Forget about the original date of release or that it bombed at the box office or that it's in black and white or that you don't like the director or any other reason why you might shy away from it: Ace in the Hole is crackling good.
Billy Wilder's 1951 drama features Kirk Douglas as an ambitious newspaper reporter who seizes on a loser's bad luck to create a media sensation. He's a foul yet charming character, and Douglas chews the scenery like a starving lion stalking paralyzed gazelles. Only in this story, the gazelles are greedy hyenas. Seldom has American avarice and greed been portrayed so honestly. The film is about 95% perfect.
Making its long overdue first appearance on home video, The Criterion Collection DVD is sterling, including a second disk of archival interviews with Wilder, Douglas, and co-writer Walter Newman (audio only), Spike Lee extolling its virtues, a still gallery, and a neat fold-out with essays by filmmaker Guy Maddin and critic Molly Haskell, who aptly calls the film "noir in broad daylight." I've read only good things about the movie and the DVD, and now I know why: both live up to the hype. Criterion disks are more expensive than some, but I don't regret what I paid.
Always struck me as odd how the film feels more relevant to today's media (especially with online news) than perhaps it did back then. Talk about a film that aged well! All the great dialogue that seems perfectly matched up with Douglas and his bravado and quick natural organic spot on responses, wow! They rarely right lines like that any more, or actors with such un-robotic swagger to say them.
i so want this DVD!!!
yeah, they don't make em like they used to. Double Indemnity -- what a film!