“BORDER TOWN NOIR”

By Raymond Benson

Most film noir pictures take place in urban centers—New York City, Los Angeles—where the big city is as much a character as the unhappy humans in these often bleak and brutal, sometimes brilliant, Hollywood crime films that spanned the early forties to the late fifties. Film noir peaked in the latter half of the forties, with an abundance of the classic titles released between 1946-1948.

One of the more unique things about Ride the Pink Horse is that the urban setting is gone. Instead, the action is set in a border town in New Mexico, where there is indeed danger, to be sure, but there’s also a little less pessimism among the inhabitants—unlike in the urban noirs in which everyone’s a cynic. Interestingly, one might say that the “border town noir” could be a sub-set of the broader category, for Ride the Pink Horse isn’t the only crime movie of the period set away from the big city. Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil is another good example.

Ride the Pink Horse, based on a novel by Dorothy B. Hughes, became actor Robert Montgomery’s second noir in which he both starred and directed. His first directorial effort was Lady in the Lake (also 1947), in which the actor played detective Phillip Marlowe. Here, Montgomery plays Gagin, an ex-GI, with a take-no-guff attitude but also with a subtle sense of cluelessness—he is definitely a fish out of water in “San Pablo.” His mission there is to locate a crook named Hugo (Fred Clark) to avenge the murder of Gagin’s best friend. What he thought might be a simple task turns out to be a lot more complicated, for the FBI is in town in the form of amiable Retz (Art Smith), and the Feds want Hugo, too. On his first night in town, Gagin falls in with Pancho (Thomas Gomez), a Mexican who runs a cheap merry-go-round for the kids, and Pila (Wanda Hendrix), a young woman who speaks little, but seems to know a heck of a lot about the goings-on in town. As it turns out, Gagin isn’t really the tough guy he pretended to be at the beginning. He really is in over his head, and he needs the help of his newfound Mexican friends to simply survive.

The merry-go-round could be some kind of metaphor for the film’s message—possibly that we can go round and round and still wind up where we started. On the other hand, the ride might suggest that it is a source of innocence, something to which our hero can’t return. Even if you ride the pink horse; you get the same truth on a horse of any other color.

The setting’s flavor is pleasingly captured in the stark black and white cinematography by Russell Metty, especially during the “Fiesta” sequences. One striking sequence takes place with the camera on the merry-go-round—as it goes around we see two thugs giving Pancho a beating at the side of the ride; with every revolution our glimpse of the violence is increasingly upsetting. The production design by Bernard Herzbrun and Robert Boyle, is very impressive, seeing that, ironically, the picture was filmed on the Universal lot in Hollywood and not in New Mexico.

The story, adapted by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer, is engaging enough, although Ride the Pink Horse doesn’t seem to reach the climax that is promised by the opening half-hour. Nevertheless, the performances are very good, especially that of Gomez, who, with this picture, became the first Hispanic actor to be nominated for an Oscar—Best Supporting Actor (1947).

Criterion’s new 2K digital restoration looks sharp and clean. An audio commentary by film noir historians Alain Silver and James Ursini accompanies the film. The only two extras are a new interview about the film with Imogen Sara Smith, author of In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City; and a radio adaptation starring Montgomery, Hendrix, and Gomez. The booklet contains an essay by filmmaker and writer Michael Almereyda.

Ride the Pink Horse is for film noir enthusiasts looking to get out of the city and travel somewhere a little different.

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