November 20: Ace in the Hole

Published on September 03, 2009 by IAM Screening Series

Ace in the Hole (1951)
November 20, 2009 at 7:00pm
Space 38|39 (38 W. 39th St, 3rd Floor)
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"Dark, funny, ferocious, and vintage Wilder all the way...Few films of bygone decades have retained their relevance as stingingly as this 1951 satire"
- David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor
 
“Wilder's lost classic...[a] brilliant indictment of media circus brutality...a virtuoso feat.”
- Eric Kohn, The Reeler
 
"Wilder and Douglas call down fire from the very heavens and put it on film in a hellish carnival of poisoned humanity and angry, dashed dreams"
- Guy Maddin, director of My Winnipeg & The Saddest Music in the World
 
"Walks a fine and crooked line between sharp satire and pitch black film noir."
- A.O. Scott, The New York Times
 
"Questions the very nature of human interest stories and the twisted relationship between the American media and its public...More than 50 years after the film's release, Ace in the Hole feels more relevant than ever."
- Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine
 
After being fired from a number of big city newspapers, hotshot reporter Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas) is reduced to working for a paper in dead-end Albuquerque. On his way to cover a rattlesnake hunt, Tatum accidentally stumbles on a story that he believes can get him back in the big time, if he plays the yarn long enough and can keep it to himself.
 
Billy Wilder’s follow-up to Sunset Boulevard is one of the most scathing indictments of American culture ever produced by a Hollywood filmmaker, legendary for both its cutting social critique and its status as a hard-to-find cult classic.  An uncompromising portrait of human nature at its worst, the film was so far ahead of its time in its depiction of a media circus and the public's appetite for tragedy that it was a commercial disaster when first released, but now stands as one of the great American films of the 1950s.
 
Ranked among Empire Magazines best movies of all time, the film was nominated for Best Screenplay at the Academy Awards and winner of the International Award at the Venice Film Festival.  Wilder’s underrated masterpiece is a must see.
 
111 Minutes

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