I immediately thought of trouble dolls, also known as worry dolls, when we see Wanda Hendrix all dolled up in 1947’s Ride the Pink Horse.  She did this with money provided by, and per the insistence of Robert Montgomery, who cruelly told her to go make herself look human.  Her: “Do I look human? Should I do anything else?”  Him, looking repulsed, “You’ve done everything.”

I don’t think is a coincidence she had given him a trouble doll near the start of the picture.  He has just arrived in the fictitious San Pablo, which is Santa Fe in reality.  She is there with the great many others who have come for the annual carnival.  Montgomery had approached her and two other girls to simply ask for directions to the hotel.  She’ll walk him there, but she also insists he take one of those dolls and keep it on him.  What she doesn’t tell him is she had a vision of his death.  This distract her so thoroughly that, on their way to the hotel, she can’t stop looking at him and ends up walking into a post.

He will discover no rooms are available in the hotel because of the carnival.  Montgomery will still keep hanging around there, as he is intent on talking with mobster Fred Clark.  There is a clever bit when Montgomery needs to know which room he’s in, so he has the desk clerk put a letter in the mail slot for him.   Clark won’t be there when our protagonist gets up to the room the first time, where he roughs up the guy’s right-hand man (Richard Gaines).  Andrea King, as Clark’s girl, arrives shortly after and, seeing Montgomery, she immediately spies an opportunity.  Gaines, doubled over in pain, tells her to call the police.  Her reply: “I don’t thank this gentleman would approve of that.”

A second trip to the hotel later will finally find Clark there.  It was interesting to see this actor in a role as a tough guy, as I largely know him from the great deal of sitcom work he did in the 1960’s.  Admittedly, he is a rather large guy and his baldness actually makes him more intimidating.  There is an odd aspect to his character here, which is he has a hearing aid, an unwieldly contraption that with a large receiver he keeps in a shirt pocket.  I like the moments where he uses a telephone, as he holds the receiver upside down with the earpiece facing that receiver.  But neither this device nor his impediment factor into the plot, which is curious.

Montgomery has a cancelled check with which he attempts to blackmail the man.  That check used to be in the possession of a war buddy of Montgomery’s, a man in Clark’s employ until he attempted the same frame-up and was killed.  It is critical to Clark he retrieve that check, as it is proof of his illegal business dealings during the war, which is why he had his former employee killed for attempted blackmail, that the guy was “the kind of crook nobody likes, not even me, and I’m rather broad-minded about such things.”  But Clark is apparently willing to make a deal with Montgomery: “I think I’ll take a chance on you being a square blackmailer.”

Art Smith would also like that check.  He is a government agent who has been building a case against Clark for a long time.  I like how Smith is a man who talks slowly and plainly.  It feels right that he prefers to eat with his hands (“It gets me closer to the food”).  He also calls Montgomery out on what he believes is simply revenge for his dead friend: “You’re as dumb as they come […] Let your Uncle Samuel take care of it.”  Later, he seems almost disappointed Montgomery is so sloppy as to jeopardize even that revenge which, if successful, would in no way help Smith’s cause: “I was worried about you removing [Clark] from the scene, but now I’m not worried about that anymore.  Not with how you’re handling it.”

And Montgomery is definitely sloppy.  Fortunately, he’s also lucky, such as in a scene at a questionable bar where he draws attention by paying for his whiskey with a bill that is too large for the bartender to change.  When we first see Thomas Gomez and two other locals appraising the situation, I thought Montgomery was going to end up dead in an alley by the time the night was through.  For now, all Gomez does is offer a solution, which is everybody in the bar will drink the difference, so no need for the barkeep to make change.

Gomez proves to be a true friend, the owner and operator of the local carousel.  He is not impressed where Montgomery claims he is about to come into a great deal of money: “Some people happy when they got money.  Me, I’m only happy when I got nothing.”  He not only allows Montgomery to have his bed for the night but even takes a beating later when he professes ignorance as to the man’s whereabouts.  This sight of this is traumatizing to the children riding the carousel at that time.

Somebody who had a more enjoyable ride on it earlier was Hendrix, though she immediately returns to her stoic demeanor as soon as she realizes she is smiling.  This is somehow filmed from a camera mounted to the spinning ride itself, and I was wondering how that was accomplished, as this is the kind where only the top moves, with the horses hanging until it.  It isn’t like it is one of those where the mounts are on poles affixed to a floor.  Later, she will watch over Montgomery while he sleeps in Gomez’s bed, and this is one of many moments where she seems to be a cat which has taken human form.

I’m not sure what animal Montgomery personifies, but his performance here is also singular.  He is continually twitchy, his eyes always darting around.  I find it interesting he also directed.  One aspect of his character which seems pointlessly jerkish is he keeps berating Hendrix for her appearance, frequently calling her “Sitting Bull”.  At point he says she looks like Zip the “What-Is-It”, aka Zippy the Pinhead, and the inspiration for the same-named character in Bill Griffith’s long-running comic strip.

There are far better zingers in the script, as it was written by legends Ben Heckt and Charles Lederer.  The movie also boasts stellar, though tastefully restrained, camerawork.  One moment has Montgomery and King in a club as they leave Clark’s table on one level, then we seamlessly follow them downstairs and onto a dance floor, until we follow them further out the front door.  It is beautifully constructed shot which doesn’t call attention to itself.  Once outside, there is a perfect noir shot of the two characters in silhouette, with their faces just barely illuminated when he strikes a match.

The cinematography is perfect for noir.  Although the interiors are all sets, most of the exteriors are of Sante Fe.  At least, the footage of the fiesta is partly real and in the streets of the city.  Of particular note is the arrival of the Zozobra, a giant puppet representing bad luck, which is burned like a wicker man.  Alas, we do not see the torching of this.

Even the costumes are interesting.  There is how Hendrix gets literally dolled-up, which I mentioned in the opening paragraph.  King wears something interesting at one point, a blouse with horizontal stripes across it, and two of those stripes somehow extend out on the lapel of the jacket she’s wearing over it.  And those stripes only extend out to the left and not the right.

I will not even hint at how Ride the Pink Horse concludes, as everybody should see this movie and find out for themselves.  What I will say is Hendrix will still be there at the end, and she will enthrall those gathered around her with her take on the events in the picture.  Montgomery may have been the instigator of all we see in the course of the runtime but, in the end, it is Hendrix’s story.

Dir: Robert Montgomery

Starring Robert Montgomery, Wanda Hendrix, Thomas Gomez, Andrea King, Art Smith

Watched on Criterion Collection blu-ray