Quote:
Originally Posted by Ray Jackson
Ride The Pink Horse is great yes?
Or just pretty good?
Or just average noir?
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Here is the user review I wrote for
Ride the Pink Horse almost two years ago. For me,
Ride the Pink Horse has been one of the best discoveries I have made in the Criterion Collection:
OK, I love film noir, but I have to confess that prior to Criterion's announcement of
Ride the Pink Horse I had never heard of it. Shame on me. As of last night, that mistake has been remedied. There is a line of dialogue early on where the moll of a New Mexican gangster, referring to the anti-hero lead character played by Robert Montgomery, says "I'm afraid that Mr. Gagin cannot be seduced". I can attest that the same assessment does not apply to this film.
Ride the Pink Horse seduces, wraps itself around you, pulls you in, and does not let you go. Welcome to film noir done Southwestern style, and I am here to tell you, amigos, this dark little tale of money, murder, and mayhem, as well as a haunted man accidentally rediscovering his humanity, is
muy muy bueno.
We know we are in for a different noir experience right from the opening credits, when we see a bus approaching the camera along a panoramic New Mexican highway to the uplifting strains of Latin-infused orchestral music. Robert Montgomery does double duty here as star and director, and he handles both roles superbly. Prior to this film, I only knew Montgomery as the father of Elizabeth Montgomery, future star of classic 1960’s sitcom Bewitched. Here, Montgomery plays a disillusioned tough-as-nails WWII vet named Lucky Gagin on a mission to find a New Mexico gang lord named Frank Hugo, an oddity of a mob boss with a hearing aide and a gift for gab. What exactly that mission is doesn’t become clear until later in the film. The bus deposits Gagin in a city named San Pablo (a fictional name representing Santa Fe). The air surrounding him is electric, filled with music and laughter as hordes of tourists flock the streets to celebrate the annual Fiesta, all of which appears lost on Gagin.
Gagin comes out of nowhere and remains a mystery, what we see is what we get…..a lot of anger and rude behavior with little indication of his background, where he came from or where he is going. All we know is that he had a war buddy best friend who is now dead, and that somehow Hugo is involved. As the plot unfolds, he comes into contact with the local New Mexican culture and his softer side begins to appear. He is befriended by Pancho, the poor operator of an antique carousel, played outstandingly by Thomas Gomez whose performance in this role earned him the first ever Oscar nomination for a Hispanic American. Another local who crosses paths with Gagin and proves integral to the story is a girl named Pila (an 18-year old Wanda Hendrix, future wife of Audie Murphy). Pila is a Native American from a pueblo many miles away who has recently moved to San Pablo and is experiencing the big city for the first time. As it turns out, this dichotomy of Gagin’s character - one foot in the world of the Anglos where gangsters, dreams of money as the ticket to the good life, and the increasing threat of violence are ever present, and the easy-going culture of New Mexican Hispanics and Native Americans where, as movingly explained by Pancho, friendship is more important than money and that as long as a man has his pride and strong back there is no shame in being poor – becomes one of the central themes of the film.
Because the viewer is never sure where things will go, the story creates the suspense that anything can happen at any moment. The bus in the opening scene could be taking Gagin on a road to rebirth and redemption that isn’t clearly marked, either a ticket to hell or a way out that may be just beyond reach. Gagin is damn tough, as events will reveal, but is that enough? Is he in over his head? Is he a walking corpse and just doesn’t know it? What is the meaning of a check he places in a bus station locker at the beginning of the film? Is Hugo’s moll Marjorie a kept woman looking for a way out through Gagin? And what does it mean for Pila, who attaches herself to Gagin like a lost puppy and in one of the film’s eerie moments gives him a talisman to protect him because she has had a vision of his pale dead face.
Ride the Pink Horse delivers the goods. It is as multi-layered and as dark and deadly as any classic noir. Yet there is something hopeful in its fabric like the effigy of the god of bad luck burned at the climax of the Fiesta. What makes the film so watchable is how it doesn’t play to expectations. Just when we think we understand what is about to happen, it goes in unexpected directions. There is a lot of symbolism in the story, represented most obviously by the fairy tale world of Pancho’s old carousel going round and round with its assortment of multi-colored horses, one of which is pink (or so we are told; it is a black and white film after all). There is a key scene when, after a night of drinking in a local saloon, Gagin convinces Pancho to open his carousel after-hours so that Pila can experience a childhood thrill for the first time in her life. The meaning of this small kindness represents something deeper that only becomes clear later. Gagin is experiencing new things too. We learn that he suffers from post-traumatic stress from years spent fighting in the steaming jungles of the South Pacific, that he still carries the war in him and is doing battle with himself as much as with the outside world, and that cervezas and tequilas with friendly locals can lead an angry man down paths he never thought for himself to travel.
As usual, Criterion has done a masterful job with the transfer of a black and white film that, for many years, was apparently not easy to find. The cinematography by Russell Metty is outstandingly stylish and evocative, with Gagin often shot over-the-shoulder and some scenes done in one long continuous take that accentuates the menace of the moment. In one chilling scene, a brutal beating is witnessed from the point of view of children riding the carousel; the viewer is therefore a trapped witness, circling repeatedly past the violence and unable to get off. If the name Russell Metty doesn’t ring any bells, then a partial sampling of his many other films will give you some idea of what to expect here, films like
Touch of Evil,
Magnificent Obsession,
Written in the Wind,
Arch of Triumph,
Spartacus, and
The Misfits.
And what great noir would be complete without some chewy dialogue so important to driving the narrative.
Ride the Pink Horse has lots of that. Gagin delivers a particularly juicy monologue on the evils of women wearing diamonds, who are man-traps and have “a dead fish where her heart ought to be”. I could watch this film over and over just to relish the well written screenplay and roll around in all that dialogue like a man on a bed full of money. Wearing a fedora, of course. As it should be.
Note: all images above are taken from the internet and not the actual disc. The transfer is amazing, rich, and beautiful.
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