The screenplay by Adrien Joyce focuses on two bumbling con men who plot to steal the fortune of a wealthy young heiress, played by Stockard Channing in her first film starring role.

Nicky Wilson and Oscar Sullivan are inept 1920s scam artists in the Northeastern United States who see pay dirt in the guise of Fredericka Quintessa "Freddie" Bigard, the millionaire heiress to a sanitary napkin fortune.

Oscar, who is wanted for embezzlement and anxious to get out of town, is happy to comply with the plan, although he intends to claim his spousal privileges after they are wed. Once they reach Los Angeles, the men try everything they can to separate Freddie from her inheritance without success, but with sufficient determination to arouse her suspicions.

When Warren Beatty was unable to stir interest in his and Robert Towne's screenplay for Shampoo about a befuddled but seductive hairdresser, which he had been developing since 1967, he bundled it with the more appealing The Fortune and convinced Columbia Pictures head David Begelman to finance both films.

The fact that Carole Eastman, writing under the pen name Adrien Joyce, had yet to complete her 240-page script fazed Beatty less than it did director Mike Nichols, who needed a box-office hit after Catch-22 and The Day of the Dolphin, both of which were critical and commercial flops.

He ultimately cast relative newcomer Stockard Channing, whose credits were limited to a few television appearances and a minor role in the Barbra Streisand film Up the Sandbox.

[5]TV Guide rated it four stars, calling it "an offbeat but often hilarious comedy" and adding, the film "works well through the fine performances of the leads and the superb timing of director Nichols."