Billy Wilder's 1951 movie "Ace in the Hole" asks a very important and relevant question even in our day and age.
"Can we trust what we hear from the media?" Or the much larger
question, "Can we keep ourselves from being manipulated by the
media?"
The answer of course is an emphatic "No!"
If you knew Billy Wilder, you would know that no one could tell this story any better than Wilder himself, because
Wilder was the world's undisputed best manipulator of media illusion,
as we will show.
For the best lies, there has to be a lot of truth mixed in. So indeed,
there is a lot of truth in Wilder's story. Not all of which is evident
to the movie-goer.
First Truth about Ace in the Hole
The first truth, which everyone knew in 1951 when they watched the
movie in theaters, is that Wilder created and produced his movie based
upon the true life story of Floyd Collins, who died on February 13,
1925 of starvation, waiting 14 days for a failed rescue attempt to
retrieve him from being trapped in a Kentucky cave trying to find a new
entrance to a series of popular underground caves. The doomed efforts
to save Floyd became a nationwide newspaper sensation and one of the
first major sensations of the new amateur radio technology.
Wilder's
movie looks and feels like a sensational true-life Hollywood
reenactment of the Floyd Collins story, and indeed, the moral of the
story is about media sensation, which we have come to call "media
circuses". The movie resembled the story of Floyd Collins so much
that Wilder was sued for infringing upon the Collins story rights --
and lost.
But there's far more to the story than just a trapped man
and the media frenzy surrounding the story. This is also a story about Billy Wilder, the Jewish director and producer.
Roger Ebert' Critical Review (Partial)
Wilder, born in Austria, a
refugee from Hitler, certainly became one of America's greatest
directors. But he never bought into the American dream. What he saw in
Europe warned him off dreams. Although "Ace in the Hole" has always
been considered one of his greatest films, its rejection by the
marketplace isn't surprising: Moviegoers like crime, like suspense,
like violence, but they like happy endings, and Wilder is telling them
to wake up and smell the coffee.
When the film was released, the press complained about its portrait of
news practices and standards, even though the story was inspired by a
real media circus when a man named Floyd Collins was trapped in a
Kentucky cave. Today, it is hard to imagine some segments of the press
not recognizing their hunger for sensation. The same might be said of
the public; after the movie was finished, the studio sold admissions to
its mountain sets outside Gallup, N.M.
Second Truth about Ace in the Hole
The second and much greater truth is that this Ace in the Hole movie
could just as well have been based upon Billy Wilder's role in
portraying the Holocaust to the world in his directorial masterpiece, "The Holocaust".
"Ace in the Hole"
comparison to
"The Holocaust Story"
Bad reputation found out
Kirk Douglas played Charles Tatum, a reporter thrown out of 11 big
city newspapers for lying, cheating, drinking and even bedding the
editor's wife.
Billy Wilder, like many
Jews, had a bad reputation among the big-city Christian nations
of Europe and was thrown out of one after another country for
wearing out their welcome by lying, cheating, drinking and whoring, but
worst, by seducing and manipulating good Christians into the
same. Wilder came to Germany from Austria to make movies
just before Hitler took power.
Hid where no one knows about badTatum
had to settle for a primitive backwoods newspaper in Albuquerque, New
Mexico where nothing bad ever happened. "Good news was just as
bad as no news" to a star reporter! The editor of the newspaper, Jacob
Q. Boot, being the good Christian that he was, took Tatum in and gave
him a job with the stipulation that he behave himself. TRUTH was Jacob
Boot's byword for his newspaper and he meant it, even star reporters
had to report the TRUTH.
When Hitler's Germany tired
of the Jews as well, Wilder was forced to move on, where he settled in
the primitive backwoods country of the United States; a place where bad
things rarely happened and the people innocently believed in the truth,
especially the truth they received from their proudly "freedom of the
press" newspapers being led by good Christian editors.
