Chuck Tatum is an experienced newspaper reporter, having worked on several different publications on the East Coast. Ace in the Hole (1951) might be Kirk’s best-of album, though: from his feeding of Platonic shadows to Richard Benedict’s imprisoned cave schlub (and to the reading public outside) to his jolly, echoing rendition of “The Hut-Sut Song” to his unlikely last-act transmogrification and sacrifice, Douglas, like his character, sells by overselling. Tatum makes a dramatic entrance into the paper's offices, calling for Boot. It looks like we don't have a Synopsis for this title yet. He takes up with Lorraine and is greeted heroically by the crowd each time he returns from visiting Leo in the cave. The second event took place in April 1949. She is eager to leave Leo and their struggling business, a combination trading post and restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Plot Keywords.

The charismatic Tatum talks his way into a reporting job with Boot (Porter Hall), the publisher for the tiny Albuquerque Sun-Bulletin. Menu. He creates a national media sensation and milks it for all it is worth - until things go terribly wrong. I'm a thousand dollar a day newspaperman.

[it] is badly weakened by a poorly constructed plot, which depends for its strength upon assumptions that are not only naïve but absurd. More than 50 years after the film's release, when magazines compete to come up with the cattiest buzz terms and giddily celebrate the demise of celebrity relationships for buffo bucks, Ace in the Hole feels more relevant than ever. The film co-stars Jan Sterling and features Robert Arthur and Porter Hall.

Chuck Tatum uses the time to create a media circus. Staff (January 2, 1952) "The Top Box Office Hits of 1951", "Presence of Malice: Billy Wilder tours journalism's pus-filled heart in the long-lost Ace in the Hole", "2017 National Film Registry Is More Than a 'Field of Dreams, "The Screen in Review; 'Ace in the Hole,' Billy Wilder Special, With Kirk Douglas, Arrives at Globe Theatre", "Ace in the Hole - Roger Ebert - The Great Movies", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ace_in_the_Hole_(1951_film)&oldid=976703631, Films involved in plagiarism controversies, Films with screenplays by Walter Newman (screenwriter), United States National Film Registry films, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Tatum sets up shop at the trading post and begins drinking again. Charles decides that this is exactly what he was looking for so long, and begins to inflate a big sensation from this story. Wilder's attorneys settled that same month, paying Desny $14,350 (equivalent to $135,000 in 2019). Movies. Venice Film Festival: Golden Lion – Billy Wilder; 1951. . Then he stumbles across the plight of a man trapped in a cave, and he turns it into something big, and ongoing.

Boot, I'm a 250 dollar a week newspaperman. [13], At the time of its release, critics found little to admire. In December 1953, Judge Stanley Mosk ruled in favor of Wilder and Paramount. His only chance for survival is by being rescued in 12 hours.

I can be had for $50." Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas) is a fiercely ambitious, self-centered, newly sober reporter whose career has fallen into notoriety and decline.

Having made a few enemies out East and desperate for any work, he gets a job at a small newspaper in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

[3], It marked a series of firsts for auteur Billy Wilder: it was the first time he was involved in a project as a writer, producer, and director; his first film following his breakup with long-time writing partner Charles Brackett, with whom he had collaborated on The Lost Weekend and Sunset Boulevard, among others; and his first film to be a critical and commercial failure.[4]. Ace in the Hole (1951) Plot Summary (7) A frustrated former big-city journalist now stuck working for an Albuquerque newspaper exploits a story about a man trapped in a cave to rekindle his career, but the situation quickly escalates into an out-of-control circus. There isn't any denying that there are vicious newspaper men and that one might conceivably take advantage of a disaster for his own private gain.
Freely accessible essay by Richard Armstrong, who published a biography of Wilder in 2000. . Venice Film Festival: Best Music – Hugo Friedhofer; 1951. Chuck manipulates the local corrupt sheriff, the engineer responsible for the rescue operation and Leo's wife Lorraine Minosa, so that a rescue that could have been made in twelve hours lasts six days using a sophisticated drilling system. "[19], Time Out London wrote, "As a diatribe against all that is worst in human nature, it has moments dipped in pure vitriol. After entering the cave and assessing that Leo on the most part is all right except for not being able to get out from under the massive amount of debris, Chuck begins to take control of the situation for his own benefit, bringing the newspaper's impressionable young photographer, Herbie Cook, along for the ride.

