Ace In The Hole

As with many other of the best things in movies, Billy Wilder got there first. His Ace In The Hole, though made 50 years ago, remains one of the most disturbing indictments of tabloid journalism ever put on film.

And it contains a great performance from Kirk Douglas as the cynical, self-serving news-hound who deliberately protracts the anguish of a man trapped underground in order to provide his paper with its front-page exclusives. Unfortunately, in 1951, it was a film ahead of its time.

'It was very sombre,' Wilder told his recent chronicler, Cameron Crowe, 'for some reason or another, people did not want to see that grim a picture... and they did not believe me that when somebody's a newspaperman, they are capable of that behaviour.'

Well, that was back then: people certainly believe it now and Douglas's performance is absolutely undimmed by the years or the changing media.

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