Ace in the Hole

ACE IN THE HOLE              A                    

aka:  The Big Carnival

USA  (111 mi)  1951  d:  Billy Wilder

This Billy Wilder film was so tough and brutal in its cynicism that it died a sudden death at the box office, and they re-released it under the title ‘Big Carnival,’ which didn’t help.  Chuck Tatum is a reporter who’s very modern—he’ll do anything to get the story, to make up the story!  He risks not only his reputation, but also the life of this guy who’s trapped in the mine. 

—Martin Scorsese

A grim and pitiless portrait of media manipulation through fake news or yellow journalism that accentuates the most vile human instincts, becoming one of the most scathing indictments of American culture ever produced by a Hollywood filmmaker and a candidate for the most cynical film of all time, with capitalism never looking so heartlessly corrupt, yet this strange phenomena that draws crowds to accident sites or raunchy scandals has never been more grotesquely captivating onscreen, basically indicting spectators for their own voyeuristic tendencies.  Like professional wrestlers that change their persona from bad guys to good guys literally overnight when the right financial offer comes around, Kirk Douglas did pretty much the same thing, starring as an amorally driven villain early in his career before becoming that recognizable heroic figure on the screen.  Billy Wilder draws out his burning intensity, driven by copious amounts of unscrupulous ambition, literally staring into the void of a dark and desperate soul, where his charisma and personal magnetism light up the screen, providing a performance for the ages, where one would be hard-pressed to find a better and more edgy performance throughout his legendary career, though my personal preference leans towards a calmer and much more likable persona in LONELY ARE THE BRAVE (1962), which is reportedly the actor’s favorite as well.  Written by Wilder, Lesser Samuels and Walter Newman, there are some who suggest that the film is humorless, that Wilder dropped his uncanny knack for comedy, but Wilder’s satire is so savagely brutal that many simply overlooked the small treasure troves happening right before their eyes.  Wilder’s acerbic wit and gift for dialogue are legendary, as witty a wordsman as there ever was in the business, yet the film’s opening is an infamous sight gag, with Douglas calmly reading the newspaper in his convertible car while he’s being towed into town, notifying the driver to pull over in front of a newspaper office, as if he’s riding a cab, and telling him to wait while he steps inside for some unfinished business.  Douglas is Chuck Tatum, a morally dubious newspaper reporter charged with nefarious deeds who’s been kicked out of a multitude of offices stretching all across the country from New York to California, now finding himself in the dry desert vacuousness of Albuquerque, New Mexico pleading for a job.  Out of money and out of options, he sells himself to newspaper owner and editor of the Albuquerque Sun-Bulletin, Jacob Q. Boot (Porter Hall), as if he’s getting the greatest deal of his life, willing to work at a major discount.  Promising to make the editor $200 bucks, his logic sounds strangely self-serving, “Mr. Boot, I’m a 250 dollar a week newspaperman.  I can be had for $50.”  Notice the small touch of Boot returning his nickel (the price of a paper) when Tatum criticizes the paper for its anemic coverage, and the embroidered motto hanging on the wall, “Tell the truth.”  Among the more humorous lines, Tatum describes Boot as a cautious and conservative man who takes no chances, “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.”  While this is small-time America, land of redemption and opportunities, Boot takes a chance with Tatum and offers him a job, but remains skeptical of Tatum’s hustler tactics, where the man knows how to sell a story, more of a snake oil salesman and renowned huckster than an accurate reporter.

