329 - Ride the Pink Horse, United States, 1947. Dir. Robert Montgomery.
If you wanna ride
Don't ride the pink horse.
If you wanna ride
Don't ride the pink horse.
If you wanna ride
Ride the pink pony.
If you wanna ride
Ride the pink pony.
(Other than that last line that rhymes with rich (you know it), I have just listed the entire lyrics to the song--well, modified with a new color. Think how much money they have made in the last 30+ years.)
No, this film has absolutely nothing to do with the 1983 dance song recorded by Laid Back (the Danish Tim Stahl and John Guldberg) and still played in clubs today.
But that song popped into your head when you read the title, so we might as well get it out of the way at the beginning.
You're welcome.
Now to the film at hand. . . .
A Greyhound bus drives down a two-lane road through the open desert.
In three shots. First shot. Cross-fade to itself after time lapse. Second shot. Cross-fade to itself after time lapse. Third shot. Cross-fade . . .
Then we stay in one shot for more than three minutes.
Exterior. The bus comes to a stop at the Bus Stop. We are in San Pablo. A fictional town in what we think is Mexico. It turns out to be New Mexico. A New Mexico that feels like old Mexico. In the real town of Santa Fe.
People get off the bus. Lucky Gagin gets off the bus. He strolls. Makes his way to the Terminal. Goes inside.
We pass by a telephone pole on our way in, giving master cinematographer Russell Metty a moment in which to adjust the exposure and the aperture. We stop on the sign above the door.
Welcome to San Pablo
Muchas Gracias
Howdy!
We enter the terminal without any noticeable change in lighting. Lucky Gagin looks around. He sees the lockers. He goes to a seat. Sits down. We dolly in. Pass him. Pan back. Tilt down.
He sets his briefcase in his lap. Opens it. Retrieves a pistol. Darts his eyes. Hides it in his breast pocket. He opens his briefcase again. Retrieves a folded check. Opens it. Glances at it. Refolds it. Pockets it. Stands.
He ambles to the lockers. We dolly ahead of him. Looking back. He places the check in a locker. Glances at it again. Closes the door. Inserts a coin. Removes the key. He turns to a gum dispenser machine behind him. We pan left. He inserts a coin. Turns the handle. Retrieves a pack of Wrigley's Spearmint. The end is open. He removes a stick of gum without having to open the package. Pockets the package. Unwraps the gum. Drops the wrapper on the floor. Chews the gum.
He walks over to a map on the wall. A map facing back to the open door. We dolly and pan to follow him. He looks around. Sees that no one is looking. He removes the gum from his mouth. Sticks it to the key. Inserts the key to a gap behind the map. Presses it against the back of the map. Walks away.
We pan back to the door. Follow him. Dolly back out of the terminal. Back through the open door. Other than the three brief opening shots of the Greyhound bus driving through the open desert, the entire movie thus far has taken place all in one shot.
And there has been no dialogue.
No one has spoken.
Finally, we cut to the exterior again. The outside of the terminal. The telephone pole. A man stands in the courtyard. Lucky Gagin asks him a question.
"Where's the La Fonda Hotel?"
Hotel?
Where's the La Fonda Hotel?
The man points him in a certain direction but he still gets lost. He gets lost at a carousel.
A Tiovivo. Spanish for merry-go-round. Literally "Uncle Alive" or "Uncle Lively."
I wonder if Blake calls her uncle that? "Hey, Uncle Lively. Hey, Merry-Go-Round."
Three girls are standing by the carousel. Two of them turn. He asks them.
Where's the La Fonda Hotel?
They do not know. The third girl turns around. He sees her. Speaks to her. He is brusque. Brash. Curt. Rude.
I show you.
She offers to help him anyway. She is young. Petite. Mysterious. With big bright eyes and a shawl she drapes over her head like the Virgin Mary. Or Obi Wan Kenobi.
Her name is Pila. She will attach herself to Gagin for the remainder of the film. She is not from San Pablo. She is from San Melo. Seventy-five miles away. She is poor. Innocent. Naive. Uncultured. Unrefined. With a soul as deep as the ocean. And fiercely loyal. He will owe his life to her. At least four times.
