Ride the Pink Horse

Ride the Pink Horse

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Robert Montgomery
Produced by Joan Harrison
Screenplay by Ben Hecht
Charles Lederer
Based on The novel Ride the Pink Horse
by Dorothy B. Hughes
Starring Robert Montgomery
Wanda Hendrix
Thomas Gomez
Music by Frank Skinner
Cinematography Russell Metty
Edited by Ralph Dawson
Production
company
Universal International
Distributed by Universal International
Release dates
  • October 8, 1947 (1947-10-08) (United States)
Running time
 101 minutes
Country United States
Language English

Ride the Pink Horse is a 1947 film noir mystery film produced by Universal Studios. It was directed by the actor Robert Montgomery from a screenplay by Ben Hecht, which was based on a novel of the same name by Dorothy B. Hughes. The drama features Robert Montgomery, Wanda Hendrix, Andrea King, Thomas Gomez and Art Smith. Gomez was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance.[1]

An army veteran known only as Gagin travels to San Pablo, a rural New Mexican town, to avenge the death of his old war time buddy. As a man devoid of identity, some of the villagers refer to Gagin as "the man with no place."

Plot

Lucky Gagin (Robert Montgomery) arrives on a bus in San Pablo, a small rural town in New Mexico during its annual fiesta. He plans to confront and blackmail money from a mobster named Frank Hugo (Fred Clark) as retribution for the death of his best friend Shorty. He unpacks the Colt 45 pistol from his luggage, sticks it in his waistband, places the check in question in locker 250, and secretes the locker key with a piece of chewing gum to the back of the framed map in the bus depot waiting room.

Because of the fiesta, Gagin cannot find a room at the hotel by the bus station. He is directed to the non-tourist side of the town. At the merry go round there, he meets Pila (Wanda Hendrix) who takes him to the La Fonda Hotel and gives his a charm of Ishtam that she says will protect him.

At the hotel, Gagin uses a ruse to find out that Frank Hugo is in room 315. Gagin comes, uninvited, into the hotel room, and proceeds to knock out Jonathan (Richard Gaines), Hugo's private secretary. Marjorie Lundeen (Andrea King), a sophisticated female acquaintance of Hugo's, comes in and uses her wiles trying to learn more about him. When the telephone rings, Gagin answers and impersonates a bell boy. Speaking with Hugo, he learns that Hugo will not be there that day. Gagin leaves the room and in the hotel lobby, he is accosted by FBI agent Bill Retz (Art Smith). In his conversation with Gagin, Retz recounts the plot so far. Retz takes Gagin to lunch and tells Gagin to lay off with his plot for revenge on Frank Hugo.

Still looking for a room, Gagin ends up at the Cantina de las Tres Violetas, where Pila is inexplicably sitting outside. Going inside, Gagin finds himself to be the only Caucasian in the bar. He buys himself a large whiskey and pays for it with a twenty dollar bill. The barkeep can only make change for ten dollars and the situation is resolved by Pancho (Thomas Gomez), who proposes that Gagin buy ten dollars worth of drinks for everyone in the bar.

Gagin, having spent twenty dollars at the bar, accompanies Pancho back to his tiovivo where Pancho puts him up for the night. Pila arrives at the merry go round and ends up sleeping in one of the seats on the carousel. Retz also shows up and warns Gagin of the toughs and tells him that if he could readily find Gagin, so will the toughs.

The next morning, Gagin goes back to the hotel where he meets Frank Hugo, who wears a hearing aid. Gagin tells Hugo that he has check number 6431 and proceeds to layout the blackmail. They agree to meet that evening at the Tip Top Cafe, where Hugo will pay Gagin the thirty thousand dollars for the incriminating check.

Retz meets Gagin and "officially" asks for the evidence, which Gagin refuses to hand over. Gagin takes Pila to lunch and they are interrupted by the arrival of Marjorie Lundeen. She lays out a scheme for how to shakedown Frank Hugo for even more money, but Gagin does not go along with Marjorie's plan.

After the lunch, Gagin returns to the bus depot where he retrieves the check and follows the fiesta crowd to the Tip Top Cafe. He meets with Hugo, who is having dinner with his associates. Hugo tells Gagin that the bank messenger with the money will be late. Marjorie invites Gagin to dance with her, and in order to not be seen by Hugo, she walks Gagin outside to a dark alley. There, she tells him that there is no messenger, but someone else. The response to Gagin's query as to who is coming is two toughs who jump him. In the ensuing fight, one of them stabs Gagin in the right shoulder with a knife. Retz finds the two toughs in the alley, one dead and one with a broken arm, and confronts Hugo at the dining table. While the police search the area, Pila finds Gagin in the bushes, pulls the knife out of his back, and together they make their way back to Pancho and the merry go round.

