Ace in the Hole (1951 film)
| Ace in the Hole | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Billy Wilder |
| Produced by | Billy Wilder |
| Screenplay by |
Walter Newman Lesser Samuels Billy Wilder |
| Story by | Victor Desny |
| Starring |
Kirk Douglas Jan Sterling Robert Arthur Porter Hall |
| Music by | Hugo Friedhofer |
| Cinematography | Charles Lang |
| Edited by | Arthur P. Schmidt |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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111 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1.8 million |
| Box office | $1.3 million (rentals) |
Ace in the Hole (aka The Big Carnival) is a 1951 American film noir starring Kirk Douglas as a cynical, disgraced reporter who stops at nothing to try to regain a job on a major newspaper.
It marked a series of firsts for auteur Billy Wilder: it was the first time he was involved in a project as a writer, producer, and director; his first film following his breakup with long-time writing partner Charles Brackett, with whom he had collaborated on The Lost Weekend and Sunset Boulevard, among others; and his first film to be a critical and commercial failure.
The story is a biting examination of the seedy relationship between the press, the news it reports and the manner in which it reports it. The film also shows how a gullible public can be manipulated by the press. Without consulting Wilder, Paramount Pictures executive Y. Frank Freeman changed the title to The Big Carnival just prior to its release. Early television broadcasts retained that title, but when aired by Turner Classic Movies—and when released on DVD by The Criterion Collection in July 2007—it reverted to Ace in the Hole.
Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas) is a fiercely ambitious, self-centered, wisecracking, down-on-his-luck reporter who has worked his way down the ladder. He has come west to New Mexico from New York City, along the way having been fired from eleven newspapers for libel, adultery, and heavy drinking, among other charges. Now that his car has broken down and Tatum is broke, he talks his way into a reporting job for the Albuquerque Sun-Bulletin, a paper of little consequence.
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