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drama film
starring Kirk Douglas
as a cynical, disgraced reporter who stops at nothing to try to regain a job on a major newspaper.
It marked a series of firsts for auteur
Billy Wilder
: it was the first time he was involved in a project as a writer, producer, and director; his first film following his breakup with long-time writing partner Charles Brackett
, with whom he had collaborated on The Lost Weekend and Sunset Boulevard
, among others; and his first film to be a critical and commercial failure.
The story is a biting examination of the seedy relationship between the press, the news it reports and the manner in which it reports it.
How'd you like to make a thousand dollars a day, Mr. Boot? I'm a thousand-dollar-a-day newspaperman. You can have me for nothing.
I've done a lot of lying in my time. I've lied to men who wear belts. I've lied to men who wear suspenders. But I'd never be so stupid as to lie to a man who wears both belt and suspenders.
It's a good story today. Tomorrow, it'll be yesterday's news and they'll wrap a fish in it.
I can handle big news and little news. And if there's no news, I'll go out and bite a dog.
I've met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my time, but you--you're twenty minutes.