Scoop of his life, just like events from the current past
Tatum was on his way to cover a boring and uneventful rattlesnake hunt
when he came upon the scoop of his life. Like trapped cave
explorer Floyd Collins in 1925, local merchant Leo Minosa was exploring
an abandoned silver mine next to an ancient Indian burial ground inside a cliff dwelling cave when he
got trapped. Tatum realized the human interest appeal of this
entrapment and immediately set upon a plan of action which would propel
him back to hero status among big city newspapers, while receiving a
good payout on top of that.
Like the true life human
interest story of the Holodomor which Jewish newsmen like Wilder
refused to cover, because that would have been about Jews
ruthlessly and methodically causing the deaths of 7 million Ukrainian
Christians during the winter of 1932-33, Wilder hit upon the human
interest story of the Holocaust where he could report on the detention
of European Jews much as America detained Japanese. This would restore him
to hero status among the big countries of Europe and the payout
for him was not so bad either.
The scoop needed to be embellished for maximum effect
Tatum was going to spice up his scoop one better. This was not Floyd
Collins cave-in repeat, this was not a cave in of an abandoned silver mine. no, this was revenge and curse of Indian spirits
for Leo Minosa despoiling their ancient burial ground under the
Mountain of the Seven Vultures. This was a mummy's curse of the King Tut tomb
right here in America.
Wilder was going to spice up
the Holodomor story one better. The Wilder Holocaust story was not just
the story about mass genocide as was so boringly done in the Holodmor
with simple starvation. That would not have caught the attention of the
world and sold tickets to his movie.
No, this story had to be grander and more sinister. This
Hollywood story would be about death at the hands of Nazi Germans using
forbidden WW1 military-grade death gas. The most feared death
imaginable in those days before the invention of nuclear bombs. Unlike
the Holodomor, where the authorities just locked up the country and
turned their backs until 7 million had died (Boring!!!), in Wilder's
movie, the Nazis had to be men of action in every evil sense of the
word. Germans were known to be a Christian civilized people, so no one
would actually believe Wilder's stories would they? Indeed they
would.
The shrunken heads and human lampshades presented in the Wilder
occupation movies were soon exposed as frauds, but the others have
persisted.
Shrunken heads as done by deep dark African tribes;
Human skin lamp shades as you may expect Amazon aboriginal tribes to have done;
Human sacrifice of innocent women and children as in Aztec, Mayan, or Incas;
Human experimentation as in a real Dr. Frankenstein movie;
Biblical genocide as in what Jews have always "innocently" experienced.
Distributing the scripts and practicing the lines -- locals of interest
Tatum had a problem. He needed a loving and grieving wife to present to
his growing readership to show that Leo Minosa was a common Joe like
they were themselves. After all, why should the readers care for the
fate of Leo if his own wife wished him dead? Truth was that the wife was looking
for any opportunity to skip town and to leave Leo to die. Leo had
brought her to this God-forsaken land and their store only sold a few
hamburgers a week aided with just a little more gasoline sales. She was trapped in
poverty and longed for the big city. Tatum promised her fame and
fortune when the first thrill seekers started arriving, first one,
then two, then a stream. Leo's wife was seeing dollar bills in her
dreams. She was now a team player. Americans grieved with her.
Americans had the same hope she had.
Wilder had a problem.
Americans were not that much more sympathetic toward Jews as Germans
were. In 1945, there were plenty of Americans still living who
remembered the world's greatest railroad heist, where in 1901,
America's premier Jewish banker, Jacob Schiff, pulling in tow his
"Jewish banking family" at Kuhn, Loeb and company, along with
Rothschild and others' money, made the most scheming and daring Wall
Street heist of the century in gaining control over the Northern
Pacific transcontinental railroad without J.P. Morgan or Great Northern
railroad genius James Hill even suspecting, and bankrupting tens of
thousands of investors along the way.
