- I can handle big news and little news. And if there's no news, I'll go out and bite a dog.
- Although intended as a harmless boast, that quote gets perfectly at the essence of Billy Wilder's wonderfully sardonic Ace in the Hole. To what extent does a reporter make the news? One could argue that news doesn't technically exist until events are reported, and that therefore all news is to some extent manufactured. Conversely, one could rather naively claim that reporters simply record and repeat the facts of an event, contributing little in the way of new information. Like all such debates, the answer surely lies somewhere in between these two positions and certainly must depend on the circumstances. Ace in the Hole, however, considers an extreme case in which a reporter does his best to prolong and exploit a tragic situation in order to create as much news as possible.
- That reporter's name is Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas), and he's a hard guy to like. The first thing he does when he hits Albuquerque is march into the local newspaper office and insult the copy editor (Porter Hall). Naturally, this is all just a prelude to his pitch for a job. It would seem that Tatum has been bouncing around the country, getting kicked out of one news office after another for crimes ranging from an excess of drink to canoodling with the editor's wife. Regardless, Albuquerque gives him a chance, and pretty soon he's a regular fixture. Problem is, Tatum doesn't really possess what you'd call a small-town ethos. He's loud and acerbic and, above all, a negative New York stereotype from head to toe. At one point in the film, he goes on a rant about how much he misses chicken liver and garlic pickles, not to mention Yogi Berra. "Yogi. Why it's a sort of religion isn't it?" inquires one of the locals.
- One day, Tatum gets sent out with a fledgling reporter (Robert Arthur) to cover a local rattlesnake festival, which one guesses they don't have back in The Big Apple. On the way, they stop for gas in a tiny Southwestern town that exists solely by virtue of sitting at the intersection of two highways. There, an old woman (Frances Dominguez) is crying instead of serving customers. It seems her son, Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict), is stuck in a cave-in down the road. To hear Leo's father (John Berkes) tell it, they're worried that Leo might have to stay in there all night. Tatum smells blood in the water and generously offers to take Leo some food. Next thing you know, Tatum's bossing around the opportunistic town sheriff (Ray Teal) and recommending that the weak-willed chief engineer (Frank Jaquet) tunnel in from the top of the mountain instead of shoring up the existing shaft. Sure, it'll take a week longer, but if the contractors ever want to work in this town again, Tatum is sure they'll make the right call.
- Before long, the reporter has whipped up the public's appetite for a tragic human interest story into a maelstrom of morbid curiosity. A pair of rubbernecked vacationers with the wonderful surname Federber (Frank Cady and Geraldine Hall) settle in for the long haul while admission to area near the cave rockets up from a quarter to a dollar in just a few days. Ferris wheels, merry-go-rounds, and calliopes grow up seemingly overnight while a train that never stopped in town before now is rechristened the Leo Minosa Express. And then there's Leo's wife, Lorraine (Jan Sterling). Far from the teary-eyed devotee described in Tatum's columns, the real Lorraine nearly robs the register to high-tail it back to Baltimore before realizing that she could make more money cashing in on Leo's situation. In most films noir, she'd be the one leading Tatum to his doom, but Tatum is so cynical that he astonishes even her. "I met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my life," she says, "but you - you're twenty minutes."
- Despite being one of Wilder's least commercially and critically successful films -- I can't imagine why the media wouldn't have liked it -- Ace in the Hole strikes me as one of the clearest reflections of the director's own acidic personality. Most of Wilder's famous quotes and all of his interviews are suffused with the same biting witticisms that helped make movies like this, Double Indemnity, and Sunset Blvd. so memorable. In Ace in the Hole, however, it would seem that Wilder finally gave the press and the public a pill that was just too bitter to swallow. It's a shame, too, considering that the film, shot largely on location in New Mexico, features the most impressive natural settings in any Wilder film. Ace in the Hole utilizes this expansive space well in a few really terrific moments of direction, notably including a long pan from the arriving train across the carnival fairgrounds. Furthermore, the film contains an impressive performance by Douglas, whose raw energy was rarely channeled into such a nefarious character. Happily, the film's recent DVD reissue seems to have garnered favor amongst the critical press. Another Wilder quote comes to mind: "Hindsight is always twenty-twenty."
- Originally released as The Big Carnival.
- The film mentions real-life cave-in victim Floyd Collins.
- Mr. Federber works for Pacific All-Risk Insurance, the same company that appears in Double Indemnity!
