Making news: Ace in the Hole

Some have called Billy Wilder's 1952 "Ace in the Hole" the best movie ever about newspapers - that's going too far, I think, as it's not about newspapers per se but more about a perverse and egocentric newspaperman (Kirk Douglas) and his misguided efforts to revive his damaged career (he's an exaggerated version of a type that all reporters will recognize, the charming but ruthless and egomaniacal careerist) - but it does capture a bit of the feeling of small-town or small-city newspapers back in the days when newspapers ruled - almost all movies about the business focus on papers in the big city, so Ace is a pleasant exception: its vision of newspapers is something that virtually every reporter and editor can relate to - we all started, and some stayed, at papers a lot like the Albuquerque Sun-Bulletin that Wilder depicts. Story involves Douglas arriving (a funny scene, as he's sitting in a car being towed through the city) at the newspaper office and talking his way into a job: he admits he's been fired from many large papers and that he's here in AlbuQ to take a job for little money and work his way back up. We cut forward to a year, Douglas is frustrated at the slow pace of the paper and the paltry news. Editor sends him out of town, with a young photographer (if this were remade, the photog would be a woman) to cover a rattlesnake hunt, but they get sidetracked when they learn a man is trapped in a landslide inside some ancient Indian caves he'd been exploring. Douglas worms his way into the cave, befriends the guy, and concocts a scheme to delay the rescue effort so as to build this into a national story that will be his ticket out of New Mexico. The story does become huge (spoilers here!) - but with tragic results, as the guy dies in the cave, and Douglas has to live with the knowledge his scheme cost the man his life. Some pretty smart scenes in the movie - especially as we watch the crowd of the curious spectators grow day by day into a big mob scene carnival - and some excellent dialogue, most thanks to Wilder, one would guess. Some may recognize that the plot setup was the start point for Robert Coover's excellent novel from the 1960s, The Origin of the Brunists (which A. and I unsuccessfully tried to adapt into a screenplay). I would also assume and hope that JK is aware of this movie, which is a great example of one of his key themes: the marginalization of Native Americans in American cinema of the West. Among other things, an Indian has a lowliest job in newspaper office and is subject to various racial slurs that don't seem to bother anyone else - and the guy trapped in the cliff was seeking Indian artifacts - but the Indians won't go into the cave for fear of disturbing the spirits of their ancestors. Cool that the movie recognizes this point of view, but it does so rather derisively.