Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

jgavryck It's not often that a movie seen once more than 60 years ago lingers, hauntingly, in your memory. Robert Montgomery was a superb actor. His character is really a burnt out case who has seen too much of the hard life and has no compassion left, he thinks. Then he meets up with little Wanda Hendrix, and her plight melts his hard heart and leads to his coming to her aid. The last section of the movie is particularly gripping and atmospheric. It's finally evident where the title comes from. Robert Montgomery was one of our greatest character actors, and here he really lights up the screen in a wonderful performance. Wanda Hendrix is also very effective in her part. A great film noir film which deserves a better ranking. I'd love to see it again.

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.

jotix100 Never having seen "Ride the Pink Horse", we decided to take a look at it, based mainly, on the strong writers credited with the adaptation, Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer, two of the best men in the business. One wonders if it was the studio's art people that decided to give the film a phony Mexican look, or did it come from the screen play itself. Not having read the novel, we can't comment if the book had the same basic faults one finds in the finished product. The direction by Robert Montgomery doesn't help matters.First of all, San Pablo is obviously one of the towns in Northern Mexico close to California. The first thing one sees are the local women, dressed in costumes from another century; even the trio that meets Lucky's bus, is seen in long Indian costumes, sorry, but even for 1947, it seems to be completely out of place. One wonders if the production company thought they were filming something out of Pancho Villa's times and decided San Pablo's women were still living in the XIX century.The fatal casting mistake of having a blue eyed Wanda Hendrix playing the mysterious Pilar makes the viewer do a double take. This is a role that screams for a sultry senorita, someone of the stature of a Katy Jurado, or another sultry star, not this beautiful actress that seemed to be lost playing the Mexican girl! One thing that doesn't come across in the film is what might have made Pilar fall heads over heels with this Americano at first sight!Even in the fiesta scenes one sees a lot of Americans marching as part of the parade. It would have made more sense to have seen local folks from San Pablo, but not from L.A. Then there is Pancho, a stereotype, if ever there was one! Thomas Gomez was an American actor born in New York, who had an impeccable diction, but he is made to speak Spanish with the heavy English accent. Talk about the things that were given to audiences of that era in the way of realism!Lucky Gagin, during the first part of the film seems a man out of place. Mr. Montgomery's take on this man cried for perhaps another tough actor to play it. Mr. Montgomery, as a comedian, or in light fare was an excellent actor, but in heavier parts, seemed to be out of place.The best thing going for the film is the fabulous performance of Art Smith, who at times reminded us of an old Robin Williams, as Bill Retz, the government agent looking to bring Frank Hugo to justice. Mr. Smith shines in the film every time one sees him. Also Andrea King, seen as Marjorie Lundeen, the bad girl friendly with Hugo and his group. Fred Ward as the deaf gangster has some good moments.The film, while not a total dud, seems to be confused in what it's trying to show. Perhaps with a different treatment and better casting for the two principal roles, this film would have fared better, even with the perplexing atmosphere of the Mexican locale.

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.