Sun 14 Jun 2009
Reviewed by Marvin Lachman: DOROTHY B. HUGHES – Ride the Pink Horse.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[6] Comments
DOROTHY B. HUGHES – Ride the Pink Horse.
Duell, Sloan & Pearce, hardcover, 1946. Reprinted many times in both hardcover and soft, including Carroll & Graf, pb, 1988.
● Film: Universal International, 1947. Robert Montgomery, Wanda Hendrix, Andrea King, Thomas Gomez, Fred Clark. Screenwriter: Ben Hecht, Charles Lederer; director: Robert Montgomery.
I’m especially fond of regional mysteries, especially those set in New Mexico, a state as beautiful as any in the United States.
Fortunately, the state has had some good mystery writers use it, including Richard Martin Stern, Tony Hillerman, and Dorothy B. Hughes in Ride the Pink Horse, recently reprinted by Carroll and Graf.
Many mystery fans remember the excellent movie based on it and, indeed, the cover of this reprint portrays a man who looks like Robert Montgomery, the film’s star. (That’s he in the scene below, along with Andrea King.)
The book is set in Santa Fe during that city’s most colorful time, the annual Labor Day weekend fiesta. Hughes captures the city and its mixture of three cultures: Indian, Spanish, and “Gringo.”
Though some of the attitudes in the book seem a bit dated, i.e., the post World War II mixture of cynicism and idealism, here, too, is a book which has stood the difficult test of time.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:28 am
The trifecta. Great writer. Great book. Great movie.
Ride the Pink Horse was remade as a made for television movie retitled The Hanged Man with Robert Culp, Vera Miles, Gene Raymond, and Edmond O’Brien (not to be confused with a later made for television movie The Hanged Man with Steve Forrest). You can find the details at IMDB, but it was a good remake minus the noirish virtues of the original.
Hughes did a number of good books of which I would note Dread Journey, Fallen Sparrow, In a Lonely Place, and The Davidian Report in particular. Sparrow and Place were both filmed. Sparrow with John Garfield and Maureen O’Hara, and Place a classic noir from Nicholas Ray with Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, and Jeff Donnell.
And Hughes, a well known genre critic, also wrote the standard biography of Erle Stanley Gardner.
Her 1963 novel The Expendable Man contains a twist at about the mid-point that still catches readers off guard, but puts everything that has gone before into perspective. It’s something of a tour de force.
I think Davidian Report, a spy novel, was adapted as an episode of a television anthology series, most likely Kraft Suspense Theater. I seem to recall Andrew Duggan in it.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:57 am
I’ve always wished two things, that Dorothy B. Hughes had written more — all of her books are excellent, as far I am concerned — and that more films had been made of the books she did write.
I don’t know how it came about, but she seems to have had an awfully good track record in terms of well her books were adapted into films — the few which were.
As for The Davidian Report goes, though, David, I’ve not been able to find a sign of it on IMDB. Of course, they’re awfully spotty when it comes to early drama anthologies like the various Kraft series, so you could easily be correct on this.
— Steve
June 16th, 2009 at 1:28 am
It could very well be that the thing wasn’t called “The Daviadan Report”, and I don’t recall much other than the title, since it was a good twenty years later that I read the book, but I’m pretty sure Andrew Duggan was in it and it was one of the summer replacement anthology series. My memory says it was a two parter, but even that isn’t certain. I’m fairly certain that it was based on Hughes book though since I remember the shock of recognition when I later saw it listed among her works.
And yes, she was a very good writer who didn’t do near enough, and was pretty lucky with the screen adaptations of her work. She was also one of the few writers to take a stand on race issues in the genre, with both Dread Journey and The Expendable Man introducing important black characters who were neither stereotypes nor tokens.
June 17th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Couldn’t find the Daviadan Report that I remember, but the book was adapted as episode 12 of the 4th season of Robert Montgomery Presents with Robert Sterling. No mention of Hughes at IMDb, but that doesn’t mean anything, and the date is about right for the book. I know I didn’t see this one as I didn’t watch a lot of drama at two. Lack of taste I guess.
January 25th, 2014 at 8:30 pm
Dorothy B. Hughes is my grandmother, and I really appreciate reading all the lovely comments about her works. She was ahead of her time and I have the fondest memories. Thank you for keeping her literary works relevant.
January 25th, 2014 at 10:11 pm
Melissa
Thanks for stopping by and leaving the comment above. It’s nice to see so many of your grandmother’s work back in print. (I just looked on Amazon, and was pleasantly surprised to see how many of her books still are.)