:
Kirk Douglas,
Kirk Douglas,
Jan Sterling,
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Billy Wilder,
Billy Wilder
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: Criterion
: Drama, Film Noir, Vintage Noir, Criterion Collection
: English
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Ace in the Hole (Criterion Collection) (1951)
Paramount's ace screenwriting team of Billy Wilder, Walter Newman and Lesser Samuels came up with their bitterest, most trenchant screenplay to date with 1951's The Big Carnival--which, perhaps significantly, was one of the team's few flops. Kirk Douglas stars as a hotshot big-city reporter who has drunk himself out of every job he's ever held. Reduced to working for a backwater New Mexico daily, Douglas smells an opportunity to return to the Big Time when a miner (Richard Benedict) is trapped in a cave-in. Thanks to Douglas' promotional savvy, the miner's plight turns into a national news event, attracting thousands of onlookers, newsreel cameramen, radio commentators and sideshow hucksters. To prolong the ballyhoo, Douglas deliberately slows down the rescue of the unfortunate miner--who dies as a result. Thoroughly disgusted with himself, Douglas returns to his newsroom to deliver an impassionated speech of self-hatred, then drops dead at the feet of his startled editor. Test-marketed under the title Ace in the Hole, The Big Carnival turned out to be too bitter a pill for audiences to swallow. As a result, Billy Wilder would never write or direct so uncompromising a project again. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Ace in the Hole (Criterion Collection) (Bonus Disc) (1951)
- Portrait of a "60% Perfect Man": Billy Wilder, a 1980 documentary featuring in-depth interviews with Wilder by film critic Michel Ciment
- A 1984 interview with Kirk Douglas by filmmaker and film scholar Michael Thomas
- Excerpts from a 1986 appearance by Wilder at the American Film Institute
- Excerpts from an audio interview with coscreenwriter Walter Newman
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| Ace in the Hole (Criterion Collection) (Bonus Disc) (1951) |
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| TOUGH ONE TO WATCH
by EDriscoll
July 10, 2008 - 11:10 AM PDT
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1 out of 2 members found this review helpful
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This film is not for sissies. This doesn't mean you should'nt see it. Kirk Douglas puts in a fine performance of a down at the heels alcoholic, whose career has descended to having to take a job at a small town newspaper reporter to make ends meet.
***SPOILER ALERT*** Sent by his editor on a mundane assignment, he sees his chance to make it big by covering a mine accident where a man is pinned down by timber in a remote section of the mine. Instead of helping get the man out quickly. he contrives to delay it by insisting on drilling from the top of the mine.
People come from all over to watch the rescue attempt. The area becomes a circus of national reporters,curious public and hucksters.While pretending to give the mine victim courage, he has delayed his rescue, and ultimately, caused the man's death through the delay.
Too late, he realizes that his drive to make a name for himself and get his old job back on the New york Times has resulted in the death of another human being. |
| 3 Things
by randomcha
January 15, 2008 - 2:38 PM PST
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2 out of 4 members found this review helpful
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1. Kirk Douglas lighting a match using the return carriage of a typewriter.
2. Jan Sterling leaning in for a kiss. Kirk Douglas grabs her by her hair: extreme closeup, fade to black.
3. The teletype machine: the size of a small refrigerator. |
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