Filmmaking / Directing : WITH BILLY WILDER & HIS 'ACE IN THE HOLE': Why Hollywood Doesn't Welcome Random Pitches by Greg Joseph

ON FILM/Greg Joseph

When I profiled Billy Wilder in 1984 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of "Some Like it Hot," not only interviewing him but serving as the host of a live "An Evening With" question and answer stage presentation, he surprisingly turned the subject at one point to his 1951 film, "Ace in the Hole," and the plagiarism lawsuit it engendered.

He was still smarting decades later, as well he should, and was eager to talk about it and set the record straight.

Now, all these years after his remarks to me, I can fully grasp how very far ahead of its time "Ace in the Hole" indeed was, both in its subject matter _ still incredibly timely in its depiction of an unscrupulous newsman and the public's insatiable appetite for news and anything remotely resembling it _ as well as in the legalities surrounding this harbinger of what we now call "social media."

The film was inspired by two real-life events, a 1925 incident in which a man named W. Floyd Collins was trapped inside a landslide in Sand Cave, Kentucky, and a 1949 incident in which a three-year-old girl named Kathy Fiscus fell into an abandoned well in San Marino, California.

In both cases, the victims died and in both instances the tragedies had turned into media sensations (reporter William Burke won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Kentucky story).

After the movie's release, Wilder, who co-wrote the screenplay as well as directed and produced the film, was sued for plagiarism by actor and aspiring screenwriter Victor Desny, who claimed he had contacted Wilder's secretary, Rosella Stewart, to propose a film based on the Collins story.

Wilder's lawyers protested that this verbal summary did not make it a formal story submission and that the Collins story was historical and not governed by copyright laws.

In 1953, a judge ruled in favor of Wilder and Paramount, the distributor of the film, but in 1956 the California State Supreme Court overturned that decision, saying the oral submission had been legitimate. Wilder settled, paying roughly $15,000.

The case set a precedent, as Wilder pointed out to me, and is a large part of the reason writer, producers, studios and others are so careful about speaking to anyone or receiving correspondence about "new" ideas nowadays. It's important to underscore Wilder still insisted plagiarism had not been involved.

As for the film itself, a fictitious down-on-his-luck New York reporter (played by Kirk Douglas) banished to an inconsequential newspaper in New Mexico stumbles into a nearby cave-in where a man is trapped and sees the opportunity to get back in the big time by milking the incident for all it's worth, to the point of conspiring to slow the rescue effort. Along the way he has an affair with the victim's wife, beautifully played by Jan Sterling, who is in on the deal.

"Ace in the Hole," not surprisingly, was savaged by much of the self-righteous press of the day. No doubt this had much to do with its failure at the box office (the film's final cost was $1,821,052, its box office $1.3 million).

It was Wilder's first critical and commercial failure.

It was also the first filming which he served as writer, producer and director _ as well as his first film after his breakup with writing partner Charles Brackett, who by the way, took along the duo's more experienced secretary who might have fared better in answering Victor Desny's fateful lawsuit-inducing phone call.

Now, in retrospect, many consider this as arguably Wilder's finest work, and certainly his bravest (see Orson Welles and "Citizen Kane").

Be aware that a misguided studio pooh-bah at one point renamed "Ace in the Hole" as "The Big Carnival" without Wilder's knowledge or consent, and that copies of the film may be floating around under that title.

No matter what it's called now, it's well worth tracking down and watching, a marvel in virtually every aspect, from writing to performances to its documentary style. The film could have been made yesterday _ that is, if any filmmaker could match Wilder's remarkable talent and unwavering courage.