The Curse of the Jade Scorpion(2001)

SHORT VERSION:
On the night following the third jewel heist, C.W. secretly meets with his co-workers Alvin and George to tell them of his belief that Betty is the real thief, and the discussion gets around to George’s birthday party and how Voltan hypnotized C.W. and Betty during it. Alvin and George then discover that C.W. was never released from the key word Voltan put on him when Alvin randomly says it in front of him, so George – using his skills as an amateur magician – soon orders C.W. to recall all of the events of the past week, then sets him loose from the trance for good. C.W. subsequently explains to him and Alvin that Voltan had hypnotized him into committing the first two jewel heists, and he hypnotized Betty into doing the third heist since he wasn’t available. Around that time, Voltan calls Betty at her apartment and entrances her again before telling her to deliver the stolen jewels to him in Chinatown, then he has her write the address in her notebook next to the phone.

C.W. arrives at her apartment shortly after she has left, but he finds the address she wrote and relays this to Alvin and George so they, in turn, can give it to the police. He then goes down and confronts Voltan just after Betty has given him the jewels, and when Voltan threatens to shoot him, C.W. calls his bluff, telling him that a jewel thief like him lacks the nerve to kill people. Sure enough, as the cops are heard arriving outside, Voltan flees without pulling the trigger, but he is soon arrested. Afterwards, C.W. kisses the still-hypnotized Betty (who is later also deprogrammed by George).

C.W. decides to quit North Coast Insurance a few days later, and on the same day, Betty eventually decides to dump Chris and leave with C.W. since they both came to fall in love with each other for real over the course of the film.

LONG VERSION:
While at C.W.’s (Woody Allen) apartment one night, Betty (Helen Hunt) finds the Kensington and Dillworth jewels Voltan (David Ogden Stiers) hypnotized C.W. into stealing for him. As she is about ready to call the police on him (because this, along with evidence found at the scenes of both thefts as well as eyewitness reports, makes him look 100% guilty), Voltan telephones C.W. and says his key word, “Constantinople”, to put him into his hypnotic state again. He then orders C.W. to take the jewels, wrap them in paper, rent a locker at Grand Central Station and place them in it, take the locker key home, place it in his mailbox, and then go to sleep afterward, and he will wake up the next morning with no memory of what he just told him. After hanging up, C.W. speaks words of love to Betty like how they did with each other when Voltan first hypnotized them back at the birthday party of their North Coast co-worker George (Wallace Shawn), but Betty rejects him and leaves.

As C.W. is completing his task in Grand Central Station, Betty meets with Chris (Dan Aykroyd) and informs him that C.W. is the jewel thief and that she found the jewels. Chris subsequently contacts the police and lets them know of what C.W. has apparently done, but Betty tells Chris afterward that she strongly suspects that there is more to the story. In an attempt to explain C.W.’s possible motives, he reveals to her that C.W. got turned off of women (save for the no-threat secretaries and barflies he picks up) after he caught his wife cheating on him, which also caused him to become completely career-driven. He also takes the time to let Betty know that he officially told his wife, Caroline, that he wants a divorce and she is granting it to him, which will enable them to pursue their secret relationship openly.

C.W. is arrested and jailed, and the next day, despite vehemently proclaiming his innocence, he is handcuffed to a pipe in a detective’s office and left there so preparations can be made to take him to the local courthouse and book him. Laura Kensington (Charlize Theron) – whom C.W. tried to get frisky with in his apartment before Voltan called him and ordered him to commit the Dillworth heist, after which he dismissed her – walks past the office and sees him in there, and as they get to talking, C.W. convinces her to help him by going over to a nearby filing cabinet and getting the key for his cuffs out of one of the drawers. As she is looking, a cop comes in and tells Laura that she can’t be in there and asks her to come with him. Before being led out, she goes up to C.W. and kisses him, and we discover that she was able to find the key and sneak it into her mouth before passing it to C.W. via their kiss, and he frees himself and escapes the station. While Chris is at Betty’s place and Betty voices serious doubts about C.W. being the thief, she receives a call from the private investigators, the Coopersmiths (Michael Mulheren & Peter Linari), asking for Chris. They soon tell Chris that C.W. has escaped, and after he relays this news to Betty, he leaves to go to police headquarters. After he goes, C.W. comes knocking at Betty’s door and asks her to hide him, saying that he has to find the real thief and no one will think of looking for him here since she hates him. She grudgingly lets him stay the night.

