Billy Wilder directing a movie starring Kirk Douglas. It seemed like a match made in heaven. But sadly the film was overlooked at the time, maybe because of the topic, maybe because “Ace in the Hole” was too gritty and cynical, who knows?
Kirk Douglas stars as a frustrated former big-city journalist, who works for an Albuquerque newspaper. Desperate for a good story he exploits a story about a man trapped in a cave to re-jump start his career, but the situation quickly escalates into an out-of-control circus.
This film marks the first that Wilder was involved in a project as a writer, producer, and director and without his long-time writing partner Charles Brackett (“Sunset Boulevard”). Wilder directs this film noir film with patience and precision analysing the relationship between the press, the news it reports and the public who adores those kind of stories. Everyone is to blame in this dark and cynical story. Kirk Douglas’s portrayal of the ambitious Charles Tatum is perfect. He delivers a biting and hypnotic performance which has not aged a day.
The film was inspired by two important true-events. The first one happened in 1925, when W. Floyd Collins was trapped inside Sand Cave, Kentucky. The reporter William Burke Miller jumped on the story and his coverage became a national event which earned him a Pulitzer Prize. Collins’s name is cited in the film as an example of a cave-in victim who becomes a media sensation. The second event took place in 1949when a Three-year-old Kathy Fiscus of San Marino, California, fell into an abandoned well. The rescue operation lasted several days, and became also a gigantic event with thousands of people on the scene watching the rescue mission unfold. In both cases, the victims died before they were rescued.
The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay and won two awards at the Venice Film Festival.
