Ace in the Hole (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

In 1950 Billy Wilder was riding high. Fresh off the enormously successful Sunset Boulevard, the German-born Wilder decided to make a very different film; one somewhat critical of the society of his new home, the United States. That film was called Ace in the Hole. The movie concerns Kirk Douglas as a down-on-his-luck reporter who has been fired from just about every major newspaper in the country. Starting with New York, he's gone from large market to small, and now has ended up in Alberquerque. He's a self-described $250 a week reporter, but settles for $60 a week, and makes it clear at one point he'd be willing to take even less. But his character, Chuck Tatum, has dreams. Yes, he does. He dreams that one day, the Great Story will drop into his lap. A story that will let him write his way out of the situation he's in, one that will let him write his own ticket and get back to New York. That Great Story drops into his lap one day when, while on the way to cover a rattlesnake hunt, he stops at a gas station and finds out there's a man trapped in a nearby cave. He boldly goes into the gave, meets Leo Mimosa (Richard Benedict), the man trapped inside, and smells a story. Immediately he begins to sabotage the rescue efforts. When the engineer in charge of getting Mimosa out explains that it might take most of a day to get him out safely, Tatum conconcts a much more convulted rescue plan, one that will certainly take days. Days during which he can write a great story about this poor man trapped in a mountin. A story that will finally take him back to New York. Along the way he meets the slightly corrupt sheriff (Ray Teal), who is more-than-willing to help him, figuring the attention boosts his chances of getting relected. Also present is Mimosa's wife, Lorraine (Jan Sterling), who can't stand her husband and wants to leave. Tatum practically forces her to remain, saying the story works so much better if there's a grieving wife at home for him to focus on. As the days roll past, people begin to show up. First just a family on their way to a nice vaction, who end up settling in for the long haul. Before you know it, the entire area is filled with cars, as people come from miles around to witness this great story. Eventually a large carnvial builds up around the site (in fact the movie was, at one point, called The Big Carnival). Access to the cave area, once free, goes from 25 cents a car to 50 cents, and then to a dollar. The gas station is making money hand over fist. Tatum is being courted by New York. Everyone is benefiting. Everyone but Leo. Things begin to change in the life of everyone involved, including Tatum, when Leo starts to get sicker and sicker. Tatum quickly realizes the story doesn't work if the man in the cave doesn't make it out alive, and starts to try and change his tactics, only to find out that it might be too late. The story is based to a great extent on real-life events in 1925, when a man named Floyd Collins became trapped in a mine. It also put me in mind of those stories back in the late 80's and early 90's, where it seemed like every week some kid was getting trapped in a well. If nothing else, this movie shows well that the media circus that errupted around those wells was little different from what has gone before. When the movie was released, it was largely panned. Many people seemed to think it was overly-cynical and presented an image of America as it wasn't. The film also failed miserably at the box office. It did get an Oscar nomination, for the screenplay, but lost. Most people today have never even heard of the film, and that's a tragedy. The movie was recently released on DVD by the Criterion Collection and turns up on Turner Classic Movies from time-to-time. It's an exceptional film, with stunning cinematography, great performances and a wonderful screenplay. It feels amazingly modern despite being 57 years old. Roger Ebert said of this movie: "Wilder, true to this vision and ahead of his time, made a movie in which the only good men are the victim and his doctor. Instead of blaming the journalist who masterminds a media circus, he is equally hard on sightseers who pay 25 cents admission. Nobody gets off the hook here." He's exactly correct. The public that eats up these stories is every bit as culpable as the journalists who create them. If we ignore these stories, they'll go away. Instead the public lavishes attention onto them, encouraging the worst in journalism. On the plus side, at least in this case, it makes for a wonderful, if sometimes hard to watch, film.

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.

A Billy Wilder monochrome masterpiece - one of several - and decades ahead of its time in its cynical recognition of the pwer of the media to distort and its delight in disaster. Witty and economical in his storytelling, incisive in his characterisation, ACE IN THE HOLE would have given Billy the right, had he been inclined to exercise it, to say to his rivals in 1951: "I'm in the boat; you're in the water."

Ace In The Hole (aka The Big Carnival) was directed by my hero, Billy Wilder. He is the genius who gave us Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot - three of my all-time favorite films. Ace In The Hole, however, suffers from the over-the-top performance of Kirk Douglas who manages to play every scene with clenched teeth and boiling-point anger. His early scenes in the small newspaper office in Albuquerque are so over-played that he comes off like a man in need of a straight-jacket rather than a job. I believe it would be a more powerful film if his character were a little more sympatetic initially, thereby shocking us once his dark side is fully revealed. As it stands now, we are not surprised at the depth of his depravity because of Douglas' inability to bring some subtlety to his performance. Having said all that, there is much here to recommend...some solid acting performances and a powerful story of greed and power and how contagious corruption is. Jan Sterling stands out as the cold and indifferent wife of the man trapped in the cave. She delivers the only funny line in the movie, "I don't go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons." She can be seen in Caged and in her Oscar-nominated performance in The High And The Mighty. In closing, I would like to say that I think William Holden would have brought more subtley and dimension to the lead role. However, it is what it is and I my hope is that this review has peaked your curiosity and you will watch the film and decide for yourself.

