Rarely seen in recent years, the movie finally came out on DVD this past summer. About 15 years ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing the very friendly (and, yes, hysterically funny) Wilder for a book I was writing on a California political campaign in which he played a tiny role, and he recommended this cult classic during one of our talks. If you haven't seen it, rush out to get it, or do that Netflix thing.
Although something of a box office flop in 1951 ? and later released under a new title, "The Big Carnival" ? it was way ahead of its time in anticipating the feeding frenzy of media coverage today. But like Larry David and "The Simpsons," it is an equal-opportunity mocker, poking malicious fun at everything from gullible common folk to the police. Its most famous line comes from the no-nonsense wife of its chief victim, who says she doesn't go to church because "kneeling bags my nylons."
In this brilliantly written (partly by Wilder) yarn, Kirk Douglas chews the scenery as one Chuck Tatum, a hard-boiled reporter who finds himself at the dusty Albuquerque Sun-Bulletin begging for a job that might be his ticket back to the big time. He brags that he has been fired from 11 newspapers back East. His previous crimes? Everything from libel to fooling around with a publisher's wife.
He actually boasts, "I'm a pretty good liar." (Half a century later, Jayson Blair would say much the same thing.) The fuddy-duddy owner of the paper is portrayed as Mr. Ethics but, naturally, he hires the scum. Cut to fade.
It's a year later and Tatum is languishing in this "sun-baked Siberia," still awaiting his lucky break. Then, by chance, along a remote highway he happens to be first at the scene of a cave-in that has trapped the owner of a local trading post. Sensing this is it, he not only gets the scoop ("Ancient Curse Entombs Man"), but manipulates events to guarantee that the poor fellow won't get saved any time soon, thereby giving Tatum a chance to become a national star ? and get one of his New York jobs back.
You think Jayson Blair or Janet Cooke or Jack Kelley were bad? Tatum convinces the chief engineer to abandon a plan that might get the trapped man out in a day in favor of a drilling scheme that would take at least a week. Then he convinces the sheriff to not interfere, pointing out how much the publicity might help his re-election campaign. When the national press arrives, Tatum gets himself deputized so that only he gets access to the man in the cave ? whom he lies to over and over.
Oh, did I mention that after extolling the trapped man's "brokenhearted wife" in print ? knowing that she is, in reality, somewhat trashy ? he slaps her around a bit, then sleeps with her.
As Tatum hoped, thousands of yokels descend on the scene (the wife is charging admission), setting up tents, then a Ferris wheel. Tatum quits the Albuquerque rag when a New York paper offers him a wad of dough. "I don't make things happen, I just write about them," he blusters. About this time, I was expecting to learn that the victim was faking his entrapment to gain fame and would walk out of the cave at any moment.
Alas, he perishes, a few hours before the drill breaks through. I won't give away the ending, but it's a doozy, and not a happy one ? for Tatum or the image of the press.
Yes, I'm aware that yellow journalism and media circuses existed long before this. In the film, Tatum even mentions a real-life precursor ? the Kentucky cave-in in 1925 that made W.B. Miller of the Louisville Courier-Journal a household name (and landed him a Pulitzer). State troopers with bayonets had to hold tourists back at the Sand Cave, and that victim perished, also.
But "Ace in the Hole" still stands as a savage ? and highly entertaining ? reminder of one reason the media has lost so much standing. To be sure, Hollywood has fallen just as far: They truly don't make movies like this anymore.
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Ace.