Perhaps Billy Wilder would feel vindicated today after putting this film down as one of his lesser achievements. His own background as a reporter in Vienna and Berlin most likely influenced this story of a cynical newspaper reporter who insinuates himself into his byline to influence events instead of merely reporting them. See, and I thought this was only a modern day inconvenient truth.
I didn't expect "Ace in the Hole" to be the gripping movie it turned out to be. Kirk Douglas is masterful in presenting a character so out of touch with basic human decency that he never considers that sometimes the law of unintended consequences can intrude on one's best laid plans. Down and out reporter Chuck Tatum (Douglas) happens upon a story in the making in the middle of a New Mexico desert, and his overblown ego takes command of the situation. A master manipulator, Tatum convinces a local corrupt sheriff (Ray Teal) to milk an underground rescue attempt to pile up votes for the next election, and together they bully a contractor (Frank Jaquet) to use a rescue method that will take six days instead of eighteen hours. Tatum also latches on to a local legend, the 'Mountain of the Seven Vultures' to add a tense note of mystery and foreboding to his copy, all in an effort to secure a prized position back at his former New York City newspaper.
It's hard not to become angry watching this picture because one instinctively knows that this type of stuff occurs on a daily basis in newsrooms across the country. It's gotten to the point where one can't really trust what appears in print or on the TV screen half the time today, a sorry state of affairs if one relies on accuracy in reporting for any reason at all. The carnival atmosphere that develops around the Leo Mimosa story must have seemed oddly unbelievable, even impossible back when the picture was made, but today it seems about par for the course.
One can figure out where this story is going after a certain point; all that's left is for the finger pointing to start. Admirably, for a creepy character like Tatum, he decides to blow the whistle on his own complicity in causing a man's death, but it's too little too late. The gawkers pack up and leave and those who profited from the spectacle are left to their own seamy existence, including the wife of the trapped miner (Jan Sterling), revealed as callous and hypocritical as the sheriff. In a nod to both true noir sensibility and demands of the Production Code, Chuck Tatum goes down for the final count as the picture closes, knowing just before he drops that the circus is finally over.
I didn't expect "Ace in the Hole" to be the gripping movie it turned out to be. Kirk Douglas is masterful in presenting a character so out of touch with basic human decency that he never considers that sometimes the law of unintended consequences can intrude on one's best laid plans. Down and out reporter Chuck Tatum (Douglas) happens upon a story in the making in the middle of a New Mexico desert, and his overblown ego takes command of the situation. A master manipulator, Tatum convinces a local corrupt sheriff (Ray Teal) to milk an underground rescue attempt to pile up votes for the next election, and together they bully a contractor (Frank Jaquet) to use a rescue method that will take six days instead of eighteen hours. Tatum also latches on to a local legend, the 'Mountain of the Seven Vultures' to add a tense note of mystery and foreboding to his copy, all in an effort to secure a prized position back at his former New York City newspaper.
It's hard not to become angry watching this picture because one instinctively knows that this type of stuff occurs on a daily basis in newsrooms across the country. It's gotten to the point where one can't really trust what appears in print or on the TV screen half the time today, a sorry state of affairs if one relies on accuracy in reporting for any reason at all. The carnival atmosphere that develops around the Leo Mimosa story must have seemed oddly unbelievable, even impossible back when the picture was made, but today it seems about par for the course.
One can figure out where this story is going after a certain point; all that's left is for the finger pointing to start. Admirably, for a creepy character like Tatum, he decides to blow the whistle on his own complicity in causing a man's death, but it's too little too late. The gawkers pack up and leave and those who profited from the spectacle are left to their own seamy existence, including the wife of the trapped miner (Jan Sterling), revealed as callous and hypocritical as the sheriff. In a nod to both true noir sensibility and demands of the Production Code, Chuck Tatum goes down for the final count as the picture closes, knowing just before he drops that the circus is finally over.