Ace in the Hole - Criterion Collection Reviews

• "Bad news sells best because good news is no news."

  
  By A1GQQFTPA23Z1O on 2005-11-28
  Charles Tatum (Kirk Douglas), once an ace journalist, is now desperate for a job after being fired from the best newspapers in the East. He gets a job at a small Albuquerque, New Mexico newspaper with the intention of serving his "prison sentence" only until he can find a great story that will land him back where he belongs, at the big newspapers back East. While heading to a remote location to cover a rattlesnake hunt, Tatum stumbles by accident onto the biggest story of his life: Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict), a married man, is trapped by a cave-in while looking for Native American artifacts.
  
  Remembering the national sensation caused by the Floyd Collins story in 1925, Tatum has big plans for Leo. In no time at all, Tatum takes charge of the rescue attempt and assumes almost god-like status as thousands of gawking spectators from around the country gather around the mountain where Leo is trapped. Shoring up the cave's weakened tunnels would get Leo out in a matter of hours, but instead Tatum (to prolong the biggest story of his career) orders a huge drill be brought to the top of the mountain and slowly work it's way to Leo. Tatum is in the spotlight like never before, and he loves every minute of it.
  
  Leo's uncaring wife Lorraine (Jan Sterling) begins charging admission to spectators in order to cash in on the misery and suffering of her husband. Once Lorraine sets her eyes on Tatum it's only a matter of time before she seduces him. Tatum is in control of everything and everyone, even the crooked sheriff, who is also using this sensational story to furthur his career. Everything is going great until Leo becomes sick with pneumonia and word gets out that unless he's rescued within 12 hours it'll be too late. Tatum then agrees to use the quick method of shoring up the cave's walls, but at this point it might be too late to save Leo.
  
  Ace in the Hole's grim and cynical nature made it a flop in 1951, even after it was renamed "The Big Carnival." Only now has Billy Wilder's underated masterpiece finally been acknowledged as one of Wilder's best movies (and that's saying a lot). It is one of the darkest movies of film noir, with superb performances by Kirk Douglas and Jan Sterling. Douglas frequently played cold-hearted characters driven by ruthless, egotistical greed, but never did he play this type of character better than in "The Big Carnival." Jan Sterling played the cold and calculating femme fatale to perfection, cooly dishing out lines like "I don't pray. Kneeling bags my nylons."
  
  Wilder brilliantly portrayed a world where misery and human suffering is exploited to the extreme, yet somehow this classic film noir is still unavailable on dvd or vhs. The movie can at least be seen on cable now and then, and "bootleg" copies on dvd and vhs are available, but how much longer do we have to wait for this movie to get an official dvd release?!? Few directors captured the style, mood, and atmosphere of film noir better than Billy Wilder (Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, Sunset Blvd.), and Ace in the Hole/The Big Carnival deserves at least the same kind of recognition that his other films have recieved.
  
  

• One of Billy Wilder's Masterpieces

  
  By A1WBXDI7LRPLXB on 2007-05-04
  This 1951 film seems as relevant today as it ever did. Kirk Douglas is perfectly cast as an unethical newspaper reporter who, through his influence over the town's sheriff, keeps a dying man trapped in a mine for several days longer than necessary in order to milk the story for all it's worth - a strategy he hopes will help him claw his way back to the top of the journalistic world. Billy Wilder's incredibly vitriolic film tells many truths about how reality is manipulated by the media to serve personal and political ends without regard to the suffering caused by this agenda. His film spares nobody in its critique: those who perpetuate the lies, those who directly benefit from them, even those who uncritically consume the stories are all complicit in the wrongdoing. Wilder made many great films, most of which are far better known than this one, but "Ace in the Hole" is up there with the best of them.
  
  Criterion's upcoming release is definitely cause for celebration.
  
  
  
  

• A neglected masterpiece! Available at last!

  
  By A16QODENBJVUI1 on 2002-07-27
  ACE IN THE HOLE (the studio renamed THE BIG CARNIVAL when it bombed upon rerelease) is Billy Wilder's forgotten masterpiece. Along with Ernst Lubitsch's ONE HOUR WITH YOU and the films of British comic Will Hay, this has long topped my own personal wish list of films that have never been available either on DVD or VHS in the United States (Hay's films are at least available on DVD in Great Britain). To have it appear at last not only on DVD but in a two-disc Criterion edition is truly a wish come true. This will easily go down as one of the most important DVD releases of 2007.
  
  This is among Billy Wilder's greatest films, though this has been long forgotten because the film bombed so badly at the box office (financially it was by far Wilder's worst film, lossing a great deal of money). Anyone who has seen many Billy Wilder films knows that he had a dark side and that while he would turn out many of the greatest comedies in the history of film, he could also turn out some of the bleakest films ever made. Moreover, even some of his comedies contain many cynical elements. ACE IN THE HOLE is the most despairing film Bill Wilder ever made.
  
  The plot is simple. A former ace reporter is so far down on his luck that he has taken a job on a tiny New Mexico newspaper. When a man gets trapped in a mine collapse, he sees an opportunity to resurrect his career. On the inside, he crawls through the collapsed mine to the spot where the miner is trapped, interviewing him, bringing him food and water, befriending him, and giving him hope and comfort. On the outside, he has an affair with the miner's wife, writes a series of stories about the miner that creates a national media frenzy, and manipulates rescue operations to delay the man's release by a few days so that he will have more time to milk the story. The great tension in the story arrives from his cold-blooded manipulation of the man's situation on the one hand, and the enormous guilt he suffers from the expressions of friendship and appreciation from the man who is trapped. Meanwhile, outside the mine, thousands and thousands of onlookers collect, to the point where it has become a virtual city, complete with souvenir sellers and even carnival rides (hence part of the meaning of the original title).
  
