The movie opens with Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas) sitting in his car. It is being towed through the city of Albuquerque. Seeing a newspaper office, he tells the tow driver to stop and he walks into the office to see if there is a job opening. We learn that Tatum has been fired as a journalist from various big city newspapers from New York to Detroit for various infractions even though he often wrote front page articles. Even with that hiring/firing background, the newspaper decides to hire him on the spot.
Tatum spends two years bored to death at the newspaper until he comes across a tragic accident. A Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict) went searching for Native American artifacts in a cave dwelling. A cave collapse results in him being trapped inside. Tatum sees an opportunity to make national news. With the help of Sheriff Gus Kretzer (Ray Teal) who is up for re-election and needs the publicity, the pair go about making the story national news. Thousands of sightseers head to the location. A carnival atmosphere develops.
Tatum carefully crafts/manipulates the storyline. Leo is married to a very unhappy wife named Lorraine (Jan Sterling). They've been married for five years. Lorraine decides to take this unfortunate accident as an opportunity to leave her husband. Tatum convinces her not to leave, telling her that she can make a nice sum of money for herself. He also delays the rescue of Leo by convincing those involved in the rescue to take a more indirect route. This delays the rescue by days and allows him to build up the story.
The movie has a classic line where Lorraine tells Tatum, "I've met a lot of hard boiled eggs in my time, but you -- you're 20 minutes."
Is this one of the better known Billy Wilder or Kirk Douglas movies? I'm not a film historian, but I would say no. However, it does ring true in this time of partisan cable news such as the obvious: CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. Though Ace in the Hole is about manipulating what is actually happening in the story, one can't help but wonder how much fake outrage is being generated by cable news. And is there any regret? One can definitely tell that Tatum starts to regret what he has done. But that is the movies. What about in reality?
Another theme in the movie is Tatum's attempt to get back to the top, which is New York. He sees this accident as his chance to get back to the East Coast. Back to the current day. I bet plenty of stories / opinions are pumped up in an attempt to keep in the good graces of others as well as a stepping stone to another job.
Though this movie is probably not one of the better known Billy Wilder or Kirk Douglas movies, it definitely presents a useful opinion on the current state of journalism.
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