Then there were the millions of Americans who
sympathized with the plight of Germans under the "reparations" slavery
of Jewish bankers wanting the money paid back they had loaned to
European governments to pay for WW1, a war for Jews it would seem since they
were the only ones who benefited by gaining Palestine from the
Ottomans.
Finally, there were plenty of Americans who were rightfully concerned that the
same German Jews who had orchestrated the Bolshevik Revolution were
now attempting to orchestrate an encore performance in Germany.
No, Wilder needed moving human interest stories to counter
American's apathy toward the outcome of Jews. Wilder would obtain that
with his human interest stories of the infamous "Holocaust survivors".
Seems it was not that difficult to arrange for ordinary Jews to desire to become
famous by having them recite their own personal and heroically embellished version of "The Holocaust Story".
Americans would be shocked and aghast at the human interest stories of
always innocent, always worthwhile Jewish martyrs having ghastly
atrocities performed against them. The Jewish martyr brigade was fully on
board the Wilder Propaganda movie machine.
Distributing the scripts and practicing the lines -- the authorities
The local sheriff hated Tatum, but he was up for a tight
reelection. When Tatum wrote his stories, the sheriff was
characterized as the heroic commander of the rescue scene, Tatum tells
the sheriff that he will win election if and only if Tatum continues to
write glowing articles about him. The unsaid corollary was what
horrible things about the sheriff Tatum would write if the sheriff did
not cooperate. In return, Tatum only had one request -- that the
sheriff would keep out all the big time press who would be arriving
soon -- and the sheriff did just as instructed. With this carrot,
the sheriff was more than happy to give Tatum his exclusive on the
story. The sheriff may have even had dreams of state-wide notice of his heroics and
would vie to become the next governor.
The man no one could defeat,
American President FDR was now dead and there were three American
war hero generals who could lay claim to the Presidency of the United
States in the election following the end of WW2.
There was the
returning hero of the Pacific theater, who was the naval commander in
the Philippines at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, General
Douglas MacArthur, disgraced and drummed out of his job by liberal
Truman.
Then there was the man who had killed more Germans than all the
other commanders combined, while having less than 10% as many
casualties as all others combined, tank commander General Patton, who
was mysteriously killed in a car crash shortly after his duties to the
country in WW2 was concluded. (see The Assassination of General Patton)
Finally, there was the man liberal FDR placed in charge over more
senior and experienced Generals, General Dwight Eisenhower.
Eisenhower's nickname was the Swedish Jew at West Point and for some
odd reason Jewish producer Billy Wilder liked him. Wilder must have
gone to Eisenhower and informed him that if he gave Wilder exclusive
rights to the story of the German work camps, with General Eisenhower
shown proudly seen liberating the work camps with Wilder's
cameras, then Eisenhower would be a shoe-in as the next President of
the United States. The strategy with Eisenhower must have worked
perfectly because Wilder was called by Eisenhower
to "document" the "Holocaust" so that "The world would NEVER
FORGET".
"Lights, Camera, Action!"
Distributing the scripts and practicing the lines -- technical expertise
The mining engineer arrived at the scene, quickly surmised the
situation and determined that he could free the trapped relic hunter
within 16 hours. "No, no. no! you can't go so fast, that cave is
dangerous," Tatum told the engineer in the presence of the
now-corrupted sheriff. "You must use state-of-the-art drilling
equipment to drill from the top," said Tatum wanting to milk the story
for all its worth. "But that will take over a week", said the engineer.
"EXACTLY!," said Tatum, "It's safer and more importantly, it will
show off your wonderful engineering expertise. Why, you will have
more engineering contracts than you could handle." With a look at
a nodding sheriff also wanting attention rivited to the story, the engineer put
away the logs he would have used to shore up the timbers in the cave, and ordered the drilling equipment to be delivered.
Eisenhower allowed Jewish
members of his Psy-Ops team to enter the
camps before anyone else, where they planted "evidence of Nazi
atrocities" -- gladly filmed later by Wilder after the camps opened to
the public, with the same psy-ops guys providing the technical
explanation of the methods used and psychological reasons for doing
so.