Tatum feels like a caged animal locked up in this dead-end town that feels like he’s been sentenced to a wasteland, calling it a “sun-baked Siberia,” a city reporter at heart, moaning about missing the bright lights of the big city where there’s always something important happening to write about, complaining about everything under the sun in this blistering diatribe, Ace in the Hole (2/8) Movie CLIP - Small Town Blues (1951) HD YouTube (2:42), before being sent out of town on assignment to cover a rattlesnake hunt, bringing along young cub photographer Herbie (Robert Arthur), but they get sidetracked along the way.  The tone of the film shifts radically once they pull into a gas station that doubles as a tourist trap selling burgers and Indian trinkets, resembling a trading post, where the sign says it’s free to enter to search for Indian artifacts in the nearby caves of ancient Navajo cliff dwellings, with a police vehicle speeding to the site, which attracts Tatum’s attention, meeting Lorraine (Jan Sterling) who is bringing blankets and coffee for her husband, quickly discovering Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict), owner of the establishment that bears his name, is trapped inside a cave-in while searching for hidden treasures, stuck under giant rocks blocking his exit, buried several hundred feet underground.  Tatum immediately takes charge, smelling a big story, pushing the young deputy out of the way and heading into the cave himself, bringing Herbie and the blankets along with his camera, where falling dirt and debris is a constant in the make-shift mine shaft that has been all but deserted for years.  Tatum befriends Leo, encouraging him, offering him hope, while behind the scenes prolonging what should be a one-day rescue operation into several days by copping an exclusive deal with a corrupt local sheriff (Ray Teal) while his story makes headlines around the country, all drawing attention to this lone man’s plight, luring tourists and other interested gawkers from miles around, making this the biggest story in the country.  Tatum’s ferocious drive to string this story out for days is nothing less than mind-boggling, throwing out all journalistic integrity, describing Leo as his “ace in the hole,” while he lies, cheats, and intentionally misleads the public, creating a public charade, like intentionally organizing a planned train wreck promising none of the passengers would be hurt.  His pushy, big city charisma allows him to coerce the rescue team to change their tactics, luring them with overtime dollar signs, convincing them to place a drill on the top of the mountain directly overhead, traveling a much greater distance through solid rock (it sounds utterly disastrous when they finally break through, leaving the victim totally exposed to flying debris), which should take them nearly a week instead of shoring up the flimsy walls with needed support at the cave opening that would take less than a day.  Literally overnight, what was once free now costs 25 cents to enter, eventually rising to a dollar, declaring proceeds will go to the “Leo Minosa Rescue Fund,” or straight into Lorraine’s pockets, creating a sprawling open-air circus environment as radio and TV crews arrive with live reports, songs are written and performed just for the occasion, while thousands of tourists set up camp with trucks hauling in amusement park rides, creating a carnivalesque spectacle of hyped media exploitation, all at Leo’s expense, shot with an unvarnished look of a documentary film by Charles Lang, growing unrelentingly grim, painting an uncompromising portrait of human nature at its worst, suggesting everyone has the potential to be corrupt. 

With that relentless drill pounding away at the mountain top, as if digging into the deep recesses of the subconscious in search of the last traces of Tatum’s vanishing humanity, an important figure in the film is Lorraine, the noirish femme fatale character, who happens to be a mirror image of Tatum, expressing no love lost for her husband, actually seething with contempt, threatening to leave him several times in the past, bored with her life in the middle of nowhere, pretty much despising the desolate emptiness, preferring the immediate gratification of big city enticements.  The extent to which she shamelessly shows little concern for Leo’s predicament contrasts mightily with his own parents, as Papa Minosa (John Berkes) helps feed the rescue team and remains a constant presence while Mama Minosa (Frances Dominguez) continually prays at a religious shrine, laboriously keeping the candles lit, an expression of her devout religious faith.  Tatum and Lorraine are rogue figures that operate alone in a moral vacuum, thinking only about what’s in it for them, thinking the rest of the people are saps to be taken advantage of, showing no faith whatsoever in humanity.  The story is inspired by real news events, one referenced by Tatum himself, an incident in 1925 when cave explorer Floyd Collins, heralded as “The Greatest Cave Explorer Ever Known,” was trapped inside a Kentucky cave following a landslide, with a Louisville newspaper sending a reporter, William Burke “Skeets” Miller, to the scene, where his coverage became a media sensation (The 1925 Cave Rescue That Captivated the Nation | Mental ...), with throngs of sensation-hungry tourists descending on the cave site, where the atmosphere resembled a county fair, selling hot dogs while offering amusement rides for kids, all but forgetting about the personal tragedy that drove them there in the first place, turning the incident (which lasted 18 days) into a nationwide event, winning himself a Pulitzer Prize.  The second event took place in 1949 a year before the film’s release when a 3-year old, Kathy Fiscus, fell into an abandoned well just outside Pasadena, California, with a television news reporter following the rescue attempt live on the air for more than 24 consecutive hours, creating such a stir that thousands of people arrived on the scene to watch the action unfold.  In both incidents, the victims died before they could be rescued.  Additionally, Wilder was sued for plagiarism by screenwriter Victor Desny, who claimed he called Wilder’s secretary in November 1949 to propose a film based upon the story of Floyd Collins.  While the historical event was public knowledge, hardly protected by copyright laws, the initial decision in 1953 ruled in Wilder’s favor, but Desny won on appeal in 1956 when the California Supreme Court ordered Wilder to pay $14,350 (equivalent to $135,000 in 2019).  It all makes for a strange saga.  This savagely depicted satire, a predecessor to Kubrick’s Granddaddy of black comedy DR. STRANGELOVE OR:  HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1964) and Sidney Lumet’s nightmarish Network (1976), was largely ignored by the viewing public, excoriated by the American press (“Fuck them all,” said Wilder, “It is the best picture I ever made”), while winning an International award in Europe at the Venice Film Festival, released into a lengthy period of obscurity for half a century until resurrected by a DVD release in 2007, making it one of the rare Wilder misfires at the box office, who, to his credit, refused to sugarcoat the subject matter, yet the scathing, no holds barred approach by the director has been heralded over time and now stands as one of Wilder’s best films, brutally honest and way ahead of its time in conveying the media circus surrounding a tragedy.  Among the best known examples in the past century are the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925 pitting Darwinian science against religious fundamentalism, the Lindberg baby kidnapping trial of 1935, dubbed the trial of the century, the 1963 Kennedy assassination and accompanying funeral procession, the bipartisan Watergate hearings from 1972 to 74 ultimately leading to a Presidential resignation, the prolonged, daily grind of the 9-month O.J. Simpson murder trial in 1995, and the hype surrounding Princess Diana’s funeral in 1997, all of which received sensationalist, wall-to-wall media coverage, completely occupying the mindset of the nation and even the world for a brief period of time.  

