"I've met some hard-boiled eggs in my time. You're twenty minutes!"--Ace in the Hole
Sexy Banter: "Are you going to get down off your motorcycle and write me a ticket?"--Double Indemnity
Last night I saw two classic movies at the Revue directed by Billy Wilder, both of them for the third time. Wilder was a great director, though according to a memoir by Frank Sinatra's valet, he was rude to servants, which seems to me one of the worst things you can be.
The first one was Ace in the Hole, a noirish melodrama-black comedy with Kirk Douglas as a big-city reporter stuck in Albuquerque (Breaking Bad country!), who learns of a relic hunter trapped in a cave-in inside a sacred First Nations mountain, sees his ticket out of the sticks and delays his rescue so he can milk the story. It all ends badly, of course, and I can believe it was a box-office failure. The company that sets up a carnival for the rubbernecks is called "S & M Amusement": even in the Production Code era they could get a lot past the censors!
Douglas was at his best playing antiheroes in the early 1950's, other examples being Champion, Detective Story and The Bad and the Beautiful. Like Richard Burton, he comes across better in black and white movies like this one than in color. Jan Sterling also has a good role as the relic hunter's discontented wife. (She reminded me of someone, and I realized she resembled a blond Katy Perry!)
The second was the famous film noir Double Indemnity, with Fred McMurray and Barbara Stanwyck plotting to murder Stanwyck's husband and get an insurance windfall. Wilder's direction is remarkably expert, considering that it was only his third movie. He wrote the script with the great Raymond Chandler, and it's full of sharp dialogue. The affable McMurray is brilliantly cast against type. (He reminded me of the real-life affable felon Ronald Reagan.) I especially admire the moment when the murder happens, and we're shown a closeup of Stanwyck, clearly turned on.
The other day at The Huffington Post I wrote a post saying "AIPAC [Israel's Washington lobby] is certainly one of Washington's more powerful lobbies," and it got deleted! When did obvious fact become offensive?
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