Ace In The Hole – Billy Wilder Buries The Lead
Film Review of the Caustic Cult Classic from 1951
Aug 6, 2009
It could be argued that writer/director Billy Wilder was the greatest American film maker of all-time; even though Billy Wilder was born in Austria-Hungary, he made the best movies in and about America.
No other film maker has made so many classics, in such a wide variety of genres; film noir: Double Indemnity (1944); melodrama: The Lost Weekend (1945); gothic drama: Sunset Boulevard (1950); war drama: Stalog 17 (1953); sex comedy: Some Like It Hot (1959); romantic comedy: The Apartment (1960).
Kirk Douglas Mines The Mountain of 7 Vultures
Ace In The Hole, written and directed by Billy Wilder, was not a big commercial success upon release; and to see the movie now, it's easy to see why; because, even before everything changed on 9/11, Americans were none too keen on self-flagellation.
Kirk Douglas plays a once big-time news reporter down on his luck after losing his lucrative job at the New York Times (it becomes apparent that Douglas lost his job from indulging in too much drink, and not enough ink; oh, and he slept with his editor’s wife).
Douglas shows up at a small town newspaper in New Mexico in the hopes that he can slowly climb his way back up. After a bit of time passes, Douglas settles in, steeling himself for the long haul; until one day, Douglas drags the paper’s photographer and resident Jimmy Olsen along with him to cover a story about rattlesnakes.
Douglas and his intrepid young photographer stop to get gas at a run-down station in the desert; the kid steps inside, looking for the owner of the station, and discovers an old lady deep in prayer; the kid tells Douglas about the odd occurrence; Douglas shrugs it off, until a siren’s wail turns his head; they watch as a police car speeds toward a mountain in the distance; and Douglas wonders if maybe there's a connection to the old lady praying inside.
So, Douglas and the kid photographer follow the dust trail to the mountain. They arrive at the foot of the edifice to learn that the owner of the gas station from which they had just left, is trapped in a cave within the massive mountain. Douglas suspects there’s a story here, so he volunteers to go in.
Douglas finds the man, and after a short conversation, believes the man to be a man of depth. Douglas re-emerges from the cave convinced that he has the story that could win him the Pulitzer: Local businessman in search of Indian relics becomes entombed in what the Navajo call The Mountain Of 7 Vultures; thus, the man is doomed to suffer for his desire to rape a native culture (reads like The Curse of King Tut).
Ace In The Hole aka The Big Carnival
The story spreads like wildfire.
And because the man in the cave is unseen by anyone other than Douglas, the trapped man ceases to exist; the man becomes a catalyst; the hundreds of reporters, tourists, ambulance-chasers, and gawkers who slowly gather outside the towering mountain, never see the man inside, just the mountain that holds him.
The trapped man’s wife is convinced by Douglas not to leave town; insisting her struggling gas station/diner will soon be hoppin’; and soon enough, it is.
The local sheriff morphs into Rudy Giuliani as he sees his political prospects invigorated by the tragedy; and In Douglas’ ugliest act of manipulation, he convinces the contractor assigned to dig the poor man out, to take the long way into the cave, thus extending the drama for a few more days.
When the carnival comes to town (literally), the film takes a decidedly Felliniesque turn. But, no American film, at least as of 1951, dare be as fantastic as Fellini, visually; the effect is Fellini with the corroded tint of American cynicism; possibly giving impetus to the original title of the film, The Big Carnival.
Billy Wilder Presents Mr. and Mrs. America
In the great Criterion two-disc set, film maker Spike Lee talks about his love of Ace In The Hole; and the influence the film and Wilder had on him as a writer/director; confessing to having re-created the final shot of Ace In The Hole, for his epic masterwork Malcolm X (1992).
At one point, Spike Lee expresses his belief that Ace In The Hole captures a certain dark side of America; saying: We Americans will do anything for a buck, even if someone has to die.
This ugly truth is lyrically dramatized by a single, devastating line of dialogue by Billy Wilder; early in the film, as the very first couple arrives at The Mountain Of 7 Vultures, kicking off the grotesque vigil; Kirk Douglas points to the gawking couple; turns to the trapped man’s wife, and says: That’s Mr.and Mrs. America!
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