It was directed by Robert Montgomery, who also stars in it, from a screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer, which was based on the 1946 novel of the same title by Dorothy B. Hughes.

An army veteran known only as Gagin travels to San Pablo in New Mexico to avenge the death of his wartime buddy.

He places a check incriminating Hugo in a locker and hides the key behind a framed map in the bus depot waiting room.

Going to the non-tourist side of the town he meets Pila, who takes him to the La Fonda Hotel and gives him a charm that she says will protect him.

Still looking for a room, Gagin visits the Cantina de las Tres Violetas, where Pila is sitting outside.

The barkeep can only make change but the situation is resolved by Pancho, who proposes that Gagin buy ten dollars worth of drinks for everyone in the bar.

The next morning, Gagin returns to the La Fonda where he meets Frank Hugo, who wears a hearing aid.

They agree to meet that evening at the Tip Top Cafe, where Hugo will pay Gagin the thirty thousand dollars for the check.

After the lunch, Gagin returns to the bus depot where he retrieves the check and follows the fiesta crowd to the Tip Top Cafe.

Retz finds the two toughs in the alley, one dead and one with a broken arm, and confronts Hugo at the dining table.

Retz arrives, disarms the toughs, breaks Hugo's hearing aid, and ultimately gets the check from Gagin.

In Ride the Pink Horse, Gagin's quest to avenge his friend's death leads him to rural New Mexico, an unusual setting for the noir motif more typically associated with corrupt urban environments.

[2] The burning of the Zozobra ("Old Man Gloom") effigy during the Fiestas de Santa Fe sets the time of the events in the film in early September.