Gagin gives the check to Pila, who hides it in her bustier. Two toughs come to the tiovivo. With Gagin hidden in one of the seats by Pila, and children riding the carousel, the toughs proceed to severely beat Pancho, who does not divulge the presence of Gagin. Gagin, whose health and mental state are failing, agrees to go with Pila back by bus to her village of San Melo. While they are waiting in the Tres Violetas, they are found by Locke (Edward Earle) and Lundeen. When Locke approaches the now passed out Gagin, Pila hits him with a bottle and they make their escape, leaving Marjorie to find Locke lying on the floor the cantina.

Gagin makes his way back to the La Fonda Hotel, where Pila finds him outside room 315. The door is opened by one of Hugo's toughs and the duo is brought in to the room,where Frank Hugo, Marjorie Lundeen, Jonathan, and the two toughs are present. Hugo begins to question the now incoherent Gagin, who does not remember where the check is. He is beaten by one of the toughs, who then proceed to also beat Pila. Retz arrives, disarms the toughs, breaks Hugo's hearing aid, and ultimately gets the check from Gagin.

At a two dollar breakfast the next day with Retz, Gagin refuses to eat. Retz tells Gagin that he should say goodbye to Pila and Pancho, and together they return to the merry go round. Gagin bids adieu to Pancho, and then, uncomfortably, to Pila, to whom he returns the Ishtam charm. As Retz and Gagin leave, Pila, who had been somewhat of an outcast with her peers, is surrounded by them. She recounts the story of her adventure and realizes that now she is the center attraction among her group.

Adaptation

In the novel, a character named "Sailor" rather than Frank Hugo has managed to obtain a deferment from military service. The film makes many details, including those of the blackmail scheme, less sordid, and adopts different names and occupations for the principal non-Mexican characters.

Although Gagin's first name is never mentioned in the film, the opening credits read: Robert Montgomery is Lucky Gagin.

When Gagin buys the chewing gum at the bus depot, the packet of gum is already sticking out of the vending machine even before he puts in the coin and turns the handle.

The film makes extensive use of Spanish language dialog which is not accompanied by translated subtitles.

The character Frank Hugo, as portrayed by Fred Clark, has more than a passing resemblance to Zozobra, the god of bad luck, who burned as part of the fiesta.

Cast

Background

The antique "Tio Vivo Carousel" built in 1882 in Taos, New Mexico, was the model for the carousel in the novel Ride The Pink Horse. It was purchased by the producers and shipped to the set of Universal where it was reconstructed for use in the film.[2] The burning of the Zozobra ("Old Man Gloom") effigy during the Fiestas de Santa Fe sets the time of the events in the film in early September. Part of the movie was filmed at the La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe.[3]

Later versions

The film was remade in 1964 as a TV movie called The Hanged Man, starring Robert Culp and directed by Don Siegel.[4]

A 1947 Lux Radio Theater adaptation with Montgomery and Hendrix can be heard at the Internet Archive.

Reception

According to Variety, the film earned less than $2 million at the box office.[5]

Bosley Crowther, film critic for the New York Times, liked the film, especially Robert Montgomery's direction, and wrote:

Mr. Montgomery, as director and star of this story, has contrived to make it look shockingly literal and keep it moving at an unrelenting pace. And he has also managed to lace it with grisly action and rugged sentiment without deceit. Indeed, he has artfully fashioned a fascinating film within the genre. He has done something else exceptional; he has given the other actors a real chance.

Crowther also praised the work of Fred Clark and Wanda Hendrix.[6]

A common theme in noir films is the post-war disillusionment experienced by many soldiers returning to a peacetime economy, which was mirrored in the sordidness of the urban crime film. In these films a serviceman returns to find his sweetheart unfaithful or a good friend dead. The war continues, but now the antagonism turns with a new viciousness toward American society itself. In Ride the Pink Horse, Gagin's quest to avenge his friend's death leads him to a small village in rural New Mexico, an unusual setting for the noir motif more typically associated with corrupt urban environments.[7]

Awards

Nominations

References

  1. ↑ Ride the Pink Horse at the Internet Movie Database.
  2. ↑ Silver, Alain, and Elizabeth Ward, eds. Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style, 3rd edition (Woodstock, New York: The Overlook Press, 1992), ISBN 0-87951-479-5, 242
  3. ↑ Hecht, Esther (January 2005). "The Jewish Traveler: Santa Fe". Hadassah Magazine. Retrieved November 24, 2015.
  4. ↑ The Hanged Man (television film) at the Internet Movie Database.
  5. ↑ Variety 7 January 1948
  6. ↑ Crowther, Bosley (October 9, 1947). "'Ride the Pink Horse,' Mystery Starring Robert Montgomery and Wanda Hendrix, Arrives at Winter Garden". New York Times. Retrieved September 1, 2015.
  7. ↑ Cobb, Sean. Film Noir: The Trouble with Genre, University of Arizona, 2005. Last accessed: December 7, 2007.
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