Film review: Ace in the Hole (1951)

We're gradually working our way through everything Billy Wilder has ever done, and we arrived at Ace in the Hole yesterday.  I may have mentioned that we now have The Criterion Channel, which is a streaming service to replace the much-missed FilmStruck, and this came up under their "Film Noir" classification.  I suppose that fits (although not as snugly as Wilder's wonderful Double Indemnity) but more in general sour-view-of-humanity than in the usual rainy-streets-and-gumshoes plot elements.  It stars Kirk Douglas in all his brash manly glory, being unlikable as only he can be.  The film opens with him (as Chuck Tatum, star newspaperman) arriving in Albuquerque in a car being towed by a breakdown truck.  He hops out at the offices of the Albuquerque Sun=Bulletin (yes, for some reason it's an equals sign) and swaggers in to land a job.  The editor, Boot, is a straight-shooter whose slogan "Tell The Truth" is mounted on the wall in needlepoint.  Tatum confesses to him that he has been fired from every major newspaper in every major city in the US for various reasons (usually drink, but occasionally libel or sleeping with somebody's wife).  His plan is to latch on with a small newspaper and hope for a Big Story that will hit the wires and get him re-hired in a big city again.  Boot is skeptical but recognizes talent in the clips Tatum shows him and hires him, even after Tatum has teased him about his habit of wearing a belt and suspenders, because he's over-cautious.  Cut to a year later and we find Tatum out of the snazzy suit he arrived in and wearing a belt and suspenders.  And fed up, because no big story has arrived or looks likely to.  Boot comes in and says "cheer up - you can go and cover the Rattlesnake festival!"  Itching to get out of Albuquerque, Tatum scoops up cub reporter Herbie Cook and off they go.  They drive for a while, with Tatum advising Herbie about how useless his (Herbie's) journalism school education was, because he (Tatum) learned all you need to know on the streets selling those newspapers.  And the core truth he learned was that people only care about bad news.  So, for example, instead of thousands of rattlesnakes at a festival, much better would be 50 loose in Albuquerque, and the story progresses until 49 have been caught, and only one needs to be found, but in fact it's locked in Tatum's desk drawer.  Here we learn that Tatum is very much prepared to manipulate the news for his own gain and to keep a story going.  At this point they pull over to the side of the road at a "trading post" in the middle of nowhere to get gas.  But the place is strangely deserted.  In a masterfully constructed sequence, Herbie goes inside to investigate and finds only an old lady praying fervently - so fervently she won't answer him.  He goes back out to tell Tatum and a police car drives by  with its siren blaring, and turns left past a sign to an ancient Indian cliffside village (admission free).  Intrigued, Tatum instructs Herbie to follow, and on the way we pick up perhaps the most unflatteringly-portrayed character I've seen in a Wilder film (beating even Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity), a platinum blonde named Lorraine Minosa.  And this is where the film really kicks into gear: the siren is because Lorraine's husband, the owner of the trading post and son of the praying woman, Leo Minosa, has become trapped in a rockfall deep in the caves.  Tatum goes in to check on him and hears that he believes he is being punished by the spirits of the Indian dead for stealing their relics to sell at his trading post.  Tatum realizes that this is the story he's been waiting for, and immediately takes control of the narrative.  (Tatum actually refers to the real case that Wilder based this on, the 1925 ordeal of Floyd Collins in Kentucky when explaining to Herbie how a story about one person trapped is much better for story purposes than a story about many.) At first it just looks like he's sensationalizing the story (playing up the curse element), but things take a nasty turn when Tatum hooks up with corrupt local sheriff Gus Kretzer and ensures that Leo will not be rescued in a matter of hours by going in and reinforcing support struts, but his rescue will instead take days (to make the story blow up) by drilling downwards through a hundred feet of solid rock.  The sheriff agrees, and keeps other reporters away in return for Tatum's assurance that he will get him reelected.  As with the real Floyd Collins case, crowds gather (and in a running joke, the entrance fee, originally "free", keeps going up and up every time we see a shot of the entrance), a fair arrives, musicians write and perform a "Leo" song, and Lorraine, who never loved Leo and wanted to leave, decides she will hook up with Tatum instead.  But a snag arrives: Leo gets pneumonia and will die.  Can they change tacks and go in the front to rescue him in time?  Or has the drilling disturbed the cave so much that is no longer possible?  Meanwhile Tatum's New York paper has re-hired him and Herbie is ready to join him in the big time.
Somebody once said that Wilder had a "head full of razor blades" and let's just say that this doesn't end any happier than either Double Indemnity or Sunset Boulevard.  Is it a realistic portrayal of the press?  Apparently they didn't think so at the time, and it actually features in Boot, an exemplary figure, committed to journalistic excellence.  Perhaps best not to seek a message and just enjoy a good old melodrama, with Kirk Douglas at his scenery-chewing best.  I didn't recognize anyone else (although Boot was also in a key role in Double Indemnity), but Lorraine is amazing.  She reminds me of the appropriately named Anne Savage in Detour.  Only, unlike Savage's character, Lorraine doesn't get killed, she does the killing.