  Kirk Douglas has made very, very man great movies in his great career, but I am not sure he was ever better than in this one. Although the movie has a cast of thousands, there are only three truly crucial characters: Douglas's reporter, the man trapped in the mine, and the miner's wife. But of the three, it is Douglas who has to carry the film on his back. And he does so magnificently.
  
  In every way, a very great movie. My hope is that it will come to be recognized as the great film it is along with other box office failures that have since come to be recognized as classics such as BRINGING UP BABY and THE GENERAL. This is a film that simply must be seen by every fan of the movies.
  
  

• Billy Wilder's Masterwork

  
  By A192KEPM0HW6AC on 2004-10-05
  "Ace in the Hole" is one of those movies that comes around every rare often and belts you right in the kisser. Yet, to my knowledge, Paramount has never released it on VHS, and certainly not on LaserDisc or DVD. I just finished watching a tape on my VCR that was recorded in the 1980s from some TV channel in Florida. The print is grainy, the sound warbles and the dialogue is out of sync at times. It nonetheless still packs a helluva wallop.
  
  Read the bottom of this page: "Customers who bought DVDs directed by Billy Wilder also bought DVDs by these directors:
  
  "Howard Hawks
  "Alfred Hitchcock
  "John Huston
  "William Wyler
  "George Cukor"
  
  There isn't one weak or less than legendary director in this list. Personally, I rate Wilder right up there with Hitch and ahead of all the others. Yet, when Paramount released their DVD boxed set of three Wilder classics ("Sunset Boulevard," "Sabrina" and "Stalag 17"), "Ace in the Hole" was conspicuously absent. What a shame! I consider this his masterwork, arguably equalling "Double Indemnity" and "The Apartment."
  
  Critics have called it a black comedy, I suppose because it's a Billy Wilder movie, so we reflexively think of him as a comedic director. In fact, having heard and read so much about this movie, I sort of felt jinxed, because when I go into a movie with high expectations, I come out of it a little disappointing.
  
  And, the opening of this movie disappointed a little: When Kirk Douglas' character, Charlie Tatum, falls down on his luck and lands a job with an Albuquerque newspaper, it seems to be a bit of a new spin on an old classic, "The Front Page" (which, strangely enough, Wilder resurrected in 1974 as a Matthau/Lemmon vehicle).
  
  Yet, that's the movie's genius, because you are lured into thinking it's a comedy. Yet, once Kirk Douglas finds his potential "Pulitzer-prize winning story" buried under fallen timbers in a New Mexico cave, you realise it's a cynical farce.
  
  But then, it's no longer a farce, but a dark tragedy. Not so quick, because by the end you'll find it's an abomination -- not the movie itself, which is superbly casted and crafted -- because it shows at root what base intentions really drive mankind.
  
  Of all his movies, it's the oddest. Imagine a cross between "Double Indemnity" and "The Fortune Cookie." Strange, I know, but that is the closest I can pin it down. Douglas' character is an even more cold-blooded version of Walter Matthau's supreme shyster Whiplash Willie. Think of William Holden's Sergeant Seften without the heart of gold, and you'll get Chuck Tatum.
  
  Jan Sterling is equally, well, sterling as the victim's wife, whose blood runs as ice-cold as Barbara Stanwyck's Phyllis Dietrichson. Sterling, though, is no femme fatale: She's too tawdry, and can only aspire to the unimaginative dreams that accompany her former dime-a-dance persona. She does slip a pair of scissors into Douglas' flank, but, hey, he had it coming.
  
  The ending, which I won't give away, is chilling and powerful. Nobody could write ending lines like Wilder could, and this one is no exception. It's right up there with Fred MacMurray's "I love you, too" ("Double Indemnity"), Shirley MacLaine's "Shut up and deal" ("The Apartment"), Gloria Swanson's "I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille" ("Sunset Boulevard") and Joe E. Brown's "Nobody's perfect" ("Some Like it Hot").
  
  "Ace in the Hole" walks on the seedy and seamy side of journalist and shows the viewer all the manipulation behind the scenes of the newspaper racket. It presages other blisteringly scathing films as "A Face in the Crowd," "Sweet Smell of Success" and "Network."
  
  

• Wilder's "Ace" is a hole of a good movie!

  
  By A2YOW8E8RQKQ6N on 2003-05-13
  Billy Wilder made this film after Sunset Blvd(1950) and before Stalag 17(1953), two of his most popular works. He once referred to "Ace" as "the runt of my litter". It is one of the most brilliant films to come out of Hollywood in the early 1950's.

  The idea of a newspaper man covering the story of a trapped miner, exploiting and managing the "rescue" in order to sell the story to the media, was way ahead of it's time, which is why the picture flopped at the box office.

  The people at Paramount don't seem to value the artistry inherent in this masterpiece. They probably only look at the numbers and figure, "well, it didn't make any money in 1951, so it won't make any now if we release it on DVD"
  But they are wrong. This is a cult classic and on every film buff's must-have list.

  Besides the acting and direction and the bitterly pungent screenplay, the arid b&w cinematography of Charles Lang and the moody, impressionist, noir music score by Hugo Friedhofer are absolutely perfect for this story.

  By all means, write a letter to Paramount Home Video and demand that this film is given a DVD release. You can get their address from their website. I wrote them last year and they said there were no plans to release it. So that means waiting for it to show up on Turner Classic Movies, where I last saw it about 3 years ago.
  But if they get enough letters, well, you never know...............
  
  

• Reality Does Not Live Up to the Legend
  By ASQ8KNNP3A7FP on 2007-10-07
  SPOILER ALERT: THIS REVIEW REVEALS THE END OF THE MOVIE.
  
  "Ace in the Hole" is legendary; for years, while it was hard to find, its many boosters praised it as a caustic and fearless expose of American tabloid journalism. In fact, though, "Ace in the Hole" is a predictable, ham-handed, bombastic, manipulative B movie that "exposes" more about its boosters than about American culture.
  
