Classic movie site with rare images, original ads, and behind-the-scenes photos, with informative and insightful commentary. We like to have fun with movies!
Archive and Links
grbrpix@aol.com
Search Index Here




Thursday, February 01, 2007




Paramount Has A Tough Sell













Maurice Zolotow was early in identifying Ace In The Hole as a problem title for his 1977 Billy Wilder biography --- "Ace In The Hole" was castigated by the critics and shunned by the public. Wilder was called a cynical man. The film was denounced as an untruthful attack on the integrity of American newspapers and on the new medium of television. Subsequent writers picked up that ball and ran with it. A disaster at the boxoffice, said Ed Sikov in his 1998 Wilder book, but in the early 1950’s, with faith in the nation’s ideological institutions assuming fanatical religious proportions, Wilder was offering a vision of Americans and their news media that few Americans themselves wished to confront, let alone applaud. Indeed, the director himself was eventually persuaded. They never gave it a chance, Wilder said. I only hope Billy wasn’t referring to Paramount, because the evidence indicates they gave it every chance, with a campaign as aggressive as any mounted during 1951. As to its boxoffice disaster, Ace In The Hole no doubt took a loss, but no more so than a lot of other features the company was distributing that year. With $1.2 million in domestic rentals, it equaled The Last Outpost and Submarine Command, while outperforming Hal Wallis’ production of Peking Express ($936,000) and a comedy sequel thought to be promising, Dear Brat ($890,000). The thing that was killing Paramount and the other majors was television. By mid-1951, there was a set in millions more homes than even one year before, and Hollywood movies were beginning to surface there. Republic had announced imminent sales of its backlog, and hundreds of independent features were dumped on airwaves by the week. You had to have something really special to entice people away from all that free entertainment.




Paramount kept a man in the field by the name of Rufus Blair (at left reviewing publicity material with an exhibitor contact). He’d been with newspapers and was a crack merchandiser. You might classify him as a Chuck Tatum with ethics. Rufus spent April and May canvassing thirty-four cities on behalf of Ace In The Hole. He had an open door with publishers, having worked with a number of them, and his mission was to target media folk --- be it editors, reviewers, radio personalities, whatever. Armed with a print of the feature, Blair knew it would click with former newshound colleagues. Trade critics were already flipping over Wilder’s trenchant drama, and Paramount was brandishing those raves among the trades at least two months prior to release. They played it up as a tough show in the tradition of The Public Enemy and Kirk Douglas’ previous Champion. News dailies swarmed over it. Here was a journalist rugged and ruthless like Cagney, Bogart, and Ladd. He grabbed a story by the throat and took no guff from bosses or women-folk. Rufus Blair knew reporters would embrace Chuck Tatum and they sure enough did. The character made them feel movie star cool. Further promotion in advance of the playdate found Jan Sterling getting a New York build-up on behalf of Ace In the Hole. Paramount tied in with Royal Desserts for recorded ads with Sterling, all of which concluded with a pitch for the feature, while millions of pudding packs and gelatin boxes went out with her picture emblazoned thereon. The Hallicrafters Corporation, then one of the big three radio/television manufacturers, continued their mutual sales push with Paramount that had begun with The Mating Season earlier that year. Field men for both companies linked up with local dealers, and Hellicrafter’s equipment was featured onscreen during Ace In The Hole. The Albuquerque location premiere followed in mid-June with a simultaneous opening in three theatres, attended by Kirk Douglas and Jan Sterling, who passed out autographs from their vantage point on a chuck wagon (shown here). New York’s opening at the Globe Theatre on June 29 was for the benefit of the Newsdealer Associations welfare fund, and Billy Wilder was in town for TV appearances and con-fabs with home office ad-press-publicity staff.


