Time never lies, and 'Ace in the Hole' is by no means a blank ...  Cinephilia & Beyond

Thoroughbreds

THOROUGHBREDS            B+                  

USA  (92 mi)  2017  ‘Scope  d:  Cory Finley

Not feeling anything doesn’t mean I’m a bad person, it just means that I have to try harder than everyone else to be good.

—Amanda (Olivia Cooke)

In a morbid throwback to GASLIGHT (1944), updated and revamped with a completely different outcome, this is actually one of the more thoroughly enjoyable film experiences of the year, a subversive horror comedy, a delight from start to finish, largely due to the heavy, overcontrolling style of the director that extends cinematic suspense, creating an atmosphere of dread and impending doom in every sequence, yet at the same time there’s underlying humor in just how dark and twisted it can feel, becoming shockingly clever throughout.  Essentially a two-woman play written by the writer/director, the story consists of exploring what lies underneath the veneer of their darkly disturbing characters.  Inspired by film noir classics like Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity (1944) and Tay Garnett’s THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE (1946), but also dark indie classics like Michael Lehmann’s Heathers (1988) and Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures (1994), old school cinema is given a fresh look with some new faces, Olivia Cooke from Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015) as Amanda and Anya Taylor-Joy as Lily play two exceedingly bright suburban teenagers from Connecticut, but troubled, both products of privilege and the super wealthy, raised in state-of-the-art boarding schools, but tossed out for some heinous infraction that remains under the radar, protecting their privacy, spoiled and pampered beyond belief, used to getting anything they desire, where they’re actually bored most of the time, too smart for their own good, unable to process normal human behavior, instead they exist in an unfiltered state of egregious excess, existing only for themselves, plotting and scheming to get whatever they want, never allowing anyone or anything to stand in their way.  Given this fierce attitude of independence, though thoroughly dependent upon parental financial support, they have to figure out where to draw the line between utter unabashed freedoms, with no restrictions whatsoever, ignoring any and all moral guidelines, and continuing to live in this excessively lavish lifestyle to which they’ve become accustomed.  The film is a comment on how the rich have lost any sense of empathy, and how social media creates a narcissistic moral vacuum, a disregard for consequences, creating a shallow culture of disaffected teens who lack the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong, but think only of themselves, too bored to care, where the world is simply a cynical extension of their own pathetic lack of vision or concern. 

