Jack Shafer on Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole,, "the movie that gives journalists nightmares:"
Although set in the early 1950s, Ace in the Hole feels contemporary, detailing the mechanics of how the press turns news ripples into tsunamis, and rides the ratings and the copies sold to the bank. Not to let my print brethren off the hook, but it's easy to visualize Charles Tatum as a cable network producer deploying camera trucks whenever a child tumbles down a well, a white woman goes missing, a shooter opens fire, a nut takes hostages, or a full-chested drug-taking celebrity drops dead. The press invites the nation to camp out and ride the Ferris wheel until the story finally dies. (Greta Van Susteren's Fox News Channel Web page documents how she keeps turning the big wheel even after the masses stop taking the ride.)