However, Voltan – believing that C.W. is now unavailable – telephones Betty a few hours later and says her key word, “Madagascar”, to put her under the trance, then commands her to steal jewels from the Greenwood mansion and then hide them in her apartment. When she returns to the apartment with the jewels, C.W. awakens and chats with her, and she believes herself to be in love with him and starts to seduce and sweet-talk him, much to his great confusion, before suddenly falling asleep. In the morning, she wakes up back to normal and resumes insulting C.W., confusing him even more. They then hear a report on the radio about the latest theft and how C.W. is the prime suspect, and Betty accuses him of having done this robbery while she was asleep, which he completely denies. He also takes the opportunity to bring up all the things she tried to do with him last night, but she, too, utterly denies that, and brings up that she will be marrying Chris in the spring after he finalizes his divorce from Caroline, which C.W. considers a stupid decision. She then orders him to leave her home or else she will call the cops on him, and on his way out, he notices an expensive-looking ruby earring on the floor, but thinks little of it. However, that changes when he meets with Charlie (Irwin Corey), one of his street contacts, and discovers that he (from a friend of a friend who works in the same building as the Coopersmith Agency) recovered an identical ruby earring from last night’s heist that the burglar dropped while getting away. He also learns of an “Eddie Polgar” from another street contact. C.W. then calls his friend and co-worker Alvin (Brian Markinson) at North Coast, saying that he has to get up to the office to check out the Coopersmiths’ report as well as look through Betty’s desk because he believes that there are more people involved in this and he suspects that Betty is the real thief. He also asks Alvin if he knows of an Eddie Polgar, but he says no.

Alvin sneaks C.W. into the office after hours, with George also present, and after C.W. explains to them what he went through with Betty the previous night and how it fuels his suspicion of her being the real robber, George mentions that Betty’s use of her feminine wiles sounds more like something out of the hypnosis demonstration Voltan put on at his party. After C.W. learns that Voltan’s name is Eli Polgar, he recounts the events regarding Voltan’s hypnosis of him and Betty, and then Alvin says “Constantinople” and puts him under the trance right in front of him and George. George, an amateur magician himself, realizes that Voltan never released C.W. from his key word, so he snaps his fingers to bring him out of it. Alvin then puts C.W. back under again and asks George to order C.W. to recall all of the events of the past week before freeing him from the trance for good. George does so, and when C.W. awakens, he tells them about how he had committed the first two robberies under Voltan’s hypnosis and that Voltan undoubtedly hypnotized Betty into committing the Greenwood heist since he wasn’t available. Then he asks them what her key word is. Around the same time, Voltan calls Betty and puts her back under his spell again before ordering her to wrap up the jewels she stole and bring them to him at a certain address in Chinatown, which he makes her write down in her notebook next to the phone. Sometime after she has left, C.W. enters her home to look for her, but all he finds is the address. He calls Alvin and George and relays the address to them so they can give it to the police.

Betty delivers the goods to Voltan, but just as he is commanding her to go back home and wake up the next morning with no memory of what has occurred, C.W. noisily enters. He commends Voltan on the exoticness of his scheme, but then Voltan threatens him with a revolver. However, C.W. stands his ground, telling him that he knows that a jewel thief like him lacks the nerve to kill people. Sure enough, Voltan opts to flee without shooting when he hears the tires of a police car squealing to a stop outside, and we last see Voltan trying to outrun the cops (but he gets captured, obviously). Betty then says words of love to C.W. again, and C.W. decides to kiss passionately with her before getting to work on having her deprogrammed.

Back at North Coast a day or two later, the workers are all talking about the wrap-up of the case, as well as Betty’s impending romantic getaway in Paris with Chris this morning, their future nuptials, and Chris’ divorce. C.W. visits Chris in his office and submits his resignation to him, and Chris replies that, if he wants to leave, he has his blessing, but he will give him a raise if he stays. Plus, he will see to it that Betty no longer interferes with his work, for he plans to retire her as soon as they get married since he does not want to work alongside his wife. C.W. then visits Betty and lets her know that he is moving on, and after he shares a goodbye drink with her, he questions her decision to marry Chris and also says that, behind all of the nasty remarks she makes to him, there lies a very vulnerable, sweet, and sexy woman. C.W. then boxes up his stuff and meets up with his now-former co-workers, who label him their hero, but he writes off this latest success of his as luck and credits George and his knowledge of magic and hypnosis for helping him solve this case. Alvin then comments how amazing it is that you can hypnotize people in doing some outrageous things, but George corrects him by saying that you can’t be made to do anything under hypnosis that you wouldn’t do in real life, making C.W. and the others conclude that there must be criminal tendencies in both C.W. and Betty. Alvin then pulls C.W. aside and accuses him of having genuine romantic feelings for Betty, and C.W. finally admits that he does. Alvin then prods him to go after her before she leaves.

C.W. approaches Betty while she is with Chris and pours his heart out to her, telling her that he loves her and even asking her to marry him, saying that she shouldn’t spend the rest of her life with the wrong guy. However, she dismisses his outpouring of emotion and says he isn’t compatible with her. When she and Chris start to leave, C.W. asks if she is going to Madagascar, apparently hypnotizing her again and bringing the feelings of love for him back. She tells Chris she is staying with C.W., and Chris frantically tells someone to telephone his wife’s attorney and have him halt their separation. Alvin then congratulates C.W. and presents him with the very jade scorpion Voltan used to hypnotize him and Betty with as a “going-away present”, and C.W. and Betty mutually agree to go to her apartment and leave the office arm-in-arm. Soon after, George reveals to Alvin and the other workers that witnessed all of this that he had actually freed Betty from her key word last night.

Just as C.W. and Betty get outside the office door, Betty surprises C.W. by revealing at random that she isn’t under the trance. After accepting that she is coming along with him of her own free will, C.W. continues his departure with her.