When I saw Whore-Aldo running up to the families of the miners and shoving his microphone into their faces, I flashed back to this old Kirk Douglas movie.
Ace in the Hole (AKA The Big Carnival) (1951)
Starring: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling Director: Billy Wilder Rating:
Storyline
Genres: Drama, Film-Noir
Plot Outline: When a man is trapped alive in a mine collapse, a self-interested reporter and the townspeople cynically create what we now call a "media circus".
Plot Synopsis: One of several literary and artistic works based on events surrounding the 1925 entrapment and death of W. Floyd Collins in Sand Cave, Ky. See also Robert Penn Warren's novel _The Cave_
http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/379/379350p1.html
Ace in the Hole (a.k.a. The Big Carnival), 1951, co-wr/dir. Billy Wilder. This is a deeply cynical Film Noir sadly based on an actual 1925 tragedy. Charles Tatum (Douglas) is a down-on-his-luck, obnoxious journalist who once worked for a big city newspaper but is now stuck at a small town paper in New Mexico. The hard-drinking Tatum finds his meal-ticket back to the big leagues when a miner named Leo Minosa becomes trapped in a cave-in.
Tatum hypes the event into a national news story, engineering a lucrative media frenzy and a despicable public circus while also duping Minosa into believing he's his savior. Even though Minosa could be rescued more quickly by shoring up the cave's tunnels, Tatum, who's eager to keep this "big carnival" in town, convinces the rescuers to employ a lengthier drilling process instead. Going along with Tatum's ambitious plan is Minosa's greedy and conniving wife (Jan Sterling) who's looking to cash in on her unanticipated notoriety. Tatum's plan, however, goes tragically awry. The final low-angle shot of Tatum collapsing into frame symbolizes his self-propelled downfall.
Ace in the Hole is a grim but eerily prescient look at the media's unquenchable thirst for "the big story" and the public's willingness to play along. Wilder mercilessly eviscerates the gawking masses that set up shop to commercialize Minosa's tragedy. Although a box office flop in its day, Ace remains a relentless indictment of the public's and the media's appetite for entertainment and fortune even at the expense of human life.
Great Wilder movie, much underated. Just as potent today as way back then...
As I remember Kirk Douglas was telling an older fellow about having a rattlesnake in the draw and how you could control the story by keeping people in suspense as to its whereabouts. But you knew where the snake was and controlled the situation.
Something along those lines as I remember from that movie 50 years ago. - Tom
Great film! One of Billy Wilders best.