  "Ace"'s first five minutes telegraph the entire movie - you don't need to watch it to see how anything will play out. "Ace in the Hole" is a fantasy for the kind of male who uses the word "sheeple," thinks that he is several IQ measurements superior to the mass of humanity, and looks down on humanity with its stupid values like religion and family. "Ace" plays to the man who thinks he, or another Nietzschean superman, singlehandedly orchestrates all human activity, and that the rest of us are just marionettes jerking around at the end of his strings.
  
  The viewer is supposed to believe that sleaze-ball journalist Tatum (Kirk Douglas) exercises hypnotic power over all humanity. This is completely unbelievable, except, again, to people with some fantasy of hyper-potent men. Douglas gives a performance so over the top it would be vulgar in a telemundo soap opera. Douglas' eyes pop out of his head; his veins pop out of his neck; his lips turn prehensile; he chews up the scenery like a teething infant who is the reincarnation of a man who starved to death. Not a single other character in the movie serves as a foil to him -- everyone else is a puny, fearful, clueless, bland midget next to Douglas. How could any intelligent viewer's attention be held by such a stacked deck?
  
  "Ace"'s boosters insist that it was a prescient film that accurately depicted media carnivals like that over the Duke Lacrosse Case. Not so. The Duke Lacrosse Case was interesting and can hold your attention; "Ace" is not and cannot. Mike Nifong, like Tatum, conspired to damage other, innocent people in order to aggrandize himself. But Nifong, unlike Tatum, was up against three-dimensional human beings who could thwart his designs, thus making that story *interesting.*
  
  The B-movie-style stacked deck of "Ace" is made very clear when, in a relatively early scene, Douglas strikes an armed police officer and that police officer stands stock still, never responding. The only person who could believe that scene is a viewer utterly invested in the fantasy macho omnipotence Wilder invests in Tatum, and/or someone who has never actually met a cop. You want to find yourself on your stomach on the ground with your wrists handcuffed behind your back? Strike a cop as Tatum does.
  
  Similarly, Tatum's ability to orchestrate the rescue effort of a man trapped underground, making sure that rescuers won't reach him in sixteen hours, as they'd proposed, but in seven days, is beyond belief. The authorities had to know that, in addition to Tatum, there were other hungry press circling like sharks, and those reporters would soon enough discover Tatum's deadly ruse, and metaphorically or literally lynch him and his co-conspirators.
  
  In the end, Tatum has a moment of truth and reveals that, all along, he was the only person in the world with any sensitivity and integrity. He receives a fatal stab wound, and, superman that he is, his shirt is not torn, and he bleeds a teeny amount; he goes on to march around, call an end to the circus he started - the carousel and ferris wheel actually stop for him -- and makes a rousing speech to the masses.
  
  Though dying, Tatum doesn't stop there. He confesses his crime. He mentors a sweet young lad. Then he finally falls in the most cinematically dramatic pose possible. This movie wants, very badly, to have its cake and eat it, too. It's not a mockery of American tabloid entertainment, it *is*, in its heavy-handedness, manipulation, loudness and complete lack of surprise, with a big, strong, male superhero at its center, American tabloid entertainment.
  
  Check out Fred MacMurray as Mr. Sheldrake in Wilder's "The Apartment." MacMurray never flairs his nostrils once, and no kettle drums announce his dastardly schemes, but his depiction of cynical evil is lightyears superior to that of Douglas / Tatum in "Ace in the Hole."
  
  I love Billy Wilder; that's why I wanted so badly to see this movie. Here the master doesn't misstep, he thuds. In one scene, I *knew* how the scene would end even as it was beginning - the end of the scene would be a shot of the side of a bus, and then a shot of a woman's back as she returned to a building. Nothing surprised me here.
  
  Given that, I started thinking about the movie, and the director, even as I was watching the movie, never a good sign. Wilder's family was murdered in the Holocaust. It is often commented upon that Wilder never made a Holocaust movie per se, but that themes appear in his work. For example, in "Emperor Waltz," an Austrian nobleman tries to drown puppies because they are not pedigree. I wonder, though, if "Ace in the Hole," with its depiction of most people as terribly hollow and venal, mere shadow-like followers of a superior, and monstrous, leader, is not Wilder's Holocaust film.
  
  
  
• Billy Wilder's Lost Masterwork Get's the Royal Criterion Treatment
  By A192KEPM0HW6AC on 2007-05-04
  "Ace in the Hole" is one of those movies that comes around every rare often and belts you right in the kisser. Yet, to my knowledge, Paramount has never released it on VHS, and certainly not on LaserDisc or DVD. Until now: Criterion is releasing a DVD with a cleaned-up print and all the bells and whistles. Until it comes out, I will have to console myself with my VHS third-generation copy that was recorded in the 1980s from some TV channel in Florida. The print is grainy, the sound warbles and the dialogue is out of sync at times. It nonetheless still packs a helluva wallop.
  
  Read the bottom of pages on which Wilder's movies are sold: "Customers who bought DVDs directed by Billy Wilder also bought DVDs by these directors:
  
  "Howard Hawks
  "Alfred Hitchcock
  "John Huston
  "William Wyler
  "George Cukor"
  
  There isn't one weak or less than legendary director in this list. Personally, I rate Wilder right up there with Hitch and ahead of all the others. Yet, when Paramount released their DVD boxed set of three Wilder classics ("Sunset Boulevard," "Sabrina" and "Stalag 17"), "Ace in the Hole" was conspicuously absent. What a shame! I consider this his masterwork, arguably equalling "Double Indemnity" and "The Apartment."
  
  Critics have called it a black comedy, I suppose because it's a Billy Wilder movie, so we reflexively think of him as a comedic director. In fact, having heard and read so much about this movie, I sort of felt jinxed, because when I go into a movie with high expectations, I come out of it a little disappointing.
  