Billy Wilder's set construction was organized and performed by Jewish First Lieutenant Edward A. Tenenbaum of PsyOps.
The shrunken heads
and human skin lampshades would later disappear of course since they
were so easily proved to be frauds. Even if fraudulently done to
impinge the decency of Germans, the intention was good. All done to
help make America look like the world's hero and to
distract from the likes of the heartless fire-bombing of Christian
Dresden and nuclear genocide of non-Christian Hiroshima and Nagasaki
cities -- all filled with their hundreds of thousands of innocent women
and children. Remember, the purpose of our Pys-Ops was not just
to undermine the morals of Germans but to raise the morals of
Americans.
It's showtime!
With the media circus frenzy at its height, Tatum knew the time was
ripe to cash in on his King Tut's mummy curse in the desert story of a haunted Indian
burial sight, with grieving wife, skillful engineer and protective
sheriff. The sheriff had kept naysayers and competing reporters away.
The story was his and his alone to tell. He quit his small time newspaper, then made his demand to the
big city newspaper gods for them to bid for his exclusive right to the story. His demands met, he was amply rewarded, so long
as he kept his exclusive coverage coming. Newspaper sales were booming
and everyone was getting rich and famous -- except for Leo who was slowly
dying from exposure.
Wilder's release of his
Holocaust movie could not have been more successful. Eisenhower
became President; the "Holocaust survivors" got their riches back as
reparations -- and more so when Judeo-Hollywood mass-produced over 250
Holocaust movies to cash in on the media circus Wilder had
created; the government finally came around to joining a world
body called the United Nations, its central bank now ran by Jews who joined
the Bank of International Settlement giving over American economic
sovereignty to an international body , and just 3 years later, Jews who
they said were all killed off by Hitler, seemed to have enough Jews on
hand to do what they had not had the numbers to do in 2,000 years, they
took control of Jerusalem again.
"All's well that ends well."
Yes, Wilder insured that the fictional character of Kirk Douglas's
Charles Tatum self-destructs after he becomes aware of the evil he has
wrought, proving the old Hollywood maxim that "evil never wins" -- but
the real life characters of Billy Wilder's world lived rich and happy
lives.
Billy Wilder was a real, live and breathing Charles Tatum reporting on
the most sensationalized media circus story of its day, the Holocaust.
Lessons Learned
In a democracy, without a healthy media competition for ideas and
truth, the non-competing media decides and dictates to the government,
not the government deciding and dictating to the media.
As civilization "advances", we have replaced unelected Christian
monarchs in Christian countries or dictators like Napoleon and Hitler,
with elected
politicians in Parliaments and legislatures, only to free up a media
ran by Jews to become the defacto monarch or dictator of Christian
countries.
Freedom of the Press is an ideal -- for tyranny -- not freedom -- if
there is only one press and there are no controls on it. That is,
if the government has its own hands tied with a Constitutional
Amendment stating that the media, even a monopolistic media, can say whatever it wants,
however it wants to say it -- then they have won, and we have lost.
The media watch dog insuring against governmental dominance, has
instead, turned into a media attack dog against any threats to its
dominance.
The media watch dog against government intrusion into our lives,
becomes instead, has become a government hound dog snooping into our lives.
Billy Wilder did not originate the idea for the movie Ace in the Hole
from his own imagination, but from his own experience in filming and
"documenting" the Holocaust.
It was pretty daring for him to expose his own techniques for
controlling the masses, so he must have felt pretty invincible. And he was right as
history has proving him right.
Indeed, to be sure, true freedom of the press occurs where many media
outlets are equally competing against each other for the truth, the
whole truth and nothing but the truth.
All major media based out of New York City hardly argues well for a
healthy and competitive media industry, but instead argues for a
"Community of Interest" as the railroad industry used to do around the
turn of the last century before the trust busters moved in.