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Ace in the Hole Discussion Guide

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Ace in the Hole Discussion Guide Film C L U B ACE IN THE HOLE The alternate title for Ace in the Hole is The Big Carnival, which tells you a little bit about the movie’s real feelings toward its main character, Chuck Tatum, played by (recently deceased) Kirk Douglas. Tatum is a journalist who’s down on his luck, who once was a star reporter at a big-city paper but has worked his way west, having been fired from 11 different newspapers for a range of transgressions ranging from libel to drunkenness to adultery. What we know about Tatum from the start is that if he ever had any scruples, he doesn’t anymore. Now he’s stuck at the Albuquerque Sun-Bulletin, sure he’s too good for everyone there, and eager to find a foothold that will help him work his way back into the spotlight. One day, he catches wind of a promising local scoop: a man who’s gotten trapped in a cave. Ace in the Hole is set in an era long before 24/7 cable news, but Tatum would fit in well today in our zillion-ring media circus. He immediately figures out how to turn the man’s unfortunate accident into a spectacle that will grab national headlines, and he does it. I don’t take Ace in the Hole to be an indictment of good old shoe-leather journalism. (That’s my profession, after all, and I have enormous admiration for colleagues who make very little money breaking their necks to track down stories that will bring about important change.) But I do think it has something to say to the time we live in, just as it did nearly 70 years ago -- that in the human heart lurks the desire to be recognized and celebrated and praised, to gain power for ourselves, even at the expense of someone else. (Its director, Billy Wilder, fled Germany after the rise of the Nazi Party, and eventually landed in Hollywood, where his other films include Some Like it Hot, Sunset Boulevard, and The Apartment.) At the time, Ace in the Hole wasn’t recognized as a great film. In fact, the New York Times critic Bosley Crowther thought it was a bit hyperbolic: Mr. Wilder has let imagination so fully take command of his yarn that it presents not only a distortion of journalistic practice but something of a dramatic grotesque . [it] is badly weakened by a poorly constructed plot, which depends for its strength upon assumptions that are not only naïve but absurd. There isn't any denying that there are vicious newspaper men and that one might conceivably take advantage of a disaster for his own private gain. But to reckon that one could so tie up and maneuver a story of any size, while other reporters chew their fingers, is simply incredible. With respect to Crowther, I think he may have missed the point. Ace in the Hole is a fable of greed and pride and arrogance, not just a movie about a journalist gone wrong. To me, it feels as fresh as it would if it came out yesterday. QUESTIONS Journalism movies usually make the protagonist the hero. How does it change things to have him be the villain? Celebrity journalism and sensationalist headlines have been around for a long, long time; by the time this movie came out in 1951, they were a fixture for Hollywood’s elite, who often found themselves trying to manipulate headlines in order to please fans and land roles. How do you think that affected this film? Obviously, Kirk Douglas’s charisma is a big part of selling this story. What is it about his performance that resonates? Think about the way Ace in the Hole deals with its spatial limitations. (A lot of it is about a guy stuck in a hole!) How does it maneuver around those limitations to keep the film exciting? What is Ace in the Hole’s perspective on humanity? On things like grace? Is it a hopeful film? What does it have to teach those of us who would never do what Tatum does? TO WATCH: Spike Lee on Ace in the Hole TO READ: Roger Ebert on Ace in the Hole.
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