#lesser samuels

[sesiondemadrugada]

Ace in the Hole (Billy Wilder, 1951).

[gregorygalloway]

Ace in the Hole premiered in Albuquerque, NM on 14 June 1951.

After screenings in London, Los Angeles, and New York City, Paramount changed the title to The Big Carnival before wider release on 4 July (without consulting Wilder).

The script by Walter Newman, Lesser Samuels and Billy Wilder, was based on the real-life story of Floyd Collins, a Kentucky man who, in Jan 1925, became trapped in a cave in a small passageway with a 27-pound rock pinning him down. A young Louisville reporter, William Burke "Skeets" Miller, was slight enough to squeeze in and out of the passage, and fed and conversed with Collins during the rescue attempt. Collins died 15 days into the rescue attempt (Collins and Miller are mentioned in Ace in the Hole).

It was the first time Wilder was producer-director-writer, and the first film he made without co-writer Charles Brackett.

Although the film won the International Prize at the 1951 Venice Film Festival, it was a critical and commercial failure in the US.

After the film’s release, Victor Desny sued Wilder and Paramount, stating that he had pitched the idea for the story to Wilder’s secretary in 1949. Paramount argued that the story was in the public domain and therefore not owned by Desny. After taking his case to the California Supreme Court, Desny was awarded $14,000 in 1956.

[cinesludge]

Movie #26 of 2017: Ace In The Hole

[cinephiliabeyond]

On the set of Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole, which has been beautifully re-mastered by Criterion in a 3-disc package (Blu-Ray/DVD combo available for pre-order). Photos courtesy of the Criterion Collection.

“There's not a wasted shot in Wilder's film, which is single-mindedly economical. Students of Arthur Schmidt's editing could learn from the way every shot does its duty. There's not even a gratuitous reaction shot. The black-and-white cinematography by Charles Lang is the inevitable choice; this story would curdle color. And notice how no time is wasted with needless exposition. A wire-service ticker turns up there, again without comment. A press tent goes up and speaks for itself. Although the film is 56 years old, I found while watching it again that it still has all its power. It hasn't aged because Wilder and his co-writers, Walter Newman and Lesser Samuels, were so lean and mean. The dialogue delivers perfectly timed punches: ‘I can handle big news and little news. And if there's no news, I'll go out and bite a dog.’” --Roger Ebert's Great Movies: Ace in the Hole

Dear every screenwriter, read this: Billy Wilder, Lesser Samuels & Walter Newman's screenplay for Ace in the Hole aka The Big Carnival [pdf]. (NOTE: For educational purposes only.) Thanks to Prostaff85 and the great folks at Write to Reel.

The best extra on the Criterion Collection two-disc DVD set containing Ace in the Hole  is the 58-minute interview of Billy Wilder titled Portrait of a '60% Perfect' Man. The interview was conducted by film critic Michel Ciment and took place in 1980 when Wilder was about 74 years old. It starts off at Wilder's cluttered Santa Monica Boulevard office, where he keeps his six Oscar statuettes and a certificate for winning the top prize at Cannes for The Lost Weekend (1945). Wilder then drives to a high-rise building and goes up to his primary residence, where he shows Ciment his valuable art collection, which includes works by Picasso, Chagall, Kandinsky, Kirchner and Jawlensky. Finally, they conclude the interview at Wilder's beachfront cottage in Malibu. Wilder talks briefly about his youth in Vienna, the excitement of living in Berlin during the Weimar era and his year in France before settling into a long discussion of his Hollywood years, beginning as a screenwriter, then becoming a director and finally a producer. He was one of the great raconteurs, and he has lots of fascinating things to say about his many movies and the famous stars he worked with, including Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, William Holden, Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe. --Ivana Redwine

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