and spot Michael getting off his flight. The women steal a motorcycle and follow Michael to a lakefront shack. However, the CIA arrives a moment later and shoot Michael. Sandy and Lauren knock Atkins unconscious and rescue Michael, then demand answers.
Reporting that both women were “convenient” and “forgettable,” Michael tries to kill them with a knife, but they run away. Michael chases them across the lakefront and they flag down a passing helicopter. It lands revealing that Atkins is on board along with a man named Weldon (Anthony Heald), who was in their acting class.
Outrageous Fortune is a 1987 American comedy film written by Leslie Dixon, directed by Arthur Hiller and starring Shelley Long and Bette Midler. The title is taken from Shakespeare’s Hamlet (“…the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune…”). The film was successful at the box office, and Midler was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and won an American Comedy Award for Funniest Actress in a Motion Picture (Leading Role).
Outrageous Fortune (1987)
Directed by: Arthur Hiller
Starring: Shelley Long, Bette Midler, Peter Coyote, Robert Prosky, John Schuck, George Carlin, Anthony Heald, Florence Stanley, Diana Bellamy, Christopher McDonald, Carol Ann Susi
Screenplay by: Leslie Dixon
Production Design by: James Dowell Vance
Cinematography by: David M. Walsh
Film Editing by: Tom Rolf
Costume Design by: Gloria Gresham
Set Decoration by: Rick Gentz
Art Direction by: Sandy Veneziano
Music by: Alan Silvestri
Distributed by: Buena Vista Distribution
Release Date: January 30, 1987
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