  And, the opening of this movie disappointed a little: When Kirk Douglas' character, Charlie Tatum, falls down on his luck and lands a job with an Albuquerque newspaper, it seems to be a bit of a new spin on an old classic, "The Front Page" (which, strangely enough, Wilder resurrected in 1974 as a Matthau/Lemmon vehicle).
  
  Yet, that's the movie's genius, because you are lured into thinking it's a comedy. Yet, once Kirk Douglas finds his potential "Pulitzer-prize winning story" buried under fallen timbers in a New Mexico cave, you realise it's a cynical farce.
  
  But then, it's no longer a farce, but a dark tragedy. Not so quick, because by the end you'll find it's an abomination -- not the movie itself, which is superbly casted and crafted -- because it shows at root what base intentions really drive mankind.
  
  Of all his movies, it's the oddest. Imagine a cross between "Double Indemnity" and "The Fortune Cookie." Strange, I know, but that is the closest I can pin it down. Douglas' character is an even more cold-blooded version of Walter Matthau's supreme shyster Whiplash Willie. Think of William Holden's Sergeant Seften without the heart of gold, and you'll get Chuck Tatum.
  
  Jan Sterling is equally, well, sterling as the victim's wife, whose blood runs as ice-cold as Barbara Stanwyck's Phyllis Dietrichson. Sterling, though, is no femme fatale: She's too tawdry, and can only aspire to the unimaginative dreams that accompany her former dime-a-dance persona. She does slip a pair of scissors into Douglas' flank, but, hey, he had it coming.
  
  The ending, which I won't give away, is chilling and powerful. Nobody could write ending lines like Wilder could, and this one is no exception. It's right up there with Fred MacMurray's "I love you, too" ("Double Indemnity"), Shirley MacLaine's "Shut up and deal" ("The Apartment"), Gloria Swanson's "I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille" ("Sunset Boulevard") and Joe E. Brown's "Nobody's perfect" ("Some Like it Hot").
  
  "Ace in the Hole" walks on the seedy and seamy side of journalist and shows the viewer all the manipulation behind the scenes of the newspaper racket. It presages other blisteringly scathing films as "A Face in the Crowd," "Sweet Smell of Success" and "Network."
  
  
• "You Can Have Me For Nothing"
  By A1J03J0HZ7KU5T on 2007-08-27
  A work of unrelenting cynicism, director Billy Wilder's "Ace in the Hole" (1951) did not sit well with postwar audiences and critics. Seen today, this overlooked classic remains a powerful indictment of American media and society. Kirk Douglas gives the performance of his career as Chuck Tatum - a manipulative, unethical reporter who turns a New Mexico cave-in disaster into a full-blown media circus. Equally impressive is Jan Sterling's brilliant turn as the profiteering femme fatale. Playing no favorites, Wilder delivers a vicious blow to this nation's tabloid mentality. The memorable closing shot seals the film like a sarcophagus lid.
  
  
• A Neglected Classic Receives the Criterion Treatment
  By A8T93X5EEIFL on 2007-09-18
  The audience that loved Billy Wilder's "Sunset Boulevard" (1950) turned on his "Ace in the Hole" one year later. Watch the movie and you can guess why. It was easy for middle America to enjoy a decadent Hollywood get its just desserts. When Wilder turned the mirror onto middle America itself, they didn't admire their own reflection.
  
  "Ace in the Hole" endures, however, for some of the same reasons as Sidney Lumet's "Network" (1975): what was satire 30-50 years ago has become reality. In a world of Fox Network and 24-hour infotainment, "Ace in the Hole" is immediately recognizable and could have been filmed yesterday. It's a good thing it wasn't, because there aren't any Billy Wilders around, who directed without fussiness and wrote scripts with razor blades. As a peculiar kind of film noir, this is a movie that had to have been made in black and white. And it's hard to think of an actor in our day who could have played as well this movie's loathsome yet recognizably human lead as did the young Kirk Douglas. As with all Criterion editions, the bells and whistles glisten: particularly the film's pinpoint restoration, the commentary track, and a terrific filmed interview with Billy Wilder at the American Film Institute.
  
  Roger Ebert has noted that, as a German emigré to the United States with the onset of World War II, Billy Wilder loved his adopted homeland but never accepted as truth America's dangerously pious myths about itself. If you leave "Ace in the Hole" angry or thinking it far-fetched, then either the movie has struck a nerve or you might begin paying closer attention.
  
  
• Why Don't You Wash That Platinum Out of Your Hair?
  By ABX7SEE84DMLU on 2007-08-29
  This movie, an all-time classic film noir effort by Billy Wilder, is now available on DVD after such a long wait, and it was worth it.
  
  The special features are just terrific. Wilder fans get to see an extended interview with him, excerpts from his AFI meetings, and more. Kirk Douglas fans get to see an interview with him where he discloses the care for his craft and his commitment to honest portrayal, regardless of the degree of sympathy his characters (as written) might stir up.
  
  This 1951 movie failed in the United States because postwar America was not ready for the unsparing, unsympathetic view Wilder and Douglas take to the story. It's almost too honest to bear. But if you accept that premise, you are treated to exceptional acting and directing in a beautifully restored film with great historical significance.
  
  Wilder saw the future and put it on the screen for us. We're now living in the media world he knew, fifty years ago, was materializing for us.
  
  And we created and continue to nurture it.
  
