Since re-emerging in the 2000s, Billy Wilder's superb Ace in the Hole, so ahead of its time in the 1950s with its acidic and unflinching examination of journalistic ethics and human morality, has taken its place alongside Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, or Some Like It Hot as among the director's greatest works.
In one of the most powerhouse performances in American screen-acting, the great Kirk Douglas stars as Chuck Tatum, a newspaper reporter who stumbles upon a potentially career-making story in Albuquerque, New Mexico (nearly sixty years later, the setting for Vince Gilligan's Breaking Bad). When Tatum begins to influence the story's outcome, a descent beings that finds more than one man caught between a rock and a hard place.
An electric narrative that stands as one of Wilder's tautest and most (melo)dramatic plots (penned with Lesser Samuels and Walter Newman), Ace in the Hole plays today as a prescient examination of the modern media landscape, and the public appetite for the disastrous news-story that leads to toxic wish-fulfilment. - "I can handle big news and little news. And if there's no news, I'll go out and bite a dog. " - The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present our third major Billy Wilder release with this stunning Blu-ray edition of Ace in the Hole.
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Supplements
- New and exclusive video interview with film scholar Neil Sinyard
- Portrait of a 60% Perfect Man: Billy Wilder, a 59 minute documentary / discussion with Billy Wilder
- Original theatrical trailer
- 32-PAGE BOOKLET featuring an essay on the film by critic Emmanuel Burdeau, and rare archival imagery