Eleventh hour title changes were not uncommon prior to release. Such an action post-release was almost unheard of. An embarrassment for marketing, publicity, and distribution, it suggested a botched campaign. Isn’t there somebody in the studio organization who can yell murder when an unshowmanship title comes through the ordinary routine of production?, asked The Motion Picture Herald, after two Metro 1951 offerings sputtered on release. Wouldn’t it be possible to learn these facts a little earlier? Two Weeks With Love and Inside Straight represented good product badly sold. The Herald felt both could have benefited from exhibitor input on the front end. "Inside Straight" fell flat on its title during Easter week on Broadway because people assumed it dealt with card playing, whereas this was actually a period show about the California gold rush. Ace In The Hole was also adjudged misleading. Was it too about gambling? If so, women weren’t interested. Many patrons had no idea as to the meaning of the phrase. Would they wait until after paying an admission to find out? Circuit heads thought not, and these were the men charged with getting pedestrians off the street and into their theatres. By mid-August, it was obvious Paramount had a problem. A picture with Kirk Douglas in the lead and reviews as positive as Ace In The Hole garnered should not be playing to empty houses. Obviously, they needed a new title. Showman (as well as editor-publisher of Motion Picture Exhibitor) Jay Emanuel spoke to the controversy in a letter shown in the trade ad above. Latter-day cultists would consign Emanuel to the role of philistine, but I suspect he knew exactly what he was doing --- I personally supervised the campaign in each city to make certain it was proper and adequate. I also checked the comments of our patrons. The results can be summed up briefly. The people who came to see the picture enjoyed it immensely but the picture did not roll up the gross to which I felt it was entitled. This was the sort of grassroots movement on the part of exhibitors from which a newly re-christened The Big Carnival emerged. Prints already in exchanges had to be physically amended with new title footage. No doubt a few Ace In The Hole stragglers continued playing under its original name through 1951, much like that last rattlesnake Chuck Tatum described as having gotten away in the feature. Billy Wilder spoke to the topic years later --- Behind my back, because I was making a picture in Paris at the time, Mr. Freeman, head of the studio, changed the title from "Ace In The Hole" to "The Big Carnival" --- like this is going to attract people. Without asking me! It was one of the reasons I left Paramount. All well and good for a director wanting to distance himself from an event well after the fact, but Freeman wasn't the one to call this shot. New York would have made that decision. I’m betting too that Wilder was consulted, and ultimately bowed to sales department wishes. These weren’t the idiots and troglodytes he liked to portray before adoring interviewers taking his anecdotes at face value. They were capable merchandisers who knew how to campaign on behalf of their product. Wilder just handed them sour fruit this time, and neither exhibitors nor customers were sure how to digest it.





So what happened to The Big Carnival when it got into the general release market? It played at least a month as Ace In The Hole before the switch. Business needed a goose, thus the new moniker. For my money, the title would not change boxoffice, was the report from Hollister, California’s State Theatre. The picture is different, but drawing power, in spite of exploitation, is limited --- the second and third day died. Could this have been the result of bad word-of-mouth among locals? The Booth Theatre’s manager in Rich Hill, Missouri spoke to that --- Our patrons thought it a little heavy. Got a bunch of kids who did not know what the show was about. No, it sure wasn’t for kids, but really, was it for anyone? OK picture, but did poor business, was the curt appraisal from the Jackson Theatre in Flomation, Alabama. Well, you couldn’t bring them into the theatre at gunpoint after all, and Wilder’s line in nihilism really wouldn’t come into fashion for at least another twenty years. Paramount couldn’t be bothered with a re-issue, and the death march to television opened with a berth on NBC’s December 4, 1965 broadcast of Saturday Night At The Movies. From there, The Big Carnival was shuffled off to syndication as part of the company’s Portfolio One package, where it would share late show dates with The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, I Married A Monster From Outer Space, My Favorite Spy --- some fifty Paramount titles that became available to local TV markets in April, 1967. You could rent it through Films, Inc. during the seventies on a sliding scale. Titles in their catalog were ranked by stars --- anywhere from one, two, three, to "special." ---based on perceived merit. The Big Carnival got a one, which means you could have it for anywhere from $15 a day for schools and convents (!) with less than 100 in your audience (probably a cinch with this one) to a maximum $100 for colleges and film societies with over 1251 heads in the room. Paramount passed on a VHS release, and have remained deaf to pleas for DVD availability. Bootlegs are occasionally intermingled on E-Bay with a 2005 docu-drama entitled Ace In The Hole, wherein it’s Saddam Hussein instead of the film’s Leo Minosa who’s buried. One enterprising VHS peddler offers attractive box art likely to fool the unwary, while the rest of us go on waiting for Paramount to pull the trigger with an authorized release. Let’s hope it won’t be too long (and indeed it wouldn't be, for a Criterion released DVD has appeared since the original date of this posting).