  
• Good Wilder, Good Douglas
  By A1TT5T47AVDDBM on 2007-09-04
  Stating that any one movie is "the most cynical" is highly subjective. There is a lot of competition! Yet "Ace in the Hole" has to be considered one of the most biting of releases. Kirk Douglas finds himself in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a former big city hotshot reporter caught in a downward career spiral. He lands a job at the local paper, ambitiously determined to claw his way back to the big time. When a man is trapped in a mine cave in, KD senses his big chance. KD aggressively manipulates the story and shamelessly drags out the rescue effort to get rehired at a New York tabloid. This reviewer is not a big KD fan but one has to give credit where it's due - he is perfectly cast here, never wavering throughout the film. The supporting cast including Jan Sterling, Ray Teal and Porter Hall are excellent. They play the trapped man's venal wife, the feckless sheriff and KDs straight shooting editor. Legend has that KD was concerned that he was overplaying his role, bur Director Billy Wilder ordered him not to let up. Other reviewers have compared AH to other Wilder classic such as "Double Indemnity" or "The Lost Weekend". Such accolades belong in the eyes of the beholder but to even drop such a mention is a high compliment indeed. This reviewer finds it difficult to believe that AH did not succeed commercially, having to wait decades for acclaim
  
  
• Bad news sells best.
  By A6DOCZ10B7JAJ on 2008-02-11
  Ignored, unappreciated, even despised by the majority upon its initial release, Ace in the Hole is a bold social critique that pulls no punches. This movie holds up the public mirror and tries to make people see just how much they suck.
  Kirk Douglas delivers another fearless performance as Charles Tatum, a shameless big-city reporter that has been exiled from several lucrative jobs. So he retreats to a small town newspaper gig in New Mexico, in order to reestablish his career.
  Tatum hates his new job, and desperately searches for the big break that will propel him back into the limelight. That moment eventually comes when a mine collapses, trapping a worker inside. Tatum takes charge of all the relief efforts, not out of concern for the desperate man inside, but for the fame that accompanies this tragedy. A media frenzy ensues.
  One moment that illustrates Tatum's arrogance--other reporters try to move in and capture some of the news coverage. One says "We're all in the same boat". Tatum's cynical response was "No, I'm in the boat. You're in the water."
  This movie is an excellent display of humanity's overall decline of morality. How vanity supersedes compassion. How humanity has lost touch with one another. I'm not trying to sound judgemental, heck I'm ignoring all company policies and personal job responsibilities by writing this review. Nobody's perfect. But this is a great movie, with powerful but controlled acting and a significant message.
  So now, go hug a stranger. No, on second thought you better not. You'll probably get punched.
  
  
  
• lawsuit
  By on 2003-12-01
  after this film came out there was a lawsuit as to who came up with the idea for the film. the story is based on a true incident of a man trapped in a mine, but the idea to make that news story into a film was brought to the attention of wilder by a man who later sued for compensation. the case went all the way to the california supreme court and the verdict went against wilder and the studio. this could be the reason why the film is not available for sale.

  it is a shame because kirk douglas in unbelievable in this movie and the subject matter of media reporters taking matters into their own hands to distort facts to create the story (to make a name and increase ratings/circulation) is more timely than ever
  
  

• And we still can't give it its due?
  By A3JMWIOTUBOJI7 on 2004-08-27
  Released twice, first as ACE, then as THE BIG CARNIVAL, it was a commercial failure both times, despite being mega-director Wilder's favorite of his own films (and this is a man who made SUNSET BOULEVARD, DOUBLE INDEMNITY, and THE LOST WEEKEND, for Christ's sake). The sad truth is that ACE was way too ahead of its time, offering nothing but grim cynicism and brutal reality. Nobody wanted to see the awful effects of media sensationalism until the 1970's.
  
  
• Billy Wilder's buried masterpiece
  By A2B6OX6FFLOLL0 on 2007-08-01
  I originally saw this film on television back in the 60's when it was dumped into the nether regions of broadcast air time as "The Big Carnival." But, even at a very young age, I was riveted. Imagine my delight picking up this stellar DVD presentation 40 years later and mining it for all it's other cynical-but-brilliantly-entertaining depths. Leo Minosa wasn't the only soul lost in that "hole." As Billy Wilder brilliantly reveals, part of America's soul went with him.
  
  
  Hollywoodaholic: Confessions of a Screenwriter
  
  
• Prescient
  By A2RB9N37UUVOEW on 2007-09-03
  Ace in the Hole so accurately predicts the decline of journalism into entertainment that it is uncanny.
  
  This DVD is a beautiful remaster with rich blacks and silver whites. Wilder pulls off some amazing scenes, such as a tourist train done without CGI. Look for his penchant of composing in a triangle.
  
  Kirk Douglas is, well, Kirk Douglas. His variety of scenery-eating perfectly matches the topic matter.
  
  It took a long time to get a DVD release of this movie and leave it to Criterion to dig up a neglected master work.
  
  
• Ace In the Hole
  By A2A7REV4S5I442 on 2007-09-03
  Ace in the Hole was filmed right outside of my home town, Gallup, New Mexico. It was named "The Big Circus" when it was being filmed here and many local residents are extras in the film. It is very dark and seedy and it portrays the worst side of journalism. As a journalist myself, I love this movie although I can't imagine myself going to the lengths Kirk Douglas does in this film to get a story. Great beginning, great ending, great black and white filming.
  
  I had to buy this movie, because I couldn't rent it anywhere, it was all rented out, including on Netflix. It's fantastic on the big screen, but this package has a bonus CD.
  
  
• An film decades ahead of its time
  By A10CJINP7KBR4W on 2007-09-17
  How this movie got made in its time amazes me. A story about a newsman far more interested in the story than the person. The media circus that follows an event, and how people seem to care more about events than the people involved. But what shocks me is it was made in a time that reporters were heros, and movies showed everyone else as in the wrong. This one specifically attacks the everyman. Applying it to our modern obsession with lawsuits of celebrities, the amy fisher's of the world, and you get a movie decades ahead of itself. I love Billy Wilder, and am thrilled this movie is in my collection.
  
