Charles Tatum, a down-on-his-luck reporter, takes a job with a small New Mexico newspaper. The job is pretty boring until he finds a man trapped in an old Indian dwelling. He jumps at the chance to make a name for himself by taking over and prolonging the rescue effort, and feeding stories to major newspapers. He creates a national media sensation and milks it for all it is worth - until things go terribly wrong.
Billy Wilder's blacker-than-night dissection of modern American society is a must-see. No one is safe in this flick: not the dutiful wife, the tenacious reporter, nor the media that regurgitates their culture's shortcomings back at them. As the S&M Entertainment wagons role in (pun certainly intended), the earth starts to crack underneath in revulsion. Needless to say, it was a commercial failure but a film whose bravery and cynicism is rewarded more and more as time goes on.