This is one of Kirk Douglas' best films, yet oddly it lost money when it was released and is still a relatively overlooked gem. Why it never has caught on with the public is beyond me--perhaps it was just too cynical and people wanted to believe it couldn't be based on truth.

Kirk Douglas plays a newspaper man who happens to be out in the middle of nowhere. It just so happens that there is a cave-in nearby and Douglas decides this is exactly the sort of story he can bleed dry AND establish himself. So, this minor little story is soon blown totally out of proportion and the area becomes a huge media circus. The only problem is that soon Douglas finds out that the man trapped inside is already dead, so he struggles with his conscience and his instincts that this STILL can be a top story. Amazingly, when the dead man's widow finds out the truth, she isn't particularly concerned about him--just how she, too, can profit from the media attention! This is a very rich and insightful film--one that is as applicable now as it was then. In an age where minor stories are prostituted by the press (such as when there is ANY car chase in L.A. or when a pretty White woman either disappears or commits a crime),this movie manages to still be very timely and brilliant. Amazing writing, acting and direction--this film has it all.

It took twenty five years, but when Paddy Chayefsky wrote and scored a critical and popular success with Network it went a long way towards redeeming Billy Wilder and Ace in the Hole from the critical and popular drubbing it took in reviews and at the box office.

The cry then was that Wilder was way too cynical and in the height of the superpatriotic McCarthy days maybe he was for that time. Perhaps Kirk Douglas's Charles Tatem would find employment as a writer at UBS for Howard Beale's mad prophet of the air or at Fox News or if your tastes run the other way, scripting one of Michael Moore's documentaries.

Kirk Douglas is a veteran reporter who's been fired off a whole lot of newspapers and arrives in Albuquerque looking for a job. Editor Porter Hall after an interesting job interview hires him. Two months later, a bored Douglas and cub reporter Robert Arthur are sent on some nothing story and on the way learn of a man, Richard Benedict, trapped in an old cave with a broken leg.

Remembering the real Floyd Collins story from the Twenties about a Kentucky man trapped in a cave for 18 days while America followed every move of the rescue attempt, Douglas smells a return to the big time. With the aid of a corrupt sheriff, Ray Teal, Douglas starts controlling the story and indirectly making the story. Of course things get out of hand.

Kirk Douglas has never been afraid of being seen as unlikeable on screen and in Charles Tatem he's at his most unlikeable. In fact until he did There Was A Crooked Man in 1971, I'm not sure he's ever been this big of a canine descendant. He's matched every step of the way by Jan Sterling who plays Benedict's tramp of a wife who wants her cut of the proceedings and takes it out of Douglas literally.

Ace in the Hole was made when newspapers still were a major source of news. Televisions were still scarce and I don't think it's an accident that Billy Wilder chose a sparsely populated state like New Mexico as the setting. Television sets in the Rocky Mountain states in 1951 were scarcer than the people.

I think Ace in the Hole could be remade today, maybe with Michael Douglas taking over an internet news blog to bring it up to the times. Still Billy Wilder's magical cynical touch would be missing.

Newspaper reporter Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas) has been run out of every big city due to one thing or another. He's eager to return but he must hit on a big story first. He lowers himself to get onto the Albuquerque Sun Bulletin to wait for his one break. It's been a year, much longer than he expected. He's assigned a story out of town with youngster Herbie Cook. They run across Lorraine Minosa whose husband Leo is trapped in a cave-in while searching for Indian pottery. Chuck works to get his big human-interest story.

Billy Wilder brings his biting cynicism and Kirk Douglas is the perfect vessel to embody this character. It was far too cynical to take down the media back in the day. It's ahead of its time. The greedy world of tabloid journalism is laid out in all its ugly glory. It is insightful in the darker shades of humanity. This is devastating. Douglas is wonderful. Wilder is a genius.