  
• I'll Throw My Hat in the Ring...
  By A22CXRQLS5HWU1 on 2005-01-02
  This is a great, great movie...bringing together two geniuses of cynicism, Billy Wilder and Kirk Douglas, at their most cynical.
  
  Even more important, along with two other 1950's masterpieces, All The Kings Men and A Face in the Crowd, The Big Carnival is a devastating commentary on populist media. With the election-swaying power of present day pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'reilly, this sort of uncompromising exploration of American culture has never been more relevant, or needed.
  
  
• Ace In The Hole Movie Review
  By A2MYUI8IT6UBUU on 2007-07-19
  Following such masterpieces as Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder's lesser known and widely underappreciated film noir Ace in the Hole retained the bleak and somber outlook on humanity of its predecessors, while weaving a brilliantly stark drama of murderous ambition and selfish ingenuity. With a tour de force performance by Kirk Douglas, Wilder's 10th film reveals a fascinatingly powerful social commentary on the sensationalism of the press and the morbid infatuation of the media.
  
  Charlie "Chuck" Tatum (Kirk Douglas) is a fast-talking, hard-hitting, arrogant, and ambitious New York newspaper reporter who's been fired one too many times and winds up penniless in Albuquerque, New Mexico where he strong-arms his way into a job writing for the local paper. Biding his time for one big story that will push him into the spotlight and possibly get him his fancy New York job back, a year goes by with only "good" news ("bad news sells best, good news is no news") leaving him little opportunity to regain his notoriety. On a routine assignment, Tatum happens upon a story worthy of his nefarious talents - an unfortunate treasure hunter, Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict) is trapped in the crumbling caves of an old Indian tomb, and Chuck knows just how to spin the story. Recalling the big news success of an earlier, similar incident, Tatum quickly begins setting in motion plans, contacts, and influences to drag out the one-day rescue operation into a seven-day catastrophic media circus in the hopes of drumming up publicity to suit his selfish ambitions. But he may discover too late that the price of human life in the chaotic "big carnival" is worth as little as his own soulless intentions and that he is as cut off from redemption as Leo is from the hope of escape.
  
  As astoundingly potent and commanding as Wilder's theme of media corruption is Kirk Douglas' performance as the headstrong Charlie Tatum. Paralleling such determination and cynical bravado as Gary Cooper's Howard Roark and Orson Welles' Charles Foster Kane, Tatum runs the show and holds complete control over the disastrous situation, from those in charge of the rescue to the town Sheriff to even the other reporters and their access to information. Rarely does such a uniquely abrasive and stunningly charismatic character come alive on the screen. Add to this the fact that he is corrupt in his morals, unethical in his tactics, deceptive in his manner, and dishonest through and through - he is ultimately the "bad guy," and yet he commands such presence that we follow his actions with both disgust and admiration, and simultaneously condemn and cheer him on. He is an antihero of the most extreme degree, but also a tragic one whose faults are numerous and whose final revelation comes too late if ever at all.
  
  As corrupted as Tatum is, so too are the others that stand to benefit from Leo's predicament. The rescue operation planner is easily convinced to use an alternate method of excavation, one that will delay success long enough to create a media frenzy and false sympathy. The town Sheriff seeks re-election and Tatum agrees to portray him as a savior and dedicated worker for the people in exchange for story exclusivity. Even Leo's "caring" wife only stays to extort the influx of travelers who wish to view the proceedings, and Charlie's young assistant Herbie quickly becomes engrossed in the excitingly hectic and escalating hysteria. No one is saved from the corruption of the media and its deceitful promises, and as Wilder suggests, so too is the audience for participating in this carnivalistic spectacle.
  
  In a cryptic retort to Leo's tragic circumstances, Tatum states that "I don't make things happen, I just write about them." An ironically foreboding statement, and one that reflects society's infatuation with "bad news" and the media's willingness to deliver it. The rescue attempt rapidly escalates into a three-ring circus with Tatum's sensationalistic exaggerations and buttered-up reporting, and then becomes one literally when Mrs. Minosa allows a carnival to set up at the mountainside to increase profits (a double-entendre for the film's second title, The Big Carnival, one as ironically befitting as its original). In a moment of blood loss and mental clarity (should you choose to see it as such), Tatum realizes the damage he's done to create his "Great Human Interest Story," but as he attempts to rectify what he can, a far grimmer truth reveals itself - no longer does anyone believe him, even in his utmost sincerity. And in a dramatic closing scene that rivals any in cinematic history, we witness our antihero's revelation of his own humanity lost in the quest to exploit another's.
  
  - Joel Massie
  
  
  
• Kirk Douglas shines in gritty, timely drama based on true story...
  By A3DDPQ9342UNMY on 2007-07-29
  KIRK DOUGLAS was always a dependable actor and occasionally brilliant when he had a good script and a good director. Here he has both, and he's in his element with Billy Wilder's direction making the most of a cynical story of a reporter exploiting human drama for his own benefit.
  
  JAN STERLING, as the trapped man's wife, matches Douglas for toughness every step of the way. "I met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my time," she tells Douglas, whom she sees through with his scheme of profiteering from the accident. "But you're twenty minutes." A few more cynical remarks and he's smacking her across the face twice.
  
  No one looks any good, as far as the characters go. The gawkers are shown to be the sort that stare at accidents and are soon turning Sterling's tacky establishment into a gold mine. The cynical screenplay catches all of the nuances of the exploited situation and Douglas comes up with remarks like, "Tomorrow that will be yesterday's news and they'll wrap a fish in it." As the arrogant man who delays the rescue to milk the situation for the most he can get out of it, KIRK DOUGLAS gives a riveting performance as an opportunistic heel. He never tries to soften the part, nor does director Wilder ever shy away from exposing the hypocrisy at work.
  
