The gutter press sinks a little lower in Billy Wilder’s portrait of a city newshound kicking up dust in sleepy New Mexico.

Douglas doesn’t do anything to soften the sucker punch of the whipsmart, cynical, utterly ruthless Chuck Tatum, orchestrating a media circus around some poor schnook trapped in a collapsed mine.

“He’s pitched at 95 miles an hour plus for the duration,” says My Winnipeg director Guy Maddin of Douglas’ performance. “When his fame-drunk newspaperman barks out ‘Pulitzer Prize!’ the twin ‘P’s are like dumdum bullets from an ack-ack gun.”

Greatest Moment: The opening sequence: Chuck rides into town in a broken-door car and fast talks himself into a job on the local rag.

Also See: Doc Holliday (Gunfight At The OK Corral), Colonel Dax (Paths Of Glory), Spartacus (Spartacus), Jack Andrus (Two Weeks In Another Town).