“Etched in acid and steeped in bile...with a stellar supporting cast, more than a thousand extras, and Mr. Douglas spitting zingers as if they were bullets. See just how nimbly Wilder corralled all those itty-bitty locusts on the big screen.”
  – Manohla Dargis, NY Times
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“A toxic masterpiece… Ace in the Hole takes the cyanide-laced cake!”
– David Fear, Time Out New York

“May be WIlder's best, with Kurk Douglas in his growling, stalking prime and Jan Sterling playing her part rock hard and dirt cheap.”
- Bruce Bennett, The Sun.
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(1951) “I can do big news, small news, and if there’s no news, I’ll go out and bite a dog.” Erstwhile East Coast “thousand dollar a day” hotshot reporter Kirk Douglas (already “fired from eleven papers with a total circulation of eight million”), reduced to working for an Albuquerque rag and covering the local snake hunt, smells Big Story when he stumbles on an Indian relic hunter trapped in a cave-in. And so do gawking tourists, radio and TV reporters, a travelling carnival, a sleazeball sheriff, and tough tomato Jan Sterling, who scorns the role of tearful wife at prayer (“Kneeling bags my nylons.”) But what happens if the rescuers get there in time? Inspired by the actual 1925 Floyd Collins case — the real reporter won a Pulitzer— Wilder’s most venomous and cynical attack on American vulgarity and greed made studio head Y. Frank Freeman (Wilder once pondered, “Why Frank Freeman?”) so nervous that it was re-titled The Big Carnival before release to make it sound fun, not fooling the less-hardened audiences of the time, who made it Wilder’s first-ever flop. Explained the director, “Americans expected a cocktail and felt I was giving them a shot of vinegar instead.” Now sporting its original title for the first time in decades, in a new restoration highlighting Charles Lang’s stark b&w photography, and with an audience a lot more inured to media shenanigans, Ace takes its place on the top rung of Wilder’s oeuvre. With belted and suspendered editor Porter Hall as the Last Decent Man, and arguably the most amazing focus-pull in screen history at the climax. “They never gave it a chance.” – Wilder.

A PARAMOUNT PICTURES RELEASE.

One of Woody Allen's favorite films!