United States
1951
111 minutes
Black and White
1.33:1
English
396
One of the most scathing indictments of American culture ever produced by a Hollywood filmmaker, Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole is legendary for both its cutting social critique and its status as a hard-to-find cult classic. Kirk Douglas gives the fiercest performance of his career as Chuck Tatum, an amoral newspaper reporter caught in dead-end Albuquerque who happens upon the story of a lifetime—and will do anything to ensure he gets the scoop. Wilder’s follow-up to Sunset Boulevard is an even darker vision, a no-holds-barred exposé that anticipated the rise of the American media circus.
| Chuck Tatum | Kirk Douglas |
| Lorraine Minosa | Jan Sterling |
| Herbie Cook | Bob Arthur |
| Jacob Q. Boot | Porter Hall |
| Mr. Federber | Frank Cady |
| Leo Minosa | Richard Benedict |
| Sheriff Kretzer | Ray Teal |
| Smollett | Frank Jaquet |
| Director | Billy Wilder |
| Screenplay | Billy Wilder, Lesser Samuels and Walter Newman |
| Associate producer | William Schorr |
| Cinematography | Charles B. Lang and Jr. |
| Editorial supervision | Doane Harrison |
| Music | Hugo Friedhofer |
| Art direction | Hal Pereira and Earl Hedrick |
| Editing | Arthur Schmidt |
| Costumes | Edith Head |
SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET:
“It’s taken more than fifty years, but the world has finally caught up with [the] dark and cynical vision” of Billy Wilder’s chillingly black satire of the fourth estate, Ace in the Hole, A. O. Scott declares in a clever new video essay for the http://video.nytimes.com/video . . .
Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole almost requires an honorary expansion of the term film noir. There are no private eyes in seedy offices or femmes fatales lurking in the shadows of neon-lit doorways, no forces of evil arrayed against a relatively honorable hero. This emotional snake . . .
The celebrated divot points manfully toward the crest of the next hill, and the next, and the next, and to the horizon after that. Always forward! Into the sunset! Kirk Douglas is on the move: a wagon train of grimace, howl, and unlaunched sputum. What a range of expressions Douglas has stored . . .
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