A Small Postscript --- I came across a trade ad for Captain Video and decided to add it to the July, 2006 posting on that serial. This is something I hope to do from time to time as fresh images turn up on films I've previously covered, and I'll try to note them here.
UPDATE (9-18-07): Just got some additional financial info for Ace In The Hole. The negative cost was $1.821,052.78 million.

7 Comments:

Blogger The 'Stache said...

Thanks for such an informative post on one of my favorite Wilder pictures. You just never can tell what will sell or won't. But your evidence is persuasive that Paramount didn't dump it. In hindsight, just the simple fact of a name change is proof that the studio was trying to do something for the film.

3:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It'll be released for the home theatre ... eventually!

9:34 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fascinating information, reminding us once again that sometimes studios didn't give up on difficult to sell films. [Particularly a movie by one of the company's biggest directors, featuring an important star. It would be interesting to know to what extent Par went to on behalf of Wyler's almost as uncommercial CARRIE.]

Cinemax -- back in the day when it showed scores of interesting older films every month -- did indeed run CARNIVAL at least once in the late '80s or early '90s; I still have a taped copy from its airing. I didn't see the TCM broadcast -- did it sport an ACE title card?

I've seen this in various venues over the years, but I'll never forget encountering it on a late, late show in the late '60s. I was in a sad, bitter mood, oddly open to its uncompromising darkness. The movie just burned itself into my soul. It isn't just cynical -- it's utterly pessimistic. There's nothing like it.

Ever notice that gawking tourist Mr. Federber (matchlessly played by Frank Cady) works for Pacific All-Risk Insurance? Wonder if he ever ran into Walter Neff at some company gathering...

11:24 PM  
Blogger Kevin K. said...

Thank you for this piece! I saw this movie (as "Big Carnival") when NBC first aired it; I was just a kid, but I knew there was something different about it. Never forgot it, and videotaped it off of TNT in the '80s. About 10 years ago it ran on AMC (with the original "Ace in the Hole" credits!)one Friday night. My wife watched it with me. She shuddered throughout, and had nightmares the rest of the weekend.
"Ace in the Hole" is my favorite Wilder movie. He must've been looking into a crystal ball when he wrote the script. News and entertainment have become irretrievably blurred -- he knew it was coming and warned us, but nobody wanted to listen.

7:40 AM  
Blogger Michael said...

Griff-- yes, TCM ran it with an Ace in the Hole title card.

12:28 AM  
Blogger The Siren said...

Where have I been that I haven't discovered this amazing blog? (having a baby, for one thing, but never mind.) This place is fantastic, I absolutely love it. This piece is especially interesting to me because I just wrote up Ace in the Hole at my place and at NewCritics. Thanks for the corrective to the CW about Paramount dumping it; that notion was all over the materials posted at Film Forum, for one thing.

I shall return!

9:47 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I finally caught up with this film on TCM the other day. It IS a marvelously done film. It is also one of the "feel bad" films of that year and produced on the scale of a Cecil B. DeMille film. No wonder it didn't do too well. If I were a working stiff of that time looking for a bit of relaxation with my wife at the local Bijou ACE IN THE HOLE/THE BIG CARNIVAL wouldn't have been my choice. I'm not condemning the film but its lack of broad appeal is also understandable.

I’m glad Wilder got to do it and I’m glad someone at Paramount decided to fund it but there really wasn’t the audience for it.

