Ace in the Hole, also known as The Big Carnival, is a 1951 American satirical drama film directed, produced, and co-written by Billy Wilder.

The film stars Kirk Douglas as a cynical, disgraced reporter who creates a media circus surrounding a man trapped in a cave in rural New Mexico to try to regain a job on a major newspaper.

[3] Without consulting Wilder, Paramount Pictures executive Y. Frank Freeman changed the title to The Big Carnival just prior to its release.

[4] Early television broadcasts retained that title, but when aired by Turner Classic Movies – and when released on DVD by The Criterion Collection in July 2007 – it reverted to Ace in the Hole.

[7] After being fired from eleven major newspapers due to his behavior, temper, and alcoholism, Charles "Chuck" Tatum winds up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and offers himself to the publisher of the small Sun-Bulletin.

When they stop for gas, the pair learn about Leo Minosa, a local man trapped in a collapsed cliff dwelling, and the two investigate.

Kretzer and Tatum convince construction contractor Sam Smollett to drill down to Leo from above rather than through the cave, extending the rescue time from twelve hours to a week to keep the story going.

Tatum stumbles into his room, where Cook tells him that Nagel has fired him for letting other newspapers break the story of Leo's death.

Three-year-old Kathy Fiscus of San Marino, California, fell into an abandoned well and, during a rescue operation that lasted several days, thousands of people arrived to watch the action unfold.

Wilder's attorneys responded that, not only did an oral plot summary not constitute a formal story submission, but the Collins case was historical in nature and as such was not protected by copyright laws.

[13] Frank Cady's character identifies himself as a salesman for Pacific All-Risk Insurance, a fictitious company featured in Wilder's 1944 film Double Indemnity.

In his review in The New York Times, Bosley Crowther called it "a masterly film" but added, "Mr. Wilder has let imagination so fully take command of his yarn that it presents not only a distortion of journalistic practice but something of a dramatic grotesque ... [it] is badly weakened by a poorly constructed plot, which depends for its strength upon assumptions that are not only naïve but absurd.

"[15] The Hollywood Reporter called it "ruthless and cynical ... a distorted study of corruption and mob psychology that ... is nothing more than a brazen, uncalled-for slap in the face of two respected and frequently effective American institutions – democratic government and the free press.

"[17] Film critic Manny Farber in The Nation, July 14, 1951, wrote: Ace in the Hole is built chiefly round the acting of a tough, corrupt newshound by Kirk Douglas.

It hasn't aged because Wilder and his co-writers, Walter Newman and Lesser Samuels, were so lean and mean [with their dialogue] ... [Kirk Douglas'] focus and energy ... is almost scary.

[20] Nathan Lee of The Village Voice wrote: "Here is, half a century out of the past, a movie so acidly au courant it stings.

"[22] TV Guide called it "a searing example of writer-director Billy Wilder at his most brilliantly misanthropic" and "an uncompromising portrait of human nature at its worst," concluding that it was "one of the great American films of the 1950s.

"[23] Ed Gonzalez of Slant wrote that the film "allowed Wilder to question the very nature of human interest stories and the twisted relationship between the American media and its public.