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This is one of my favourite Billy Wilder movies. Kirk Douglas was superb as cynical newspaper reporter Chuck Tatum and Jan Sterling was just magnificent as unfaithful wife Lorraine Minosa. The impressive supporting cast includes Ray Teal, Porter Hall, Bob Arthur and Richard Benedict. Charles "Chuck" Tatum (Kirk Douglas) is a down on his luck unscrupulous New York reporter fired from various papers for his indiscretions. He is forced to take a job on a small Albuquerque newspaper as the New York papers will no longer employ him. After a year on the paper and bored with his routine assignments he dreams of the day he will eventually make a name for himself with the "big story". Out with a younger reporter (Bob Arthur) one day to cover a local story about rattlesnakes he discovers that a man named Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict) is trapped alive in an old Indian mine. He jumps in and takes over the rescue mission but deliberately delays the attempts to get the man out as he can see the opportunity to make a name for himself by feeding stories about the trapped man to the major newspapers. Tatum enlists the help of a crooked sheriff (Ray Teal) to give him exclusive access to the mine and thereby keeping all the other reporters out. Leo's disloyal wife Lorraine (glamorous Jan Sterling) wants to leave but Tatum forces her to stay to run the diner which is now packed out with curious onlookers and making money. When the film was released in America it received bad reviews and lost money. Paramount, without Billy Wilder's permission, changed the title to "The Big Carnival" hoping to increase the box office take but it didn't work. I have always thought this was a mistake as "Ace in the Hole" is a far better title in my opinion.
Favourite lines:
Kirk Douglas (to Porter Hall): "I've done a lot of lying in my time. I've lied to men who wear belts. I've lied to men who wear suspenders. But I'd never be so stupid as to lie to a man who wears both belt and suspenders".
Jan Sterling (to Douglas): "I've met a lot of hard boiled eggs in my time, but you - you're 20 minutes!".
Douglas (to Hall): "I'm on my way back to the top, and if it takes a deal with a crooked sheriff that's alright with me!".
Sterling (to Douglas): "I don't pray. Kneeling bags my nylons".
Douglas (to Hall): "How'd you like to make a thousand dollars a day, Mr Boot? I'm a thousand dollar a day newspaper man. You can have me for nothing!".
