Ace in The Hole on DVD
Ace in the Hole
Directed by Billy Wilder
Criterion Collection $59.99
Ace in The Hole (also known as The Big Carnival) was the biggest bomb of Billy Wilder’s career. Like Wilder’s wonderfully sleazy Kiss Me, Stupid (1964), Ace in The Hole was ahead of its time. This dark and cynical critique of the media proved too much for viewers in 1951 and was a box office disaster. Since it’s original release, the film has appeared sporadically on TV remains overlooked and overshadowed by Wilder’s more popular efforts, Sunset Boulevard and The Apartment. Hopefully, Ace in the Hole’s status will change now that Criterion has released this masterwork on DVD.
Kirk Douglas plays Chuck Tatum, a greaseball reporter so desperate to get his career back on track that he takes a job working for a smalltown paper. Chuck figures that all he needs is one golden story to get him back in the bright lights. A year passes and the best Chuck can get our “ginger peachy” stories about rattlesnake hunts. Everything changes though when a man gets trapped in a cave. Chuck sees his golden opportunity and with the help of a Sheriff, manipulates the man into staying in the cave longer so that they milk the story into a nationwide sensation (The Simpsons paid homage to the film in a 1992 episode when Bart falls down a well).
Over half a century after its release Wilder’s blistering critique of media sensationalism and our monomaniacal fetish for human tragedy has finely found it’s time and place.