Ace in the Hole (1951, Billy Wilder)

Ace in the Hole moves while the script–from director Wilder, Lesser Samuels and Walter Newman–never races. In fact, it’s deliberate and methodical, maybe even redundant at times (especially in the first act). The redundant moments aren’t actually a problem since Kirk Douglas is in almost every scene of the film and, even when he doesn’t have the best scene, his performance is fantastic.

Douglas plays disgraced newspaperman trying to make it in a world of journalism students and publishers who believe in ethics and so on. Douglas believes in selling the most newspapers and getting paid for it. Most of the first act has Douglas spreading the gospel, which makes for great scenes.

The story then has Douglas happening across a tragic situation and exploiting it. All he has to do is convince a handful of people to do the wrong thing. And here’s where Hole’s eventual problems start showing up. Douglas has this perverted relationship with Jan Sterling; she’s married to Richard Benedict, who’s stuck in a hole and Douglas is turning it into a big story. Wilder and the other writers never really explore Douglas’s motivations (alcohol provides a fast answer) in that situation. Instead, Douglas gets a more traditional, epical arc. An overcooked one.

But that overcooked character arc is in a gorgeously made film. Wilder has excellent composition, whether for dialogue scenes or the big vista shots of New Mexico.

Douglas and Wilder, somewhat separately, make Hole worthwhile. It’s just got its problems.

It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958, Edward L. Cahn)

I watched It! The Terror from Beyond Space because I understood it’s widely considered (look at that passive voice) a precursor to Alien. Any such connection is tenuous at best. I also thought Ray Harryhausen did the special effects.

No, no, he did not.

If It! were a production of a middle school theater department–I kept thinking of Kesey’s favorite Cuckoo’s Nest adaptation, with the machine off to the side, a moving feature–it might be impressive. It’d work as a play, multiple levels, all connected through the same central staircase. It’d need a rewrite, of course. Bixby’s script would be laughable if one could muster the enthusiasm.

There are there major problems with It!, not including the script (the plotting isn’t bad, just the dialogue).

First, the direction. I’m not sure I’ve seen a director less enthusiastic about a space adventure than Cahn. Budgetary limitations aside, there’s a lot he could have done, maybe angled some shots, but he doesn’t.

Second, the alien. The costume is atrocious (it looks like a green sweatsuit over a bunch of padding) and the mask is lame. Ray Corrigan, playing the monster, moves with the grace of a dump truck.

Finally, the acting. Of ten actors–we’re supposed to remember all their characters, following a painfully weak introduction to them–only Marshall Thompson gives a good performance. Kim Spalding, as his antagonist, gives one of the worst performances I’ve seen lately in a theatrical release.

It! is a painful waste of time.

0/4 ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Edward L. Cahn; written by Jerome Bixby; director of photography, Kenneth Peach; edited by Grant Whytock; music by Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter; produced by Robert E. Kent; released by United Artists.

Starring Marshall Thompson (Carruthers), Shirley Patterson (Ann Anderson), Kim Spalding (Van Heusen), Ann Doran (Mary Royce), Dabbs Greer (Eric Royce), Paul Langton (Calder), Robert Bice (Purdue), Richard Benedict (Bob Finelli), Richard Hervey (Gino), Thom Carney (Kienholz) and Ray Corrigan (It).


RELATED

OTHER FILMS DIRECTED BY EDWARD L. CAHN
OTHER 1958 RELEASES

O.S.S. (1946, Irving Pichel)

Pichel does such a good job with the majority of O.S.S., it’s a surprise how ineptly he handles the jingoistic last scene. It’s a WWII patriotism picture (is there a proper term for this genre?), so that last scene is requisite, but Pichel could have at least made it work. Instead, he hangs the film out to dry.

O.S.S. runs long, but in a good way. It takes almost a full half hour before Alan Ladd and his fellow espionage agents are dropped into occupied France. The film opens with Ladd, but quickly shift gears to follow Patric Knowles as he puts together the team. When it does bring Ladd back in, it’s after leading lady Geraldine Fitzgerald is introduced.

While Ladd holds the film (and he’s the one most injured by Pichel’s wrong-headed finale, right after his best scene), Fitzgerald is sort of the secret weapon. She’s absolutely fantastic, making some of the creakier scenes work. Ladd–we learn twenty-five minutes in–is sexist. It’s contrived and writer Richard Maibaum never quite makes it work, but since the scenes are with Fitzgerald, she brings them through.

Pichel’s direction is great; he’s able to handle the thriller elements, the repetitious spy scenes but also the dramatic ones. His composition is strong and he makes great use of the sets. Lionel Lindon’s photography helps.

There are a couple great supporting performances–John Hoyt as an odious Nazi and Harold Vermilyea as an opportunistic one.

The film very nearly works.