Lucky Gagin makes his way to the La Fonda Hotel. And through subterfuge and brashness he discovers where Frank Hugo's room is. Enters his room. Knocks out his secretary. Meets his girl, Marjorie Lundeen. And delivers a message to Hugo over the phone.
He is here to settle a score.
For his friend Shorty.
To blackmail Frank Hugo in the process.
And to collect lots and lots of money.
Or maybe not so much money.
We will discover that he is a small-time player. Inexperienced. In over his head. And asking for way too little.
Frank tells him he would have given him three times that amount if he had asked.
Marjorie tells him Frank would have given him thirty-three times that amount if he had asked.
Of course Frank might give him nothing in the end anyway. Except a slug in the gut. Or a knife in the back.
And just to make things more interesting, Lucky himself is being tailed. All the way from Washington D.C.
Someone knows every step he has taken. Every move he has made. Someone is watching him.
Someone named Mr. Retz. R-e-t-z. Retz.
He will owe his life to him.
One more man will join the story.
Pancho.
Owner of the Tiovivo. The carousel.
"I own everything. Twelve beautiful horses. Three beautiful chariots. Whole beautiful orchestra. All Pancho's."
Lucky meets Pancho at the Tres Violetas saloon. When the bartender cannot make change. So Lucky is left buying a round for everyone. And Pancho becomes his steadfast friend.
"I have a fine dream last night. All my horses is alive and we all riding on desert for hunting lions. And I am young again."
Pancho and Lucky.
All the Federales say . . .
Townes Van Zandt wrote the song "Pancho and Lefty" and recorded it in 1972. Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard made it legendary in 1983. It feels older, though, right? Here we are decades earlier with Pancho and Lucky.
Lucky will owe his life to Pancho.
We now have three guardian angels. For one man who is trying so hard to act tough.
Robert Montgomery himself is trying to act tough. He is pushing. Posing. Putting on. In a manner similar to (but not nearly as unconvincing as) Dick Powell in 1944's Murder, My Sweet. Robert Montgomery is a 1930s suave screwball comedy leading man. Dick Powell, meanwhile, is a 1930s musical song-and-dance man. Now in the 1940s they are both trying to act tough. In the 1930s they did not seem to try to emulate Paul Muni or George Raft or Edward G. Robinson or James Cagney. They seemed willing to stick to their strengths and let the tough men be the tough men. But now in the 1940s it seems everybody wants to be Humphrey Bogart.
And they are not.
Montgomery does a better job than Powell in pulling it off. He is more confident. More centered. Less goofy. And playing a character who is in the same position as he is as an actor. In over his head.
But Montgomery here is not playing a franchise character as Powell was with Philip Marlowe, where comparisons can be made to superior performances. He is playing a character unique to this film. One who is equally outmatched and underprepared, who in turn tries to protect his vulnerabilities through unsubtle posturing. And he has the temerity to do it.
He has another strength.
Robert Montgomery directs himself in this film, just a few months after his debut as a director, in a wildly experimental film called Lady in the Lake, the one in which he played Philip Marlowe, where the camera looks only through his eyes the entire film, and we see him only when he looks in mirrors. Showing off the fact that we cannot see the camera. In an age before digital technology.
In this film he works, as stated earlier, with veteran cinematographer Russell Metty, who was already a veteran when he worked on Orson Welles masterpieces, and he uses the camera beautifully and fluidly. In addition to the opening long shot, he uses a few other long shots, and he keeps it all hidden without drawing attention to it.
Montgomery is the master of the two-shot. He often frames two people in a tight master in three-dimensional space, one foregrounded, the other backgrounded, and he uses overs in place of close-ups.
"Overs" means "over-the-shoulder" shots, where the listener's head and shoulder are always visible while the other person is talking. We almost never cut in tighter than that, into a true close-up. We are always aware of both people in the room, and often of the room itself.
Thomas Gomez was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Pancho. When you watch it, you will see why. He had a long and prolific career.
