Ace in the Hole (1951 film)
Overview
Ace in the Hole is a 1951 American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 starring Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas is an American stage and film actor, film producer and author. His popular films include Out of the Past , Champion , Ace in the Hole , The Bad and the Beautiful , Lust for Life , Paths of Glory , Gunfight at the O.K...

 as a cynical, disgraced reporter who stops at nothing to try to regain a job on a major newspaper.

It marked a series of firsts for auteur
Auteur theory
In film criticism, auteur theory holds that a director's film reflects the director's personal creative vision, as if they were the primary "auteur"...

 Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...

: it was the first time he was involved in a project as a writer, producer, and director; his first film following his breakup with long-time writing partner Charles Brackett
Charles Brackett
Charles William Brackett was an American novelist, screenwriter, and film producer.-Biography:Born on November 26, 1892 in Saratoga Springs, New York, Charles William Brackett was the son of New York State Senator, lawyer, and banker Edgar Truman Brackett...

, with whom he had collaborated on The Lost Weekend and Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard (film)
Sunset Boulevard is a 1950 American film noir directed and co-written by Billy Wilder, and produced and co-written by Charles Brackett...

, among others; and his first film to be a critical and commercial failure.

The story is a biting examination of the seedy relationship between the press, the news it reports and the manner in which it reports it.
Quotations

How'd you like to make a thousand dollars a day, Mr. Boot? I'm a thousand-dollar-a-day newspaperman. You can have me for nothing.

I've done a lot of lying in my time. I've lied to men who wear belts. I've lied to men who wear suspenders. But I'd never be so stupid as to lie to a man who wears both belt and suspenders.

It's a good story today. Tomorrow, it'll be yesterday's news and they'll wrap a fish in it.

I can handle big news and little news. And if there's no news, I'll go out and bite a dog.

I've met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my time, but you--you're twenty minutes.

 
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