  Still a very timely story and expose of hypocrisy on several levels by the press and public. RICHARD BENEDICT as the trapped man and ROBERT ARTHUR as a naive young reporter are both excellent in strong supporting roles.
  
  Summing up: Brilliant film deserves much more attention than it gets.
  
  
• The Anti-Capra
  By A2B73CL3QSYWLB on 2007-08-04
  It would be easy to dismiss "Ace in the Hole" as a work of cynicism if their weren't so many resounding truths in it. It was definitely ahead of it's time. The film I think I would compare it to would be "Network" in it's forboding depiction of media manipulation. I think the film's relative obscurity lays in the fact that director Billy Wilder doesn't lay the blame squarely in the lap of journalists. The mass public can be blamed for allowing themselves to be taken in. Wilder has concocted dialogue here that has the sting of arsenic. If you don't get the point you weren't paying attention. There are few redeeming characters here with the exception of an editor played by Porter Hall and they're drowned out by the sideshow atmosphere. Kirk Douglas commands the screen as Chuck Tatum, who not only covers the man trapped in the mine story but orchestrates the ensuing circus. Tatum's reasons for being a journalist are for anything but altruistic reasons and Douglas perfectly conveys the character's self-loathing. Jan Sterling is equally good as the trapped man's wife who quickly forgets his plight to cash in on his misfortune. What I found interesting is Joe Public is represented by Frank Cady better known to most people as Sam Drucker on TV's "Green Acres". Such a kindly fixture would be the face of the gullible populace. Billy Wilder's screen canon is so impressive and varied that it's difficult to say where "Ace in the Hole" falls. Regardless, it's a classic.
  
  
• Billy Wilder's most religious film and probably his best
  By A1AC9S8U66SNMU on 2007-08-06
  Are you grinning because I say it's a religious, deeply spiritual film? Well look at it from my point of view (maybe even Wilder's point of view). What does the mount look like with the big drill sitting on top of it, and trying to save (physically) a man trapped deep underneath?
  
  Why does Wilder focus so much on the contrast between the fake and mean wife and the religious mother, her dying son and tender-hearted brother? How about the meaning of the snakes in the story, and that the corrupt sheriff has a rattlesnake as a pet with him most of the time? What role does the kid-journalist play in the story, having to decide between following Tatum (evil maybe?) and the small town newspaper (good, perhaps?)
  
  Why would Wilder make the role of the man trapped in the hole in the mountain so obviously religious? "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned" were his last words. Is that not important in the film? Why then do people only focus on the media circus, on the social aspects of the film? Becuase, perhaps, people don't like to think they may be part of the crowd? The same crowd who gathers to have fun while watching a man die. Would you crucify Christ again if He showed up for a short visit?
  
  The film is a pointing finger to you and me, folks. Don't look the other way. Don't blame the world for what you help to do.
  
  Billy Wilder most Christian, or spiritual film. A critic of the media, social hypocrisy? No, that's only the surface. What I see is 2 worlds living together made up of lost souls and saved souls. For those who live on the fringes of both is this film dedicated. People like Mr. Tatum (Kirk Douglas) who have lived on the wild side and know the dark in-and-outs of corrupt and hypocritical society, not only the media but society as a mass of sinful persons. He lived in it, was part of the gang and since he wasn't faced with nothing better lived up to its expectation, he became a master reporter who almost sold his soul to the business. Almost, because when he meets this small town newspaper who won't admit anything but the Truth on its pages, a glimpse of the other side enters his life, a glimpse of salvation. Kicked out many previous big papers due to his bouts of alcoholism he ends up here, to his luck, that is... to his death and resurrection as a new man. he will have to pay with his life, but as the Christian teaching goes: Those who will want to save their life will lose it, and those who will want to give it up for the sake of Him (God) will save it.
  
  Of course most people won't see this message here, a deeply spiritual message that poises a question to each viewer: Are you part of the crowd who congregates to see a dying man and enjoy the show, shed a hypocritical tear and live on, or are you willing to give yourself up in order to save your soul? For Mr. Tatum is took a lot of thinking and a lot of twists and turns to make him realize which was the best option. It didn't have to end up like that but better that that lose Salvation.
  
  One of the best 10 films ever.
  
  The extra disc has a fine conversation piece by Wilder and small comments by Mathaus and Lemmon. Wilder is really himself here, and enjoys the talk.
  
  
• Great record of a truly classic film about American avarice
  By A33G3EJYZKFDBJ on 2007-08-20
  This film is a "refound" classic. I first saw it as a 16 year old usher at the Miracle Theater in Coral Gables, FL. I've been looking for it since then because I now live in New Mexico where it was made. Certainly a full description of the coarseness and avarice which can fill American life. Just look at what is going on with the trapped miners in Utah right now!
  
  
• A powerful and corrosive masterpiece about the media
  By AT07UZQQR7ZEH on 2007-07-23
  
  ACE IN THE HOLE (1951, Paramount) is one of the greatest motion pictures ever made...and one of the bleakest. In it, Billy Wilder explores the way an ordinary man can become a bizarre media hero and attract hundreds of spectators to a freak show. Stuck in Albuquerque, cynical reporter Chuck Tatum (a never-better Kirk Douglas) sees a chance to ride back to the top of the journalism world with the story of a man named Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict) trapped in Indian caves out in a desert town called Escudero. Milking the story for all it's worth, Tatum and Leo both become national media superstars. Stuck on the sidelines inside a desert trading post is Leo's non-grieving wife Lorraine (Jan Sterling). Tatum beats her up a few times and tells her to play the grieving widow.
  
