Wilder's first script after breaking up with Charles Brackett was not a commercial success but is an extremely good movie. Ferociously tough, cynical, downbeat.
It has a strong concept and develops it logically - like a lot of Wilder script the structure is divine: starts with Tatum, the reporter, arriving in a small town (I love how he gets in by saying "tell your boss he can made $100 a week" and pitching himself as a $150 a week writer you can get for $50), jumping forward a year, and he goes to a small town to cover rattlesnakes then finds a man stuck in a cave. Tatum interviews him and decides to spin it out by encouraging the sheriff and rescuers to go a more complicated route. He gets the man's wife not to run away, plays up the Indian angle, pays off the sheriff via good publicity. Matters are complicated by the fact the man gets pneumonia.
Its not full of cuddly characters - the wife wants cash and an easy life and stabs Tatum, the photographer is corrupter. Mind you Wilder has empathy for all his characters. Also there are some sympathetic people - the father of the dead man, the principled small town newspaper editor. You need these to off set the cynicism.
A very strong script.
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