Having exposed the cynicism of the film industry in "Sunset Boulevard", Billy Wilder turned to the newspaper business in his next assignment "The Big Carnival" (or Ace in the Hole as it was originally called).
In his Charlie Tatum, Wilder created one of the most hardened characters in cinema history. Yet as brilliantly interperted by Kirk Douglas, the viewer actually has some feeling for him.
Here is a man who had it all threw it away. And when the opportunity to redeem himself comes his way, he plunges to even lower depths.
Those depths include playing with a man's life for the sole purpose of rebuilding his own and in the end neither survive.
While this is a hard hitting, uncompromising film, it was one of Wilder's few failures. Perhaps journalists who have some power of of a film's life and death in their typewriters, do not want to see themselves portrayed as they were in this film. Still the acting is uniformly great.
Douglas sets the standard, Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur, Porter Hall, Richard Benedict and the rest of the great supporting cast compliment him perfectly.
Had this film been made in the 70s or 80s it would be revered as it is now. Back in 1951, it was too strong to digest.
In his Charlie Tatum, Wilder created one of the most hardened characters in cinema history. Yet as brilliantly interperted by Kirk Douglas, the viewer actually has some feeling for him.
Here is a man who had it all threw it away. And when the opportunity to redeem himself comes his way, he plunges to even lower depths.
Those depths include playing with a man's life for the sole purpose of rebuilding his own and in the end neither survive.
While this is a hard hitting, uncompromising film, it was one of Wilder's few failures. Perhaps journalists who have some power of of a film's life and death in their typewriters, do not want to see themselves portrayed as they were in this film. Still the acting is uniformly great.
Douglas sets the standard, Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur, Porter Hall, Richard Benedict and the rest of the great supporting cast compliment him perfectly.
Had this film been made in the 70s or 80s it would be revered as it is now. Back in 1951, it was too strong to digest.