Purchased as a gift.

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.

A superb movie, encapsulating Wilder's trademark cynicism. I have no wish to plot spoil, but most of the characters are disgracefully self-serving. The underlying tragedy serves merely as a vehicle for them to achieve their own ends. The (very few) characters who are genuinely concerned about the victim generate great sympathy. The narrative is very clever, the cinematography first rate and the acting performances equally so. Not that this impacted my 5* evaluation, but there are two quite wonderful Billy Wilder interviews/documentaries on the accompanying disc.

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.

Film très pertinent sur l opportunisme en matière de journalisme; très bien réalisé, Kirk Douglas magistral.

Came today in perfect condition, really love the film! Highly Recommended

Bei den ARD-Fernsehsendern heißt die Sendung »Brisant«, bei den meisten anderen Sendern gibt es den gleichen Inhalt unter anderen Namen. TV-Formate dieser Art zielen auf ein Publikum, das sich aus denjenigen zusammensetzt, die auch gerne nach schweren Unfällen oder Ähnlichem als Schaulustige dabeistehen. Man weidet sich am Leid anderer Menschen, genießt den Kitzel des Sensationellen und ist von sich selbst begeistert, weil man die eigene obszöne Neugier mit moralischer Betroffenheit verwechselt. Die Massenmedien fachen diese Form der Sensationsgeilheit an. Der ehemalige Reporter Billy Wilder hat in »Ace in the Hole« (1951) die Mechanismen der Sensationspresse hellsichtig analysiert. Der Film, der in Deutschland den albernen Titel »Reporter des Satans« trug, liefert eine zutiefst ernüchternde sozialpsychologische Studie. Gewiss, auch Howard Hawks’ »His Girl Friday« (1941) enthält Elemente, die bereits in diese Richtung weisen. Doch erst Billy Wilder malt das Bild komplett aus und erzählt die Geschichte bis zum bitteren Ende. Seine Hauptfigur Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas) ist ein heruntergekommener Großstadtreporter, der weiß, ›wie die Leute ticken‹. Um die Sensation warmzuhalten und mit den eigenen Berichten kräftig abzukassieren, verzögert er die Rettung eines Mannes, der in einem alten Stollen halb verschüttet ist. Die gottverlassene Gegend, in der der Unfall sich zugetragen hat, wird in Windeseile zu einem beliebten Ausflugsziel für Schaulustige. Fast wie zu Zeiten der Erschließung des Westens entsteht aus dem Nichts eine kleine Siedlung mit Gastronomie, Andenkenhandel usw. »Ace in the Hole« ist sicherlich einer der Filme, die dazu geführt haben, dass man Wilder als Zyniker bezeichnet hat. Aber der Vorwurf geht ins Leere. Natürlich identifiziert sich Wilder nicht mit dem Zynismus seines ›Helden‹. Und er ist auch nicht zynisch in dem Sinne, dass er den Rest der Welt als zynische Egoisten porträtiert. Nein, Wilder ist ein Humanist, – nur eben am Rande der Verzweiflung. Selbstverständlich gibt es bei ihm – und gerade auch in »Ace in the Hole« – Einsicht, Scham und Umkehr. Doch all das kommt hier zu spät, nachdem die Maschinerie erst einmal in Gang gekommen ist. Wilders Skepsis gilt den Massenmedien und den durch sie gelenkten Massenphänomenen, die den Einzelnen daran hindern, sich seines eigenen Verstandes zu bedienen. Was aber nicht heißt, dass Wilder den Einzelnen aus der Verantwortung entlässt. Es ist Chuck Tatum, der eine Bewegung initiiert, der er am Ende selbst nicht mehr gewachsen ist. Obwohl er auf US-amerikanische Verhältnisse Bezug nimmt, kann man wohl annehmen, dass Wilder sich hier auch wenige Jahre nach Kriegsende mit der Frage auseinandersetzt, wie in seiner europäischen Heimat jene Ungeheurlichkeiten geschehen konnten, die zur Ermordung eines Teils seiner Familie führten. Der Film liegt hier in der für die Criterion Collection üblichen Spitzenqualität vor (zur Sicherheit sei gesagt: die DVD hat Regionalcode 1). Es gibt einen Audiokommentar vom Wilder-Experten Neil Sinyard. Englische Untertitel für Hörgeschädigte sind verfügbar. Die Supplements-DVD bietet das Wilder-Porträt: »Portrait of a 60% Perfect Man« (1980) von Michel Ciment sowie Ausschnitte aus einem Gespräch mit Wilder am American Film Institute (1986). Hinzu kommen ein Gespräch mit Kirk Douglas (1984), ein Audio-Interview mit Drehbuch-Koautor Walter Newman sowie ein Statement von Spike Lee (2007). Das als kleine Zeitung aufgemachte Booklet enthält Essays von Molly Haskell und Guy Maddin. Was will man mehr?

Great Blu-ray! A+++

I was happy with my purchase. No problems at all!