Remorseful, Tatum sends a news flash, saying that Leo will now be rescued by shoring up the cave walls during the 12-hour period.

| When a man is trapped in an Indian cave, Tatum conspires with an unscrupulous sheriff to keep him there until the story can build to national proportions, which it does. Boot, that he wanted this job for an unknown temporary period until he wrote the next big story, which could catapult him back to the big times and a job back at one of those big city newspapers.

Tatum asks him "How'd you like to make yourself a thousand dollars a day, Mr. Jay Livingston and Ray Evans wrote the song "We're Coming, Leo," performed by a vocalist and band at the carnival.

[Kirk Douglas'] focus and energy . Tatum announces to the crowd that Leo has died, telling them to pack up and leave. Desny appealed and in August 1956 the California Supreme Court ruled his oral submission had been legitimate.

After five days of drilling, things get worse.

Ex-New York reporter Charles Tatum lands a job on a Albuquerque newspaper in hopes that a sensational story will return him to the big time.

In his review in The New York Times, Bosley Crowther called it "a masterly film" but added, "Mr. Wilder has let imagination so fully take command of his yarn that it presents not only a distortion of journalistic practice but something of a dramatic grotesque .

There is nothing dated about [his] performance.

Subsequently, many of the reporters that have come to the town, former colleagues with contempt for Tatum already, immediately get on their newswires and report Leo's death. Underground scenes were filmed in a mock-up at the Paramount Studios on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Irrespective of those firings, Chuck knows the newspaper business and how to write a sensational front page story. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote in 2007, "Although the film is 56 years old, I found while watching it again that it still has all its power.

His real intention is to use the small newspaper as a platform to reach a bigger one. The story is a biting examination of the seedy relationship between the press, the news it reports and the manner in which it reports it.
Ace in the Hole is an exemplar of the form.

He has over the years worked for the big newspapers back east, but was systematically fired from each of those jobs for reasons from libel to cheating with the boss' wife to excessive alcohol consumption. Tatum corrals Herbie into leaving immediately in their car and they barely reach the Albuquerque Sun-Bulletin. Jan Sterling also is good in a role that has no softening touches, and Benedict's victim portrayal is first-rate. Sensing a golden opportunity, Tatum manipulates the rescue effort, forming an alliance with Kretzer, an unscrupulous sheriff, by depicting him favorably in the newspaper to ensure Kretzer's re-election. A visiting doctor diagnoses Leo with a grim bout of pneumonia. He has come west to New Mexico from New York City in a broken-down car, out of money and options. [8][5], In the original script, Tatum colluded with the local sheriff. .

Herbie Cook (Robert Arthur), the newspaper's young photographer initially on assignment with Leo, slowly loses his idealism as he follows Tatum's lead and envisions himself selling pictures to Look or Life.

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"[2], In September 2008, Empire Magazine published its list of the Top 500 greatest movies of all time. Graham Caveney whoops with delight.

Frank Cady's character identifies himself as a salesman for Pacific All-Risk Insurance, a fictitious company featured in Wilder's 1944 film Double Indemnity. In 2017, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[6]. .

He figures that one day a big story will come along and this will be his ticket back into a big city newspaper.

Douglas enacts the heel reporter ably, giving it color to balance its unsympathetic character. After one year without any sensational news and totally bored, Chuck travels with a younger reporter to cover a story about rattlesnakes.

Charles Tatum, a down-on-his-luck reporter, takes a job with a small New Mexico newspaper. A Louisville newspaper, the Courier-Journal, jumped on the story by dispatching reporter William Burke Miller to the scene. It hasn't aged because Wilder and his co-writers, Walter Newman and Lesser Samuels, were so lean and mean [with their dialogue] . The film's plot has similarities with two real-life events that ended in tragedy. Tatum then falls dead to the floor. He was up front with the Sun-Bulletin's owner and editor-in-chief, Jacob Q. That Old Ace in the Hole, by Annie Proulx Tall stories meet big winds and dark secrets in Annie Proulx's Texas.

Without consulting Wilder, Paramount Pictures executive Y. Frank Freeman changed the title to The Big Carnival just prior to its release. It is on his way to cover the latest in a long line of small stories that Chuck stumbles across a situation that he believes he could spin into that big story.

Tatum has neglected to send copy to the New York editor, who is furious that other newspapers have hit the streets with the news about Leo's death. Synopsis The job is pretty boring until he finds a man trapped in an old Indian dwelling.

Miller's enterprising coverage turned the tragic episode into a national event and earned the writer a Pulitzer Prize.