LETHAL FAKE NEWS..........."ACE IN THE HOLE" BARBECUES THE PRESS.........

Ace In The Hole (1951)    Legendary writer-director Billy Wilder took an ultra high-dive with this one.........one of the bleakest, angriest views of journalism and humanity ever filmed.......

             And you'd better believe that 1951 America wasn't ready for it.......it tanked immediately.....

              Paramount tried re-titling it "The Big Carnival" at the last minute. Didn't work........even though 'The Big Carnival' identifies the essence of the film far better than 'Ace In The Hole'......

              Kirk Douglas, at his jaw-clenchingly Kirk-iest, plays Chuck Tatum, a down-on-his-luck big city newspaper reporter who's burned every bridge behind him........(alcohol, adultery...you name it)

              At the very end of his rope, landing in Albuquerque. Tatum stumbles on to a Golden Goose human interest story.......in Leo Mimosa.a hapless desert dweller who got himself trapped while exploring an ancient Indian cliff-dwelling mountain........

              Chuck, who can crawl far enough into the crumbling caves to speak to this poor soul, orchestrates a grotesque, spectacular media circus around Leo's rescue.......complete with amusement park, circus tent and Chuck himself as the exclusive impresario and author of Leo's heart-wrenching story.....

              It's a role ready-made for Kirk Douglas's trademark boiling intensity, as Tatum plays everyone like a piano.....the public, the corrupt cops and even Leo's floozy, money hungry wife (Jan Sterling), who was about to walk out on her husband.

                (When Douglas attempts to arrange a good-optics church appearance for Sterling to pray for her husband, she complains...."kneeling bags my nylons".....)

                 Not surprisingly, Chuck Tatum's bottomless cynicism pushes him into moral twilight........spiraling into the inevitable darkest of conclusions and the film's unforgettable final image......one the best visual show-stoppers you'll ever see in American cinema........

                We won't spoil any of the details........just experience the film........movie-goers wouldn't see anything like it again until six years later with "Sweet Smell Of Success".......an equally dark excursion into journalism-noir peppered with knife-edge dialogue  (see our post on that one)

                It took decades for "Ace In The Hole"s rediscovery as a way-ahead-of-its-time classic......anyone who thrills to the power of movies to hold you in their grip cannot ignore this one.........been a long time since BQ handed out this rating and there's no film more deserving......
......a 5 star (*****) FIND OF FINDS.  Seek it out.