The film is based on a novel of the same name, written by Dorothy B. Hughes in 1946. She also wrote the novel on which another juicy film noir is based, one which we will be watching soon, starring Humphrey Bogart himself, In a Lonely Place (1947 novel, 1950 film), directed by Nicholas Ray.
Ride the Pink Horse is an undiscovered jewel. Discover it.
Ride the Tiovivo. It might just save your life.
Which horse?
Try the pink one.
* * * * *
A cancelled check for a hundred grand, on a Mexican bank, signed by you.
The number on the check is 6431
How much do you want? 30 grand.
Shorty only wanted 15.
Do I get the 30 grand or do I turn it over to Mr. Retz.
You and me, we eat out of the same dish. You used to think if you were a square guy, worked hard, played on the level, things would come your way. You found out you were wrong. All you get is pushed around. You found people are interested in only one thing--the payoff.
There are two kinds of people in this world: ones that fiddle around worrying about whether things are right or wrong, and guys like us.
I cam down to enjoy the Fiesta. I'll charge it up to pleasure.
Diamonds, and a dead fish where her heart ought to be. . . . You touch them and you get stung. You always lose.
* * * * *
Actors who have played Philip Marlowe--
Dick Powell, Murder, My Sweet (1944), Climax! (TV) (1954)
Humphrey Bogart, The Big Sleep (1946)
Robert Montgomery, Lady in the Lake (1947)
George Montgomery, The Brasher Doubloon (1947)
Zachary Scott, Robert Montgomery Presents, "The Big Sleep" (TV) (1950)
Philip Carey, Philip Marlowe (TV) (1959-60)
James Garner, Marlowe (1969)
Elliott Gould, The Long Goodbye, 1973
Robert Mitchum, Farewell My Lovely (1975), The Big Sleep, (1978)
Powers Boothe, Philip Marlowe, Private Eye (TV) (1983-86)
David Garrison, Remington Steele, "Elementary Steele," (TV) (1984)
David Garrison, Remington Steele, "Elementary Steele," (TV) (1984)
Michael Gambon, The Singing Detective (mini-series) (1986)
Danny Glover, Fallen Angels, "Red Wind" (TV) (1995)
James Caan, Poodle Springs (TV movie) (1998)
Danny Glover, Fallen Angels, "Red Wind" (TV) (1995)
James Caan, Poodle Springs (TV movie) (1998)
Tomas Hanak, Smart Philip (Czech Republic) (2003)
Jason O'Mara, Marlowe (TV Pilot) (2007)
(You used to think if you were a square guy, worked hard played on the level, things would come your way. You found out you were wrong. All you get is pushed around. You found people are intested in only one thing--the payoff. That's all I'm interested in. You know, Gagin, I like you. There are two kinds of people in this world: ones that fiddle around worrying about whether things are right or wrong and guys like us. Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=ride-the-pink-horse
You and me, we, eat out of the same dish. You used to think if you were a square guy, worked hard played on the level, things would come your way. You found out you were wrong. All you get is pushed around. You found people are intested in only one thing--the payoff. That's all I'm interested in. You know, Gagin, I like you. There are two kinds of people in this world: ones that fiddle around worrying about whether things are right or wrong and guys like us. Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=ride-the-pink-horse
You and me, we, eat out of the same dish. You used to think if you were a square guy, worked hard played on the level, things would come your way. You found out you were wrong. All you get is pushed around. You found people are intested in only one thing--the payoff. That's all I'm interested in. You know, Gagin, I like you. There are two kinds of people in this world: ones that fiddle around worrying about whether things are right or wrong and guys like us. Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=ride-the-pink-horse
D
In Murder, My Sweet Dick Powell is playing Philip Marlowe himself, a private detective made famous by the literary writing of Raymond Chandler and embodied in the acting of strong and muscular actors--Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, James Garner, James Caan, Michael Gambon, Powers Boothe, Philip Carey, Elliott Gould, and even Robert Montgomery in the film before this one. To be fair to Powell, he was the first actor ever to play Philip Marlowe, so he had no way of knowing what stellar performances were to come which would make him pale in comparison.
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