Ride the Pink Horse

Robert Montgomery directs and stars in Ride the Pink Horse, an unusual film noir based on a Dorothy B. Hughes novel and featuring a touching if inexplicable relationship between Montgomery’s cold, churlish veteran Lucky Gagin and Wanda Hendrix’s quiet, curious Mexican girl Pila. Gagin arrives in the border town of San Pablo, New Mexico, to track down the mysterious Frank Hugo (Fred Clark), the man who murdered Gagin’s best friend and who’s also being followed by FBI agent Bill Retz (Art Smith). With the town filled to capacity for an annual festival, Pila helps Gagin find accommodations with Pancho (Thomas Gomez), the jolly man who runs the merry-go-round. We soon learn that Gagin’s plan is to blackmail Hugo, an effort complicated not only by the FBI’s involvement but also by Marjorie Lundeen (Andrea King), a female associate of Hugo’s who proposes a way for Gagin to shake him down for much more money. Despite the clear, physical attraction between Gagin and Pila (Gagin calls her “Sitting Bull”), director Montgomery wisely circumscribes their relationship as friendship-at-first-sight (we’re led to believe she’s a minor) even as Pila protects and cares for Gagin after he’s shot. Montgomery maxes out on the hard-boiled persona (for him, women have “a dead fish where a heart ought to be”), occasionally leavening the character with reference to his military service (“I’ve seen enough flags”) or unexpected laughter, like when he finds himself the only non-Hispanic in the local bar.