Blu-ray, DVD Release: Ride the Pink Horse

Blu-ray Release Date: March 17, 2015
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion


Hollywood actor turned idiosyncratic auteur Robert Montgomery (Here Comes Mr. Jordan) directs and stars in the 1947 film noir Ride the Pink Horse, a striking crime drama based on a novel by Dorothy B. Hughes.

ride-the-pink-horse1_optMontgomery plays a tough-talking former GI who comes to a small New Mexico town in the midst of a fiesta to shake down a gangster who killed his best friend; things quickly turn nasty.

Ride the Pink Horse features standout supporting performances from Fred Clark, Wanda Hendrix, and especially Thomas Gomez, who became the first Hispanic actor to receive an Academy Award nomination for his role here.

With its relentless pace, expressive cinematography by the great Russell Metty (All That Heaven Allows), and punchy, clever script by Charles Lederer (His Girl Friday) and Ben Hecht (Design for Living), this one is an overlooked treasure from the heyday of Forties noir.

Criterion’s DVD and Blu-ray editions of the film contain the following:

  • New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
    • Audio commentary featuring film noir historians Alain Silver and James Ursini
    • New interview with Imogen Sara Smith, author of In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City
    • Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of the film from 1947, featuring Robert Montgomery, Wanda Hendrix, and Thomas Gomez
    • An essay by filmmaker and writer Michael Almereyda
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About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.