Monday, July 31, 2006
What's Left? - Ace In The Hole (1951)
Hollywood is a fickle, grudge-holding bitch. How else to explain the absence of one of the great films by one of Hollywood's great writer-directors on DVD or video of any format?
Ace in the Hole stands out as an exception in Billy Wilder's career in only one respect: it failed to make money. In fact, it lost so much money that Paramount took advantage of Industry Rule No. 4,080 to dock Wilder the profits on his next picture, Stalag 17, to make up for the money they lost. But in every other respect, Ace in the Hole displays the same strengths as any of Wilder's great films.
The film opens with a typically witty Wilder shot: a tow truck pulls into the frame, followed by the car it's towing, with Kirk Douglas reclining in the car's driver seat, reading the paper. Douglas plays Chuck Tatum, the type of egotistical asshole who believes a small-town tow truck driver has nothing better to do than wait for him outside the office of the Albuquerque Herald as he goes in to secure a job for himself. The obnoxious New Yorker manages to talk himself into a position, and one year later we see him reciting a monologue (which, from the looks on his co-workers' faces, he's probably recited every day for the past year) about how dead Albuquerque is.
Opportunity knocks for Tatum in the form of Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict), a man trapped in a cave, pinned down by a rock. Tatum stumbles upon the story, then whips it up into a national media circus. As events slowly unfold, our contempt for Tatum becomes our contempt for everyone involved: Minosa's wife, the crooked sheriff, the gawking tourists that line up to see the site of the rescue, the traveling entertainers that descend to make money off the crowds. When Tatum and the sheriff conspire to stretch out the rescue efforts in order to prolong the opportunities, it's not only an indictment of the media, but of the whole American system. This greed is reflected even in the victim, who got trapped while stealing Indian relics from the caves, and the spectators, who argue like talkbackers over the small tatter of recognition attached to being the first ones on the scene. To drive home the point, the shot of the gawkers' cars lined up in front of the mountain resembles a drive-in theater, making it clear that we, the movie audience, are as guilty as anyone. As Maurice Zolotow writes in Billy Wilder in Hollywood, "It was a totally uncompromising film at a time when the movies were said to be totally compromised."
This was a cynical message for a movie to be sending out in 1950, but in the age of reality TV, Paris Hilton, and Fox News, it seems more timely than ever. So why isn't it available on DVD? The obvious answer would be that Paramount holds a grudge against a movie for committing the ultimate sin in the eyes of Hollywood: losing money. Certainly it cost Wilder some career points at the time. "Wilder, formerly king of the Paramount hill, now felt like an outcast in the commissary," writes Zolotow. "People looked the other way. He was losing friends all over the place." Co writer Walter Newman recalls Wilder, years later, telling him "that picture we made-Ace in the Hole-that lost me power at the studio." Then, he shouted, "Fuck them all-it is the best picture I ever made."
But that's a fantasy that imagines a world where anyone at Paramount remembers what films made or lost money 50 years ago. And I don't buy into the idea that execs at Paramount might be offended by the satire in the movie, either. Studio Execs really don't think that way--the only thing they think about is profit. And in a climate where catalogue items are getting DVD releases left and right, where films like Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia get warm receptions when released to the medium, Ace in the Hole seems like a sure thing: The Lost Billy Wilder Masterpiece! Spike Lee, who had at one time planned to remake Ace in the Hole, could contribute a great commentary track. Unfortunately, for the time being, Ace remains trapped in Paramount's cave.
Sources: Billy Wilder in Hollywood by Maurice Zolotow, Conversations with Wilder by Cameron Crowe, Senses of Cinema, Wikepedia
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Great choice. This is long overdue for a DVD release.