What’s immediately apparent is an obliquely dissonant musical score from cellist Erik Friedlander along with a brilliant sound design by Roland Vajs create jarring effects, heard even before the characters are introduced, foreshadowing a tone of malevolence, yet what happens onscreen couldn’t be more proper and polite, where the use of language is exquisite.  After a brief intro shows Amanda with a horse (details withheld until much later in the film), she is then seen getting dropped off in front of an immense mansion with an immaculate interior and landscaped grounds, where expensive antiques and artistic busts line each wall, greeted by another young girl her age, Lily, as the two are former friends that drifted apart after the death of Lily’s father.  The two girls are polar opposites, as Amanda has had her share of issues, been in and out of psych hospitals, evaluated by dozens of doctors, yet couldn’t care less what other people think, acknowledging she’s truly different because she doesn’t really feel anything, no joy, no disappointment, literally nothing, so she gets by pretending to show concern, but it’s mostly acting techniques.  Lily on the other hand is the perfect little protected princess, yet totally conniving and manipulating, overly concerned about her looks, dressing like a fashion model, seemingly emotionally suppressed.  Amanda is totally candid, where there’s nothing holding her back, expressing exactly what she means to say, where her choice of words couldn’t be more precise, remarking on Lily’s anxious state of mind, stripping away all pretense, cutting right to the source, disarming her with acute observations.  While Amanda’s mother apparently arranged for this little meeting, worried about her daughter after the mysterious and gruesome death of her horse, paying for the privilege of the companionship, though masking it under the pretense of tutoring sessions, preparing her for the college preparatory SAT exams, Amanda sees through all this in a matter of minutes and is much more interested in who Lily really is rather than who she pretends to be.  Lily is taken aback by Amanda’s forward nature, but also curious about her abject amorality, describing in grisly detail exactly how she took the life of her crippled horse, putting it out of its misery, but in heinous fashion, feeling no regret or remorse for anything she’s ever done, which Lily finds surprisingly authentic.  In this way, the two girls psychologically feel each other out, showing rare insight, rekindling old flames while looking ahead.           

With fluid camerawork from Lyle Vincent, exhibiting sweeping Steadicam shots that rove through the empty rooms of a gargantuan mansion, where sound suggestively sets the mood, what’s surprising is just how far under the surface this film digs, each character constantly probing the other, allowing viewers to become familiar with the discussed crimes, taking a devilish turn when Lily inadvertently reveals her hateful feelings for her stepfather, Mark (Paul Sparks), which Amanda picks up on right away, suggesting there are ways to eliminate his influence on her life, and not get caught, if she’s interested.  Initially repelled at the thought, it quickly gains traction in her imagination, utterly disgusted by his vain superiority, his domineering contempt for her, and in particular, the earthshattering noise he generates on his ergometer, with the entire house rumbling and moaning, obsessed with exercising on a rowing machine at all hours of the day and night, which she feels is done with the malicious intent to drive her crazy, where despite the gargantuan size of the estate, it has the claustrophobic feel of being closed in.  But it’s only after he decides, no questions asked, to send her to a boarding school for girls with behavioral disorders, as if to punish and humiliate her, having been expelled from her previous school for plagiarism, that she considers Amanda’s idea.  While Amanda seems like the perfect choice, free of guilt, but a pending animal cruelty trial makes her a likely suspect.  Instead they attempt to blackmail a local drug dealer, Tim (Anton Yelchin), pathetic and over-ambitious, though they’re way out of his league, leaving him exasperated and intimidated by how easily they cornered him.  No, if they want the job done, they’ll have to do it themselves, unraveling in the most unexpected fashion.  The sheer cold and calculating process is impressive, where Amanda tells Lily at one point, “You cannot hesitate.  The only thing worse than being incompetent, or being unkind, or being evil, is being indecisive.”  Staring fear right in the face, these are not the most sympathetic young girls, yet the sinister nature of their toxic methods becomes hilariously cold-blooded, where their monstrously evil behavior is so dispassionately over the top, parodying slasher films, as it apparently doesn’t take much to set them off into murderous plots of bloodthirsty revenge, perfectly covering their tracks like Leopold and Loeb in Hitchcock’s ROPE (1948), but unlike the meticulous superiority in the minds of Hitchcock’s killers, these girls simply see themselves as entitled (with the police never suspecting Barbie dolls or Stepford wives, as their perfectly pampered lives don’t fit the profile), where the lavishness of their lifestyle is not lost on them, as the world simply belongs to them.  Everyone else is just a secondary character living in it. 

Note

The film is also notable for being the last performance of actor Anton Yelchin, the Russian-accented Chekov in Star Trek (2009) who died in a freak accident just 14 days after shooting on this film ended.