One director I find myself enjoying more and more as I grow older is Billy Wilder--not only for his dialogue, but for his candor in discussing his works, such as Cameron Crowe caught in Conversations with Wilder, and in the interviews he did on film with Volker Schlondorff in Billy Wilder Speaks. And now finally Criterion--who else?--has released its edition of one of the few Wilder flops in the 1950s, Ace in the Hole.
It's not hard to see why it bombed. Its hero is a reporter, played by Kirk Douglas, who prolongs the length of time a cave-in victim must spend trapped so as to build his own reputation back up. The victim's wife is a tramp, immediately signaled by Jan Sterling's hair being bleached to the same shade as Barbara Stanwyck's in Double Indemnity. And for the most part, the public is portrayed as gullible yobs, eager to vicariously participate in a story, uncaring after it's over, and preyed upon by scavengers of every size and shape. The few good people include the victim's parents, and the newspaper publisher who initially hires Douglas--he's portrayed in the still above, with the crucifix over his shoulder, while Kirk somehow defeats the laws of time and channels his son Michael.
The real fault of the picture is its ending--it doesn't know whether it wants to be Double Indemnity (lovers clash); Stalag 17 (antihero not as selfish as he appears to be); or Sunset Boulevard (what you sow, you reap). And it takes too long. Maybe it was because Wilder was between his strongest writing partners, Charles Brackett and I.A.L. Diamond. But it has its moments: more visually composed shots than one usually associates with Wilder (including Douglas's face lit from underneath in the cave that turns him into a troll), and the usual Wilder touch in the dialogue:
Sterling (to Douglas): I've met some hard-boiled ones. But you're twenty minutes!
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