27 Days With Billy Wilder And Me

Every Movie He Directed…From Mauvaise Graine to Buddy Buddy

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Day Ten: Ace In the Hole

July 9th, 2011 · 2 Comments · 1951, Ace In the Hole, Ed Sikov, Frank Cady, Jan Sterling, Kirk Douglas, Lesser Samuels, On Sunset Boulevard, Porter Hall, Robert Arthur, Victor Desny

Ace In the HoleBilly Wilder’s tenth movie, Ace In the Hole, starring Kirk Douglas, was released in 1951. Billy was 45 years old.

According to the book On Sunset Boulevard On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder, by Ed Sikov, Ace in the Hole is an unabashedly cynical Billy Wilder movie.

It’s the story of a crusty, down-on-his-luck, and morally bankrupt newspaper reporter from New York who — knocked down by a libel suit — wanders from job to job throughout the Midwest until he finds himself begging for a job on a small-town paper in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

He gets the job. And pines for “the big story that’ll get me outta here.”

He gets that, too. But it turns out to be more than he bargained for.

Principle Cast:
Chuck Tatum………………………………Kirk Douglas (1916- )
Lorraine Minosa………………………….Jan Sterling (1924–2004)
Herbie Cook………………………………..Robert Arthur (1925-2008)
Jacob Q. Boot………………………………Porter Hall (1888-1953)
Mr. Federber……………………………….Frank Cady (1915- )

Ace in the Hole is the first movie Billy Wilder wrote and directed (and produced!) sans Charles Brackett, who split with Wilder after Sunset Boulevard — for reasons never really made public. In fact, Brackett later admitted he was surprised by Wilder’s decision to break up the Oscar-winning team.

Without Brackett, Wilder seemed to go nuts, shoveling on the cynicism with both hands. This movie is about a man trapped by a cave in. But it’s also about a man, Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas), trapped in a dead-end career in a dead-end town…and a woman, Lorraine Minosa (Jan Sterling), trapped in a dead-end marriage to the man trapped in the cave.

Everyone wants out. But only one makes it.

The screenplay was written by Billy Wilder, Lesser Samuels, Walter Newman, and somebody who was given writing credit only after he sued Billy Wilder for plagiarism: Victor Desny. The case (Desny v. Wilder) went all the way to the California Supreme Court. Wilder lost.

This isn’t a movie I could watch again. It was good. But not great.

Above all, it was unrelentingly depressing.

Who really needs to spend a couple of hours wallowing in the darkness of the human soul?

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2 Comments so far ↓

    • Bill

      Yeah. But you’re in a different league. You watch movies like Ace in the Hole, then write superb books — or become part of the special features on DVDs — to share your insights. I can only take just so much wallowing. Then I have to turn to Some Like it Hot or The Apartment to wash the darkness off.

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