Billy Wilder’s 1951 film Ace In The Hole is cynical, hard-bitten, and hardboiled even by his sardonic standards. It’s a movie of firsts: the first time Wilder did a movie without co-writer Charles Brackett. It was also the first time that studio suits changed the title of a Wilder film without informing the director: They called it The Big Carnival. It’s not half bad but not as good as Ace In The Hole. Whatever you call it, the movie flopped at the box office but is now considered a classic.
Ace In The Hole finished fourth on my Billy Wilder Dozen. The Big Carnival didn’t make the cut. Oops, same movie.
Kirk Douglas plays Chuck Tatum. He’s a big city newspaperman on the skids. He was fired from a series of jobs in New York, the city so nice they had to name it twice. It wasn’t that nice to Kirk. He landed in Albuquerque, New Mexcio, which was neither a thriving metropolis nor a great news town in 1951. Douglas waits for a big story. It happened when he was en route to cover a rattlesnake hunt:
That’s his faithful sidekick/photog played by Bob Arthur. I think Kirk was too hungover to drive. Movie reporters drink a lot and wear snazzy hats.
A man named Leo Mimosa is stuck in a cave. It collapsed when he was artifact hunting thereby fulfilling a fakakta curse that’s on the mountain. I don’t believe in curses but maybe you do. Kirk Douglas dug it: It helped sell the story.
Leo Mimosa’s family owns a struggling curio shop near the mountain. His parents love him but his wife played by Jan Sterling doesn’t even like him. Here she is with the reporter and his sidekick:
Kirk Douglas enters the cave to talk to Leo. His face may be dirty but his patter is snappy.
Douglas controls access to the cave allowing only a doctor inside. He’s told that the best way to rescue Leo is to shore up the cave walls, which can be done in 16-24 hours. That’s not long enough for our ambitious reporter. He advocates an alternative approach: drilling from the top down. It requires heavy equipment but will take long enough for the story to become a sensation. In a word: cynical.
Nobody in Ace In The Hole gets what they want. There is no happy ending for any of the characters or the crowd that assembled to see the Ace In The Hole and attend The Big Carnival that springs up outside.
This is the look on Kirk ‘s face near the end of the film:
That’s all the story I’m willing to share, this feature is called pulp fiction, not pulp spoilers, after all.
The movie was shot on location in New Mexico but the cave scenes were shot on the Paramount back lot. Here’s Billy Wilder working some movie magic:
Ace In The Hole is the rare film noir set mostly in the daytime. It’s sunny in the desert with not much to do except play with your Leo Mimosa deck of cards:
Ace In The Hole features a typically witty script and stellar direction by Billy Wilder. Lesser Samuels and Walter Newman stood in for Charles Brackett as Wilder’s co-writers. Neither became Wilder’s longtime collaborator, that honor went to Izzy Diamond.
Kirk Douglas was justifiably proud of his performance as the anti-hero reporter. He dominates the movie leaving everyone else in the dust; literally and figuratively.
The daytime noir cinematography was done by Charles Lang who went on to work with Billy Wilder on Sabrina and Some Like It Hot.
The first time I saw the movie on the late late late show, I giggled with glee when I saw Teevee’s Frank Cady playing the first arrival at the makeshift cave-in camp site:
Cady played Sam Drucker on Petticoat Junction and Green Acres. My taste for trash teevee was in effect even then.
Grading Time: I give Ace In The Hole 4 stars and an Adrastos Grade of A.
It’s time to posterize our lives or some such shit.
We begin with side-by-side long sheet posters featuring both titles:
Does anybody really know what time it is? I really care.
Follow the second-lining refreshments to the lobby.
I was parched after contemplating Leo Mimosa’s plight. I wanted a Mimosa but had to settle for Coke Zero. Oh well, what the hell.
Let’s check out the colorful lobby cards for this black and white movie.
Here’s Kirk conferring with crooked sheriff Ray Teal. He was a veteran character actor you’ve seen a million times.
Finally, a lobby card with Kirk, Leo, and the alternate title.
Headline: I dig the cover of the Criterion Collection’s dvd.
It’s trailer time:
The last word goes to the late great Robert Osborne and Spike Lee:
