The Definitives
Ace in the Hole (1951)
Director: Billy Wilder
Cast: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, and Robert Arthur
Rated: Not Rated
Runtime: 111 min.
by Brian Eggert
Entered into
The Definitives:
7/17/2007
Original Release Date:
6/29/1951
In 1951, Billy Wilder had been making movies since the 1930s, either writing screenplays in Austria or writing and directing in America. He was one of the many European filmmakers, along with the German-born Ernst Lubitsch, Wilder’s filmic idol, to flee Hitler’s oncoming rein in the late ‘30s. Years after his arrival in the U.S., Wilder collaborated on a number of scripts, including Lubitsch’s wonderful Ninotchka, most often with his writing partner Charles Bracket. Eventually, Wilder was given his own pictures to direct.
While German filmmakers were best known for their blatant expressionism, Wilder surprised Paramount studio heads in 1942 when his debut The Major and the Minor turned out to be a commercial success. It was completely void of any unmarketable German-ness so well known in Hollywood from directors like Fritz Lang. In the subsequent years, Wilder would go on to co-write and direct innumerable classics such as Double Indemnity, The Long Weekend, A Foreign Affair, and Sunset Boulevard. His movies were best known for their humor, much of it dark; A Foreign Affair, for example, is somehow a romantic comedy, despite its setting in the otherwise humorless Nazi-occupied Berlin.
Even with Wilder's comedic reputation, his block of movies between 1942 and 1951 seems drawn downward, toward inhuman places where his reputation does not suggest he would go—films about self-defeating drunks or down-on-their-luck writers. In the latter part of his career, Wilder made joyful movies like Sabrina, Love in the Afternoon, and Some Like it Hot. And yet, released by Paramount in 1951, Ace in the Hole exists as a film whose title represents itself perfectly within the director’s own career—the portal-like Hole linking Wilder’s noirish past and comedy future. After ‘51, this film was all-but-forgotten by every American critic and viewer. Wilder was not.
Wilder based Ace in the Hole on a real-life event in 1925, when reporter William Burke Miller kept miner W. Floyd Collins buried and trapped inside Sand Cave in Kentucky until his death, just for the story’s sensationalism. He captures the cynical nature of that truth by exploring the reporter himself. After breaking with longtime colleague Charles Bracket for unknown reasons, Wilder partnered with Walter Newman and Lesser Samuels to tell Collins’ story. Victor Desney, an actor who had approached Wilder with the concept two years earlier, discovered Collins’ story was in production at Paramount and filed a lawsuit. Though writers changed the names and locations for the script, courts ruled for Desney, who settled for a hearty sum.
Dubbed Charles Tatum and played by intense actor Kirk Douglas, journalist William Burke Miller was surely exaggerated, as Tatum personified a charismatic, megalomaniac personality. The story begins with Tatum, a hard luck newspaper writer who talks loud, thinks fast, and belongs somewhere in a city scouring slums and politicians’ bedrooms for a story. “I can handle big news and little news,” says Tatum. “And if there's no news, I'll go out and bite a dog.” Nevertheless, no city will have him. He’s been fired from eleven newspapers around the country for reasons ranging from drinking on the job to sleeping with the editor’s wife. His former salaries were more than anyone in Albuquerque, where he finds himself when the film begins, has ever come close to earning.
Entering the offices of the local paper, Tatum speaks with as much modesty as you will see from him—he tells the owner that taking him on will make the paper $200 a week, as he is a $250 writer willing to take the job for $50. Once hired, even a year later, Tatum still lights matches off typewriter recoils, scoffs at the paper’s embroidered “Tell the Truth” motto, and talks of his New York City glory days as if there were still a chance... All the while he waits for a big fish to come along on which snag his hook, pulling him out of his dinky Albuquerque boat, into the river and down all the way to New York once again.
Beginning to feel that biding his time in New Mexico’s empty pasture of newspaper journalism might be his last mistake, Tatum sees a way back into The Big Time when driving to a rattlesnake festival. At a wayside trading post and restaurant, Tatum and his gopher photographer discover that the store’s owner, while digging for artifacts to sell, was trapped inside a centuries-old Native American cave system. Remembering a journalist who years ago won a Pulitzer for dragging out such a story to its full dramatic scope (likely an in-film reference to Miller), an ideal opportunity presents itself in the form of Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict), the pleasant store owner and war vet who remains trapped in a tiny opening. Tatum explains, “Bad news sells best. ‘Cause good news is no news.”
As in Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, the protagonist takes the low road to raise himself up. Both Tatum and William Holden’s Joe Gillis from Sunset sell themselves for their concept of personal accomplishment, not realizing the consequences until they end up dead.
Tatum takes control of the rescue operation, out-talking even the local police; he even bribes the sheriff with the idea of reelection and noted fame from newspaper coverage. A contractor familiar with cave rescues wants to fasten the unstable walls with bearings, which should allow Minosa’s rescue in half a day. Too dangerous, Tatum explains, perhaps we should use a drill and go in through the top of the mountain—a decision that will extend Tatum’s newspaper treatment by days, by then gaining the attention of New York City high-brows.
And then there is Minosa’s wife, Lorraine, played by the appropriately desperate and tired-looking Jan Sterling, who seems none-too-broken up about her husband’s predicament. Tatum’s newspaper articles attract attention; tourists stop by just to get a look at the cave where hero Leo Minosa remains trapped. Meanwhile, those same tourists are buying burgers at the trading post, giving Mrs. Minosa more business than she has had in, well, ever.
Eventually, Lorraine is coming on to Tatum, hoping that he can wisp her away from her isolation, off to New York when Mr. Minosa is rescued. Through a few subtle glances, we realize Mrs. Minosa knows just what Tatum is up to. “That's the first grand I've ever had,” she says to him after a good day of business, smiling with sexual conviction. “Thanks. Thanks a lot.” Tatum instructs her to get that smile off her face, that she has a distraught wife performance to give. “Why don’t you make me?” she says. Tatum slaps her hard across each cheek and her smile is replaced with angry confusion. "Don't wipe those tears," he says. "That's the way you're supposed to look." It is a vicious, scary moment in the film, one where we realize how cruel Tatum truly is, and how breathtaking an actor Kirk Douglas could be.
Compare Douglas’ Tatum to his character Jim McLeod in William Wyler’s Detective Story. Both characters are driven, self-aware, and conscious of their own obsessive qualities. McLeod resorts to criminality to put criminals away; Tatum creates his own stories for journalistic purposes. Douglas excels in these roles, both powerful, flawed men. Their brash sensibilities are subdued only by Douglas’ natural, charming confidence. And while each character may be anti-heroic, to the point where we know they must die in the end to amend their misdeeds, we root for them, as they are uniquely sympathetic.
By the time the drill is set up on top of the mountain, Lorraine is selling tickets to her husband’s entrapment, even letting the circus erect tents, sell concessions, and sing songs about rescuing Leo—giving a very literal meaning to “media circus”. Flourishing under such conditions, Tatum juggles prearranging a job contract with a New York newspaper, keeping quiet those who know his secrets, communicating with Leo and instilling in him hope, and maintaining order in the newly constructed “community” just outside the cave.
Wilder’s disparaging ending leaves both Leo and Tatum dead. “I'm a thousand-dollar-a-day newspaperman,” Tatum tells his idealistic Albuquerque editor. “You can have me for nothing.” Tatum falls to the ground, lifeless from a stab wound incurred by the rejected Lorraine. After all his efforts, Tatum could not assure than Minosa would live the week needed to once again boost his name. Leo dies in the cave needlessly. Lorraine is left pathetically clinging to her money. When the circus finds out Leo is dead, collective heads drop in sadness; within moments the makeshift parking lot is abandoned and only scattered garbage remains. Tatum failed to secure a human interest ending to his human interest story; had Leo survived, perhaps Tatum would have lived in the end. But that would be another film entirely.
As with so much modern media, Tatum decides what his readers know and where the story goes. His yarn develops, and is reported on in a way that he desires. Television and newspaper journalists choose what they report; this is a subjective process, as opposed the ideal objectivity professional journalists have forever yearned for but rarely achieve. Tatum simply takes subjectivity to the next level: interaction. While Ace in the Hole may seem satirical with Tatum pulling the locals’ strings like a puppeteer, I remind you of the film’s basis in fact, that such events actually occurred to an extent. In some instances, they still occur today. Most recently in 1998, Steven Glass was fired from The New Republic magazine for fabricating entire stories. Names, places, events—all made-up. This is, of course, the next extension beyond what Tatum does in the film. And luckily, no one died from Glass’ actions; moreover, since there is no law against bad journalism, Glass was never punished.
But like any great film noir, the criminal hero, in this case Tatum, is punished in the end for his wrongdoings, lending to a sense of karmic justice. Noirish territory was more than conquered by Wilder, as he defined film noir archetypes with Double Indemnity in 1944. Though Ace in the Hole is not, for the most part, shot in the visual chiaroscuro expressionism of the genre, its plot conforms to traditional noirish devices—complete with an equally corrupt blonde bombshell to parallel the anti-hero. Only in the final scene, as Tatum collapses to the ground, forward so that when he lands his face is but a breath from the camera, do we see Wilder’s noir intent. Douglas’ face is barely lit but for a highlighted cheekbone and lower eyelid, so close we cannot help but confront the fact of Tatum's death.
Perhaps this film's cynicism explains its failed business in America, where critics found Wilder’s pessimistic attitude toward the unlikely chances of credible journalism offensive. Furthermore, the film illustrates general human corruption, as every main character, save for Leo, is bought by Tatum’s charm. Audiences, like critics, avoided Wilder’s film.
Reflecting on the initial negative response, I cannot help but wonder why Paramount allowed such a powerfully dark film to be made. Looking at the script before filming, who was this picture to appeal to in their minds? Were there audiences in 1951 willing to accept such material? Even today, Ace in the Hole offers moments of emotion and character development that are shocking. The comparatively raw audiences of 1951 were not used to seeing such blatant gloom depicted onscreen, unless film noir was their genre.
The poor receipts panicked Paramount executives, who changed the title to “The Big Parade” briefly—a change that did little to increase attention to this sour-flavored picture. In Europe, which at the time was blossoming with some of the best in artistic cinema from the likes of Tati and Melville, Ace in the Hole was widely regarded as a masterpiece. Paramount’s next Wilder movie, Stalag 17, was a huge success both commercially and artistically; Wilder’s salary for that film was supposedly withheld by Paramount, making up for this film's losses.
Years later, Ace in the Hole was almost universally forgotten, seen only occasionally on television. Not until the recent, impressive 2-disc DVD by The Criterion Collection has Wilder’s brilliant-but-forgotten picture seen a home video release.
In an interview with the American Film Institute, available as a special feature on the new DVD, Wilder asserts that he never made “cinema”, only “movies”. The difference, I suppose, is in the appeal of the product. “Cinema” is for film lovers—the art crowd, as it were—and are made for the sake of creativity. “Movies” have marketability and commercial potential; it is just a happy accident if they should be well made.
Wilder was an audience’s best friend, making, with unparalleled skill, the best in popular entertainment. Looking into his history, Wilder modeled much of his later work using Ernst Lubitsch, the great inventor of romantic comedies, as a foundation. It is said that Wilder’s Hollywood office contained a sign reading "How would Lubitsch do it?" Indeed, Lubitsch’s influence is apparent on Wilder’s later pictures like Some Like it Hot, or the obvious Lubitsch ode Love in the Afternoon (complete with a role for Maurice Chevalier). Yet Wilder's pictures like Sunset Boulevard and Ace in the Hole elevate themselves far beyond his later comedic work; it almost seems like there was a burgeoning growth of dark, important material swelling in Wilder before 1951, strengthening with The Lost Weekend (for which he earned a Best Director Academy Award), the seams near-bursting on Sunset Boulevard, and then popping completely on Ace in the Hole.
With this film, Wilder unintentionally created an important piece of cinema, not just a movie. More than simple entertainment or product, it is a message on the morals of both journalistic and human integrity. It is film noir without the visual stylization. It is one of the most important, forgotten, now rediscovered, and unconventional films from yesteryear.