BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

ockiemilkwood To hell and back. Prologue: The salivating mob goes racing by, greedy and buggy, chasing the American dream like a doped-up greyhound at Corpus Christi racetrack, totally under the hypnotic spell of the Media Machine, screeching, "Please, please, give us the latest, blockbuster CGI fix, anything to relieve the oppressive boredom of reality!" (Day of the Locust redux.) Tease: Meanwhile, in some dusty, forgotten corner, far from the madding crowd, lies a buried gem, a goofy, superb "noire" fantasy, superbly written (Ben Hecht), superbly produced (Joan Harrison) and superbly acted (Wanda Hendrix, Thomas Gomez). What a pleasure, how refreshing and rejuvenating, to stumble onto this. We are, after all, not the slaves of the Media Machine and its CGI heroin. There is hope. The meat: This movie is thematic, B-movie grungy, relentlessly expository, as economic as the Bible, AND spits out dialogue like bullets ... God, what a treat! What it is : A ramrod straight, WWII vet (Robt Montgomery), with a large pistola in his belt, marches straight into the jaws of hell, on the Mexican fringes of 1947 post-war, WASP American society, seeking justice, revenge and bucks. Murderous sharks circle round him, certain to eat him up alive. And he's rescued from the jaws of death by whom? By a fat, unshaven merry-go-round operator (Gomez) and a wide-eyed, virginal teenage guardian angel (Hendrix), who sees death in his face!

zardoz-13 The grim, enigmatic, but compelling Universal-International Pictures release "Ride the Pink Horse" ranks as a robust, first-rate, post-World War II, film noir melodrama. A hard-boiled former serviceman sets out to blackmail a wealthy, white-collar crook that had one of his war-time pals murdered. The action unfolds in a small, anonymous, New Mexico town named San Pablo during an annual festival, but it is fairly obvious that lenser Russell Metty photographed the action on a Universal backlot. Interestingly enough, the studio imported the carousel that figures prominently in the film title. The setting lends a decidedly Hispanic quality to the film so that it resembles a contemporary western. Later, after our hero runs afoul of the villains, he has to rely on Mexicans to conceal him from the villain's thugs, kind of like Clint Eastwood had to do in "A Fistful of Dollars." Our roughshod hero is named Gagin; in Dorothy B. Hughes' novel, she simply referred to him as Sailor. Gagin (Robert Montgomery of "Night Must Fall") climbs off a Greyhound bus, stashes a canceled $100-thousand check in a bus station pay locker, hides the key, and then tracks down the villain at the local hotel. The first scene when he arrives in town and conceals the check in the locker is brilliantly done in one long, unbroken take that follows Gagin inside and back outside without any physical cuts. Gagin folds a blank piece of stationary, stuffs it into an envelope, and then scrawls the villain's name on it. After he hands the letter to the hotel desk clerk, Gagin watches as the clerk inserts the letter into a numbered slot where mail is place. Eventually, Gagin will demand $30-thousand in exchange for the infamous check. He packs an automatic pistol, and he is pretty savvy until he tries to play the game according to the villain's rules. Along the way, Gagin befriends a cheerful, tubby Mexican, Pancho (Thomas (Gomez in an Oscar nominated role), who operates a carousel. Pancho treats Gagin as a friend and even lets him sleep in his bed when our hero cannot find a hotel room in town. Hugo (Fred C. Clark in a non-comedic role) is the chief villain, and he is accustoming to getting anything that he wants. He smokes cigars and wears a hearing aid. We're never told anything about this gizmo, but in some ways it makes Hugo seem like even more sinister. If villains are supposed to look abnormal, then the hearing aid serves to characterize Hugo as a bad guy. Hugo—it seems--was a war-profiteer who has made a fortune. Hugo isn't easily frightened by Gagin, who spent time in New Guinea, and speaks derisively about Shorty who he had hired as a bodyguard. "Too bad your pal Shorty turned out to be a crook. Got himself all crumbed up reaching for easy money." A friendly but inquisitive Federal agent, Retz (a fatherly Art Smith), knows what Gagin is looking for and tries to talk in out of blackmailing Hugo. Eventually, some forty-two minutes into the film, Gagin gets to sit down with Hugo in his hotel room and discuss his blackmail proposition. Hugo They reach an agreement to meet later in the evening, and Hugo will hand over thirty grand in currency for the check in a local restaurant. Meantime, one of Hugo's seductive associates, Marjorie Lundeen (Andrea King), tries to convince Gagin to ask for $100-thousand and entrust the check to an attorney. Gagin refuses to follow Marjorie's shrewd advice. At the restaurant, Marjorie confronts Gagin, and this devious dame lures him outside in the shadows to smoke a cigarette. Actually, she sets Gagin up so they will be standing together alone in the shadows where nobody can see them. Andrea King's presence as a duplicitous woman is about as close as "Ride the Pink Horse" gets to being a film noir. Two of Hugo's stealthy hoodlums assault and stab Gagin while the treacherous Marjorie watches without emotion. Our resourceful hero kills one of them and leaves the other one face down in the street. Retz finds the dead and the wounded man and informs Hugo that Gagin has effectively thwarted him. The last thing applies to the femme fatale that plays with vigor. Gagin isn't really a hero, but you like him because he is squaring off against an affluent, ruthless adversary. Montgomery plays Gagin as part hard head and part hero. He doesn't really behave like a straight-up, clean-cut, churchgoer. The neatest touch in the entire film occurs when Montgomery does a lap dissolve from Hugo chewing on a steak to a monstrous doll, the symbol of bad luck, being paraded through the town as part of the fiesta. Incidentally, for people who love details, the San Pablo festival takes place in September."Ride the Pink Horse" was based on a Dorothy B. Hughes novel and Hollywood heavyweights Ben "The Front Page" Hecht penned the script with Charles Lederer. Thomas Gomez makes quite an impression as the affable Pancho. The film derives its title from Pancho's merry-go around, and at one point our battered hero has to ride it. Wanda Hendrix gives a very good performance as Pila, a helpful Mexican flaquita who comes to Gagin's aid. She learns something about life from the abrasive Gagin. He teaches her what a dame or a babe is: a woman with a heart like a cold fish that cares about nothing but herself. Andrea King stands out as a semi-femme fatale. A neat little scene occurs in the latter half of the film when Pila hides Gagin on the merry-go around while Pancho takes a beating from two of Hugo's hoods. The camera is focused on the foreground with Pila hiding Gagin while in the background we catch a glimpse of the strong arm guys giving it to Pancho.Criterion has done an exceptional job putting "Ride the Pink Horse" on Blu-Ray/DVD.

