#750: MONTGOMERY, Robert: Ride The Pink Horse (1947)
MONTGOMERY, Robert (United States)
Commentary
Featuring film noir historians Alain Silver and James Ursini.
Lux Radio Theatre
Adaptation of the film from 1947, featuring Montgomery, Hendrix, and Gomez.
Ride The Pink Horse [1947]
Spine #750
Blu-ray
Blu-ray
Hollywood actor turned idiosyncratic auteur Robert Mongomery directs and stars in this striking crime drama based on a novel by Dorothy B. Hughes. He plays a tough-talking former GI who comes to a small New Mexico town to shake down a gangster who killed his best friend; things quickly turn nasty. Ride the Pink Horse features standout supporting performances by Fred Clark, Wanda Hendrix, and especially Thomas Gomez, who became the first Hispanic actor to receive an Academy Award nomination for his role here. With its relentless pace, expressive cinematography by the great Russell Metty, and punchy, clever script by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer, this is an overlooked treasure from the heyday of 1940s film noir.
101 minutes
Black & White
Black & White
Monaural
1:37:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2015
Director/Writers
From the novel by Dorothy B. Hughes.
Screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer.
Robert Montgomery was 43 when he directed Ride the Pink Horse.
The Film
The Film
Like a good noir should, Montgomery and his writers sprinkle clues throughout the scenario … or bits we are intended to remember for later revelation.
A good example is the opening scene of Gagin (Montgomery) in the bus station, taking a folded check and pitching it into a locker, then taking the key, casually buying a strip of chewing gum, and — making sure he’s not being watched — sticking the locker key to the gum and hiding it behind a map of New Mexico.
This guy is paranoid. (Montgomery is excellent.)
**
The one-liners are typically wonderful 1940’s dialogue:
Two cops are checking out some bodies:
“This one looks a little dead.”
The cast is terrific — Thomas Gomez (Pancho) was nominated for an Oscar; Pila (Wanda Hendrix) is suitably shy and coy until her final scene when she bursts out with a previously suppressed confidence. The bad guy — Hugo (Fred Clark) — is impressively evil until he’s knocked down size by the meek little Fed — an undeterred Bill Retz (Art Smith).
Apparently, Hugo’s moll, Marjorie (Andrea King) was modeled after the producer of the film, Joan Harrison — breezy, glamorous, big shoulder pads …
DP Russell Metty’s (Sirk, Welles) work is sharp and crisp; the New Mexico atmosphere of Old Mexico, combined with the script’s respect for the locals, reminds us of a time before everything turned into bland Whiteness …
Film Rating (0-60):
The Booklet
Twelve-page wraparound featuring an essay by filmmaker and writer Michael Almereyda.
55
The ExtrasThe Booklet
Twelve-page wraparound featuring an essay by filmmaker and writer Michael Almereyda.
“Hughes’s 1946 novel provides the atmosphere, the setting, the setup: an implacable thug, wading through rising levels of depression and fear, is stupid enough to think he can glide into a dingy New Mexican resort town to blackmail the rich and powerful man responsible for his friend’s death. Montgomery’s 1947 film version of Ride the Pink Horse stretches this premise to accommodate a heightened admission of postwar anxiety and despair, ingredients fundamental to all film noir, though Montgomery’s movie is, like its title, an oddity, engagingly off-kilter — at once gritty and gemlike, jaunty and doom-laden.”
Commentary
Featuring film noir historians Alain Silver and James Ursini.
These two noir experts cascade through the picture with all sorts of good deets about Montgomery, the production history, and interesting factoids about the filming. Montgomery’s long takes were unusual for that period. It is interesting that he got fed up with the business, and at the age of 56 (1960) gave it all up.
He gave the world a daughter who became famous for twitching her nose …
Interview
With Imogen Sara Smith, author of In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City.
Interview
With Imogen Sara Smith, author of In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City.
Smith makes an excellent point:
“‘What is film noir’ is this question that everyone is always asked, and it’s really interesting that it still is a question that there isn’t such an easy, obvious answer to. For instance, ‘is it a genre or not?’ is still controversial. To me, film noir is not a genre, because I think a genre is defined by a particular setting and a particular type of plot: a western, a war movie, a heist movie, or whatever, and to me, film noir is much more about a mood and a certain set of themes. Interiority and psychology are key. Noir has to delve into what drives people to crime and to violence, and it’s the expressions of alienation and disillusionment, anxiety, moral ambiguity and this sense of feeling trapped that is really what noir is about.”
Lux Radio Theatre
Adaptation of the film from 1947, featuring Montgomery, Hendrix, and Gomez.
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