The Big Carnival (1951)

US 111m, B&W
Director: Billy Wilder; Cast: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur, Porter Hall

Once a big time city reporter, Chuck Tatum finds himself working for the Albuquerque Sun-Bulletin. In search for a story that will get him out of small town New Mexico, he stumbles across Leo Minosa, a man trapped in a collapsed cave. Recognizing the situation as an opportunity to create a sensational human interest story, the unscrupulous Tatum manipulates the rescue efforts to milk the story for all that it’s worth. As a charismatic but wholly unsympathetic character, Douglas delivers one of his finest performances which is in no small part based on the film’s smart dialogue (Klaus Ming January 2014).