  This is a dark and uncompromising movie gem that director/producer/co-writer Wilder got made exactly as he wanted inside a studio system (no mean feat!) because he had just done the magnificent SUNSET BLVD. (The ACE screenplay was Oscar-nominated.) The B&W cinematography is brilliant, and the lighting inside the cave is a wonder. This is a tough movie even by Wilder standards, and it sadly gets better with age in terms of what it says about media worship and journalism. There is even a theme song, "We're Coming to See You, Leo" sung by a cowboy amid literally hundreds of curious people. The source material is a 1925 mine cave-in with a guy named Floyd Collins. Also outstanding are Porter Hall as Tatum's Albuquerque boss and Bob Arthur as Herbie the photographer. If you can stand the unrelenting cynicism, ACE IN THE HOLE is a masterpiece.
  
  It is also now out (AT LAST!) from the prestigious Criterion Collection with a ton of disk two bonuses: a superb 60 minute chat with Billy Wilder about his entire life inside his office, inside his art-laden apartment, and at a beach cottage; a 1958 chat with Kirk Douglas and a short audio-only conversation with co-writer Walter Newman; a 1986 conversation with Wilder at the American Film Institute about his whole career; and a new video afterword by Spike Lee, who adores the movie. Disk one includes a digitally-remastered print of the movie, as well as the original theatrical trailer and an audio commentary by film scholar Neil Sinyard, which I did not play this time. As if all this were not enough, there is also included a mock newspaper bonus with new appreciations by critics Molly Haskell and Guy Maddin for a movie that was a box office and critical disaster in 1951 and retitled THE BIG CARNIVAL for a time. Leonard Maltin still calls it by that title and still only gives it a *** review.
  
  This Criterion edition is worthy of a movie knockout that will leave you floored by its raw power and uncompromised darkness. More than any other movie I can think of, ACE IN THE HOLE really tells the truth about the media and way journalism can sometimes create superstars and draw huge crowds of spectators from reporters walking over everyone to get to the top of the game. Better have smelling salts handy for the bleak ending.
  
  
  
  
• Kirk Douglas's 'Finest Hour'
  By ADT2MU7MWWJMV on 2007-07-30
  I'm a Kirk Douglas fan-and I consider this is greatest role.This is in a short list of movies like 'Casablanca' and 'High Noon'.The real mystery is why this isn't as accesible as those movies.The most plausible explanation I can think of is that the newspaper biz paid someone off to keep quiet as to how great this movie is.After all,a plot about a newspaperman who prolongs a mining disaster to make the story bigger than it should be is just too way out.Right...?
  
  
• a literal media circus
  By AI0OAQ6E2O8VF on 2007-08-11
  This review is for The Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.
  
  Ace in the Hole is about a media frenzy that ensues when a man is trapped in a cave.
  
  Chuck Tatum played by Kirk Douglas is a journalist assigned to cover a story about a rattlesnake hunt but is told about a man who was just caught in a cave collapse. He takes this story instead and within days hundreds of journalists show up along with thousands of other people. There is even a carnival that opens outside the cave.
  
  The film, in my opinion shows just how desperate journalists can get when it comes to being the first to cover a big story and how a large number of gawkers can show up for an ongoing event. It also reminds me of how every time coal miners are trapped in a cave in, the story gets national attention. The film is impressive and is released on home video for the first time in this Criterion release.
  
  the special features are opyional audio commentary by film scholar, Neil Sinyard, a 1984 Kirk Douglas interview, scenes from a 1986 appearance by Billy Wilder at an AFI event, an edited audio interview with co-screenwriter, Walter Newman, a 1980 documentary about the film (which contains spoilers), and a video afterward presented by Spike Lee.
  
  This is a very good film and I highly recommend it.
  
  
• Perspective of a 24 year old
  By A3IREZHO2HEO4E on 2007-09-30
  What a great movie. Period. I thought endlessly about it after I viewed it, amazed at how it has aged; none. It's beautifully timeless.
  
  I originally had the idea it was made in the early 60's. When I finally noticed it was actually '51 it blew my mind. It's such a bold movie, even by today's endlessly open standards. It even further it blew my mind how no one released this film on ANY home video format until 2007!! Thank you Criterion, thank you.
  
  I even started listening to the commentary from the guy that wrote a book about Billy Wilder. I never do that. I wished Netflix had sent me the second disc so I could pour over its history. When I'm not a broke 20-something I think I'll actually buy this one.
  
  It's exciting, beautifully shot, acted, everything. It speaks volumes on the state of journalism then, now, and definitely beyond. I'd call it a "classic" but this one should certainly not have that "old" connotation attached. Its new to me, and many many more. Unless you saw it in '51, or are privileged enough to watch it later on reel to reel. Now's the opportunity, snatch it up people.
  
  
• To tell the truth . . .
  By AQE41QO3NEUMW on 2007-10-01
  Criterion's DVD release of this classic film from 1951 is a great gift to Billy Wilder fans. It's a hard-boiled tale of an unscrupulous reporter that cuts straight to the rotten heart of the news media, where information management and sensationalism have overwhelmed the simple idealism of "telling the truth." Kirk Douglas is terrific as the man who engineers a news event to advance his own career and creates a media circus in the process, at the expense of another man who lies trapped and dying in a cave-in. Meanwhile, Jan Sterling, as the other man's wife, turns in a performance that's even more nakedly self-serving.
  
  Set in what is supposed to be the New Mexico desert, the on-location photography is startlingly realistic for a film of this era. As the story evolves, the visuals and camera movement take on the scale of an epic. The grim vision of the movie and its cinematic style put it in league with films like "Citizen Kane." It certainly deserves the kind of appreciation that Criterion brings to it. The DVD includes a Pauline Kael style commentary by film scholar Neil Sinyard. On a second disc, there are interviews with Wilder, Kirk Douglas, and screenwriter Walter Newman, plus comment by Spike Lee, Molly Haskell and Guy Maddin.
  
  
• The Big Carnival
  By on 2002-07-29
  An interwsting film in light of the recent mine disaster. Cynical, but true. Kirk Douglas at his best.
  
  

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