{"id":318,"date":"2011-07-09T23:59:20","date_gmt":"2011-07-10T03:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/?p=318"},"modified":"2011-07-27T22:06:57","modified_gmt":"2011-07-28T02:06:57","slug":"day-ten-ace-in-the-hole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/?p=318","title":{"rendered":"Day Ten: Ace In the Hole"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ace<\/a>Billy Wilder’s tenth movie, Ace In the Hole<\/em><\/a>, starring Kirk Douglas, was released in 1951. Billy was 45 years old.<\/p>\n

According to the book \"On On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder<\/em><\/a>, by Ed Sikov, Ace in the Hole<\/em> is an unabashedly cynical Billy Wilder movie.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

He gets the job. And pines for “the big story that’ll get me outta here.”<\/p>\n

He gets that, too. But it turns out to be more than he bargained for.<\/p>\n

Principle Cast:<\/strong>
\nChuck Tatum………………………………Kirk Douglas (1916- )
\nLorraine Minosa………………………….Jan Sterling (1924\u20132004)
\nHerbie Cook………………………………..Robert Arthur (1925-2008)
\nJacob Q. Boot………………………………Porter Hall (1888-1953)
\nMr. Federber……………………………….Frank Cady (1915- )<\/p>\n

Ace in the Hole<\/em> is the first movie Billy Wilder wrote and directed (and produced!) sans Charles Brackett, who split with Wilder after Sunset Boulevard<\/em> — 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Everyone wants out. But only one makes it.<\/p>\n

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

This isn’t a movie I could watch again. It was good. But not great. <\/p>\n

Above all, it was unrelentingly depressing. <\/p>\n

Who really needs to spend a couple of hours wallowing in the darkness of the human soul?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Billy 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: 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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[74,75,53,80,77,76,82,52,79,78,83],"tags":[197],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=318"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":870,"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318\/revisions\/870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}