Spencer Gill (opticalguy1954@yahoo.com

11:51 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

grbrpix@aol.com
  • December 2005
  • January 2006
  • February 2006
  • March 2006
  • April 2006
  • May 2006
  • June 2006
  • July 2006
  • August 2006
  • September 2006
  • October 2006
  • November 2006
  • December 2006
  • January 2007
  • February 2007
  • March 2007
  • April 2007
  • May 2007
  • June 2007
  • July 2007
  • August 2007
  • September 2007
  • October 2007
  • November 2007
  • December 2007
  • January 2008
  • February 2008
  • March 2008
  • April 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2008
  • July 2008
  • August 2008
  • September 2008
  • October 2008
  • November 2008
  • December 2008
  • January 2009
  • February 2009
  • March 2009
  • April 2009
  • May 2009
  • June 2009
  • July 2009
  • August 2009
  • September 2009
  • October 2009
  • November 2009
  • December 2009
  • January 2010
  • February 2010
  • March 2010
  • April 2010
  • May 2010
  • June 2010
  • July 2010
  • August 2010
  • September 2010
  • October 2010
  • November 2010
  • December 2010
  • January 2011
  • February 2011
  • March 2011
  • April 2011
  • May 2011
  • June 2011
  • July 2011
  • August 2011
  • September 2011
  • October 2011
  • November 2011
  • December 2011
  • January 2012
  • February 2012
  • March 2012
  • April 2012
  • May 2012
  • June 2012
  • July 2012
  • August 2012
  • September 2012
  • October 2012
  • November 2012
  • December 2012
  • January 2013
  • February 2013
  • March 2013
  • April 2013
  • May 2013
  • June 2013
  • July 2013
  • August 2013
  • September 2013
  • October 2013
  • November 2013
  • December 2013
  • January 2014
  • February 2014
  • March 2014
  • April 2014
  • May 2014
  • June 2014
  • July 2014
  • August 2014
  • September 2014
  • October 2014
  • November 2014
  • December 2014
  • January 2015
  • February 2015
  • March 2015
  • April 2015
  • May 2015
  • June 2015
  • July 2015
  • August 2015
  • September 2015
  • October 2015
  • November 2015
  • December 2015
  • January 2016
  • February 2016
  • March 2016
  • April 2016
  • May 2016
  • June 2016
  • July 2016
  • August 2016
  • September 2016
  • October 2016
  • November 2016
  • December 2016
  • January 2017
  • February 2017
  • March 2017
  • April 2017
  • May 2017
  • June 2017
  • July 2017
  • August 2017
  • September 2017
  • October 2017
  • November 2017
  • December 2017
  • January 2018
  • February 2018
  • March 2018
  • April 2018
  • May 2018
  • June 2018
  • July 2018
  • August 2018
  • September 2018
  • October 2018
  • November 2018
  • December 2018
  • January 2019
  • February 2019
  • March 2019
  • April 2019
  • May 2019
  • June 2019
  • July 2019
  • August 2019
  • September 2019
  • October 2019
  • November 2019
  • December 2019
  • January 2020
  • February 2020
  • March 2020
  • April 2020
  • May 2020
  • June 2020
  • July 2020
  • August 2020
  • September 2020
  • October 2020
  • November 2020
  • December 2020
  • January 2021
  • February 2021
  • March 2021
  • April 2021
  • May 2021
  • June 2021
  • July 2021
  • August 2021
  • September 2021
  • October 2021
  • November 2021
  • December 2021
  • January 2022
  • February 2022
  • March 2022
  • April 2022
  • May 2022
  • June 2022
  • July 2022
  • August 2022
  • September 2022
  • October 2022
  • November 2022
  • December 2022
  • January 2023
  • February 2023
  • March 2023
  • April 2023
  • May 2023
  • June 2023
  • July 2023
  • August 2023
  • September 2023
  • October 2023
  • November 2023
  • December 2023
  • January 2024
  • February 2024
  • March 2024