Billy Wilder was an odd director. While many directors stick to a genre, Wilder wrote and directed a range of films, from hilarious farces such as Some Like it Hot to dark, cynical dramas such as Sunset Boulevard. But his darkest and most cynical film was Ace in the Hole, so dark it was retitled by Paramount as The Big Carnival, in an effort to make it more commercial, and so cynical the critics and public disliked it. The film almost faded into obscurity, being unreleased on VHS. Now, however, Criterion have released it on DVD, in one of their typically special editions.
The film concerns down-and-out journalist Chuck Tatum, fired from all major papers for various vices, who ends up in a despicably nice newspaper in Albuquerque, in search of his big scoop to send him back into the major leagues. He finds his story in Leo Minosa, a man trapped in a ancient Native American burial site. But Tatum’s real nastiness shows when he arranges for Leo’s rescue to be delayed, in order to extend his exclusive coverage of the ultimate “human interest†story.
While this film may have been too much for audiences at the time (it was indeed a very bitter and dark criticism of the “American Dreamâ€, where a person will do anything to anyone in order to make it to the top), it certainly doesn’t feel so much now. It’s misanthropy actually preceded the arrival of tabloids, and hysterical TV news stations such as Fox and Sky News. The transition of a sleepy desert trading post to a crammed holiday site would be amusing if it wasn’t full of sleazy and nasty characters, from Leo’s unhappy wife who sticks with him just for the money to the local sheriff who is bought for the press coverage.
My only criticism is at times the film goes a little too over-the-top. The “good†characters, such as the Albuquerque newspaper’s editor, and poor Leo, are very one-dimensional and simple in their benign nature. This is a film of anti-heroes, and everyone else means little. Tatum is played by Kirk Douglas, an actor I’ve never enjoyed that much. There are times in Ace in the Hole where he is astounding, such as the sheer twofacedness as he storms into the burial site, shooting from the hips, keeping everyone under his shroud of self-assuredness, and then suddenly turning into the reliable “old†friend singing songs with his dying buddy. At times the performance feels more at home in a musical, but no matter what you sense a lot of sweaty enthusiasm was invested in this role. In one of the DVD extras, Douglas muses that he wished he worked with Wilder again.
Criterion present the film in a two-disc edition. The bonus disc mostly comprises of an hour-long 1980 interview with the director. I had never even seen Wilder before, but watching him speak, even at the ripe age of 74, was a joy. The sense of style and mood in his work of films is very evident in the man himself, an energetic, wise, yet very witty man. Throughout the interview Wilder shows himself to be a very honest, very open, and very perceptive person. Compliments from Walter Matthau and Jack Lemon also feature. The disc also contains an AFI interview from 1986, where Wilder muses on his career will typical humorous interjections. The only pity is that these two extras spend about a minute in total on Ace in the Hole, and instead focus on his entire career. But in themselves they are worthy documents of a creative (and modest) genius. There’s also an interview with Kirk Douglas spouting compliments about Wilder, and an after-word by Spike Lee on the relevance of Ace in the Hole in 2007. I didn’t bother listening to the commentary over the film, because it’s dictated by some film scholar, who like all film scholars, ironically end up sounding so stiff and dull when talking about such an exciting medium.
Ace in the Hole is not the masterpiece that myth has made it out to be. However, it is a mildly prophetic film noir set in the sun, and further proof that Wilder remains one of Hollywood’s greatest directors.
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