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Presence of MaliceBilly Wilder tours journalism's pus-filled heart in the long-lost Ace in the Hole.

By Jack Shafer
Posted Thursday, July 19, 2007, at 5:48 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

If film noir illustrates the crackup of the American dream, as Rick Thompson has written, Ace in the Hole is an exemplar of the form. Wilder and co-writers Walter Newman and Lesser Samuels disparage society's institutions—the police, the press, marriage, the nuclear family, and even the church—as shams. Lorraine Minosa delivers an ice-cold excuse for avoiding church services: "Kneeling bags my nylons."

Wilder would later play his cynicism about newspapers for laughs in his creaky 1974 remake of The Front Page, but there are no laughs in Ace in the Hole. The forces for good—Leo's parents, the Sun-Bulletin editor and staff, the other late-to-arrive newspapermen—are powerless against Tatum's venality.

Wilder establishes Tatum's villainy from the beginning and seldom lets up. But the narrative unfolds entirely from Tatum's point of view. As cinematic sociology, Ace in the Hole regards the masses as stupid, ugly, vulgar, without scruples, easy to manipulate, and hungry for Tatum's fakery. If moviegoers took Wilder's view of the crowd personally, they returned the insult by ignoring Ace in the Hole. It bombed in its original release.

Although set in the early 1950s, Ace in the Hole feels contemporary, detailing the mechanics of how the press turns news ripples into tsunamis, and rides the ratings and the copies sold to the bank. Not to let my print brethren off the hook, but it's easy to visualize Charles Tatum as a cable network producer deploying camera trucks whenever a child tumbles down a well, a white woman goes missing, a shooter opens fire, a nut takes hostages, or a full-chested drug-taking celebrity drops dead. The press invites the nation to camp out and ride the Ferris wheel until the story finally dies. (Greta Van Susteren's Fox News Channel Web page documents how she keeps turning the big wheel even after the masses stop taking the ride.)

Ace in the Hole thrills and mortifies journalists because it shows how essential Tatumism is to their business. The drama of human interest. The showmanship of clever headlines. The pathos of artful photographs. When Tatum turns in his Sun-Bulletin resignation to take a better job, his ethically decent boss doesn't want to accept it. Even though he says Tatum trades in "phony, below the belt journalism," he knows that reporters who go too far—way too far—are often worth the bother. That he's kept Tatum on his payroll for a year speaks to his own embarrassing compromises.

Journalists don't want the laity to know, but some of the best reporting is fueled by the ambition that grows inside venal reporters like Charles Tatum. Now there's a thought to scatter all the monsters sleeping under your bed.

******

If Ace in the Hole doesn't make you sick to your stomach, sip a couple of reels of Sweet Smell of Success. Detour, by Edgar G. Ulmer, isn't about journalism, but I puke every time I watch it. Send the titles of your favorite vomitous journalism movies to . (E-mail may be quoted by name in "The Fray," Slate's readers' forum, in a future article, or elsewhere unless the writer stipulates otherwise. Permanent disclosure: Slate is owned by the Washington Post Co.)

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Remarks from the Fray:

Thanks to Jack Shafer for bringing Billy Wilder's way-ahead- of its time vision of sensationalist reporting to the public's consciousness. By the way, it was also shown under the title "The Big Carnival."

My Dad, my older brother and I used to watch this movie every time it was shown on LA television -- which was a lot -- in the early 1970s, when I was seven or eight. My father's affection for it really revealed a lot to me about my dad, who treated us like we were fully capable of appreciating it, and discussed it accordingly. As a result, "Ace in the Hole" and the Robert Wise directed, Abraham Polonsky scripted "Odds Against Tomorrow" are two movies I will always watch.

--johnnyb

(To reply, click here.)

As I was reading Jack Shafer's article about Ace in the Hole, I was reminded of the story of Floyd Collins. He was trapped in Sand Cave (which is near Mammoth Cave in Kentucky) in 1925. A reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal, W.B. Miller, happened upon the story, and by the time he finished with it, there was a tent city near Sand Cave, and state troopers with bayonets were keeping the tourists back. Needless to say, this didn't help poor Floyd who died in the cave, and whose body could only be extracted by amputating a foot. I wonder if this was the story that inspired Billy Wilder.

I didn't know about this movie, but I will put it on my must-see list -- not only because of the story-line, but also because ol' Kirk is one of my favorite actors.

--Khentkawes

(To reply, click here.)

(7/21)

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