SHAWFAN I saw this film when I was a young boy when it first came out in 1947 but didn't truly appreciate it till I saw it on TCM the other night again. I agree with all your commentators as to its enigmatic mystery and its possible shortfalls attributable to Montgomery vis a vis Bogart. I found the dialogue and the monologues gripping. In later looking this movie up here I discovered why: the script was by Ben Hecht (of Front Page fame). No wonder it was so great. As many of your commentators point out (and very perceptively too) the individual performances of Gomez, Hendrix, Clark, etc. were all splendid, not to forget Montgomery himself. But TCM must have edited the film or else I fell asleep watching it: I definitely did not see Gomez being beaten up by anyone while being watched by uncomprehending children. That part was definitely not in the version that I watched, sad to say. One of the strongest parts of the film was the disillusionment and cynicism expressed by the Montgomery character against patriotism, and WWII and its profiteers in typical film-noir fashion. Also strikingly evocative and disturbing was the final scene in which the innocent-appearing and passive Hendrix character finally opens up to her friends and re-enacts the events of the film in a vivacious and cynical way to show her friends how sophisticated she is after all. What a dash of cold water in the face of those who expected a romantic ending between two such repressed characters who made a specialty out of never showing their emotions. A great, great movie.

e-harding I was in the process of reading this book and then started watching a movie without knowing what the movie was. It was deja vu all of the sudden. It turned out to be this movie. I think that Robert Montgomery did a great job of capturing the character that was in the book. Tough but naive at the same time. A very good noir film that should get more play and recognition.The dark atmosphere,the craziness of the music and the partying in the background all the time as the story unfolds. Maybe I had a leg up reading the book almost first. It's very rare when I think a movie based on a book is just as good as the book. I felt sympathy for Robert Montgomery's character. All the time thinking he was going to lose to the cheats. He had his own principals and stuck to them.Can't say enough.Good movie.