Runtime: 111 minutes
Directed by: Billy Wilder
Starring: Kirk Douglas
(RIP), Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur, Porter Hall, Frank Cady
From: Paramount
I give Ace in the Hole the highest possible rating. See why below:
This movie stings and is as venomous as a rattlesnake.
After Kirk Douglas had passed away at the age of 103 on Wednesday, I knew my next movie would be something starring him; Spartacus has been seen a few times by me before (and reviewed a few years ago) so this seemed like the next obvious choice to go with.
I heard this was rather cynical and misanthropic but I was blown away with how this movie turned out. Douglas plays Chuck Tatum, a down on his luck newspaper reporter who by happenstance ends up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He talks his way into a job and even admits he has been let go from major newspapers in the past for indiscretions on his part. It's not long before the movie reveals just how rotten and reprehensible a person he is; Tatum wishes for bad news to happen so he has something to write about and circulation can increase. What a stroke of luck then that he stumbles upon a man named Leo who is trapped in a cave after it collapses on him while he is looking for Native American pottery. It is a horrifying sight to see how Tatum manipulates Leo and the people in the rural New Mexico area (including his family) for his gain and nothing more.
You'll get pretty mad at seeing his behavior and how others are destroyed by his actions. Although, I also got mad at seeing how others were corrupted by greed... Leo and his family operate a small shop in the middle of nowhere and because of the collapse becoming a national story, their business is great. If it's not appalling enough that Chuck is teamed with a neophyte reporter that soon becomes corrupted and his ideals come crashing down, it's how people showed up outside of the caves and treat the event as a must-attend get-together, as if it's a giant party... solely due to the media's portrayal of the event as a bad news story worth the public's attention. Ace in the Hole showed that Chuck wasn't the only one who was rotten & reprehensible.
The movie says a lot about such topics as greed, capitalism, the human propensity for the love of tragedy and (especially) the power of the media, including its ability to be manipulative. I am not a “fake news!” sort of guy and I have no problem with most media. However, tabloid journalism I am no fan of as I don't care for gossip or tawdry discussion of vapid celebrities and all the cable news networks in the United States (not just the usually-loathed Fox News) are more about entertainment than actual journalism and they should not be anyone's source to learn about the world's events. Thankfully not everyone you see in Ace is a poor human being or someone manipulated by this tragedy; therefore, this acerbic movie is not a punishing sit. Rather, this is incredibly powerful as you are horrified at how everything spirals out of control and you worry about Leo's fate.
As this was a film Billy Wilder made at Paramount, naturally it was a high-quality and high-class production both in front and behind the camera; many of the exteriors were actually shot in rural New Mexico. The cast was full of quality actors but it was Douglas who was a tour de force in such a detestable role. The movie has lost little of its power over the past 7 decades as regrettably, its themes are not a thing of a past and not only did it make for a memorable episode of The Simpsons back in the 90's (when the show was worth a damn) but it wouldn't take much updating to have a remake. Not that I usually love such things... to be frank, the general public today could learn a lot from viewing Ace in the Hole's messages.
After Kirk Douglas had passed away at the age of 103 on Wednesday, I knew my next movie would be something starring him; Spartacus has been seen a few times by me before (and reviewed a few years ago) so this seemed like the next obvious choice to go with.
I heard this was rather cynical and misanthropic but I was blown away with how this movie turned out. Douglas plays Chuck Tatum, a down on his luck newspaper reporter who by happenstance ends up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He talks his way into a job and even admits he has been let go from major newspapers in the past for indiscretions on his part. It's not long before the movie reveals just how rotten and reprehensible a person he is; Tatum wishes for bad news to happen so he has something to write about and circulation can increase. What a stroke of luck then that he stumbles upon a man named Leo who is trapped in a cave after it collapses on him while he is looking for Native American pottery. It is a horrifying sight to see how Tatum manipulates Leo and the people in the rural New Mexico area (including his family) for his gain and nothing more.
You'll get pretty mad at seeing his behavior and how others are destroyed by his actions. Although, I also got mad at seeing how others were corrupted by greed... Leo and his family operate a small shop in the middle of nowhere and because of the collapse becoming a national story, their business is great. If it's not appalling enough that Chuck is teamed with a neophyte reporter that soon becomes corrupted and his ideals come crashing down, it's how people showed up outside of the caves and treat the event as a must-attend get-together, as if it's a giant party... solely due to the media's portrayal of the event as a bad news story worth the public's attention. Ace in the Hole showed that Chuck wasn't the only one who was rotten & reprehensible.
The movie says a lot about such topics as greed, capitalism, the human propensity for the love of tragedy and (especially) the power of the media, including its ability to be manipulative. I am not a “fake news!” sort of guy and I have no problem with most media. However, tabloid journalism I am no fan of as I don't care for gossip or tawdry discussion of vapid celebrities and all the cable news networks in the United States (not just the usually-loathed Fox News) are more about entertainment than actual journalism and they should not be anyone's source to learn about the world's events. Thankfully not everyone you see in Ace is a poor human being or someone manipulated by this tragedy; therefore, this acerbic movie is not a punishing sit. Rather, this is incredibly powerful as you are horrified at how everything spirals out of control and you worry about Leo's fate.
As this was a film Billy Wilder made at Paramount, naturally it was a high-quality and high-class production both in front and behind the camera; many of the exteriors were actually shot in rural New Mexico. The cast was full of quality actors but it was Douglas who was a tour de force in such a detestable role. The movie has lost little of its power over the past 7 decades as regrettably, its themes are not a thing of a past and not only did it make for a memorable episode of The Simpsons back in the 90's (when the show was worth a damn) but it wouldn't take much updating to have a remake. Not that I usually love such things... to be frank, the general public today could learn a lot from viewing Ace in the Hole's messages.
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