Ace in the Hole

When Tatum and Boot are talking in the Minosa's back room, the amount of alcohol Tatum pours in his glass changes.

When Lorraine and Chuck are talking out in front of Minosa's store by the gas pumps, reflections of the crew moving around behind the camera can be seen in the store windows.

Rattlesnakes will not eat bubble gum, in or out of the wrapper.

Everybody, almost everybody needs a piece of cake, it doesn't matter what they have to do to get it, and this movie portrays it superbly. The movie also depicts the ugly face of media, which goes down to a gutter level to create stories by risking human life.

"Ace in the Hole" is a Drama movie in which we watch a reporter of a newspaper trying to find the best story that will make him more famous or even capable to win a Pulitzer price. When he finds a trapped man inside a mine he has an idea that will change his life for ever.

A journalist from New York, Chuck Tatum, ends up in Albuquerque working for a local newspaper. He is a defeated man who has failed miserably because of his hard drinking, among other things.

Billy Wilder - the American director whose body of work sailed as closely to perfection as one can get - reportedly referred to Ace in the Hole, a rare flop for Wilder, as "the runt of my cinematic litter." Dismissed by critics upon release for its cynical depiction of the tabloids and law enforcement, it has since been re-discovered and lavished with praise for foreshadowing a world in which we are bombarded with sensationalised news stories that are now never more than a thumb-swipe away.

***SPOILERS*** Straight from the headlines the film "Ace in the Hole" shows just how unscrupulous those in the media can be to get the big scoop and makes themselves both rich and famous at the expense of others.Down and out former big city reporter Chuck Tatum, Kirk Douglas, gets himself a job on the barley surviving Albuquerque Sun-Bulletin and plans to make it big in the newspaper business even if he has to kill someone in order to do it.

Billy Wilder directs, produces and shares in the writing of the very interesting ACE in the HOLE. The acting is outstanding.

This movie is about the harsh reality behind the glamour of the "American Dream". It's like a punch in the face, it shows all the rudeness and ugliness of the life behind the billboard.

Genre(s): Drama, Film-Noir Director: Billy Wilder Writers: Billy Wilder, Lesser Samuels Musical score: Hugo Friedhofer Film editing: Arthur Schmidt Stars: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur"Ace In The Hole" (1951) isn't one of Billy Wilder's better known films, but it's certainly one of his best. It's an unflinching, cynical look at journalism and the power of the press, and how it can be manipulated by a single reporter to serve his own agenda.

This review was written of a screening at Cambridge Film Festival (UK) - 15 to 25 September 2011* Contains spoilers *Billy Wilder co-wrote the film, so it seemed well deserved to think of reviving Ace in the Hole, not just as part of a theme of journalism in film. As to the pairing with the short (not so short) Wakefield Express about a newspaper of that name (and its production and that of four sister papers), I am less sure, and think that I would have preferred to go, without an introduction, straight to Kirk Douglas, as Chuck Tatum, talking his way into a job in Albuquerque.