When Lucky Gagin, a luckless veteran played by Robert Montgomery, steps from the interstate bus, he is greeted by a flashing neon sign, “Buenos Dias. Howdy.” The border town, known generically as San Pablo, is an indistinct zone of amalgamated cultures-Mexican Americans, gringos, and local Pueblo Indians-though it bears resemblance to novelist Dorothy B. Hughes's Santa Fe. A big city tough, Gagin is never at ease on streets filled with peculiar festivities, off-putting strangers, and cantinas like the grimy La Violeta. He has come to avenge the death of his pal Shorty at the hands of Frank Hugo (Fred Clark), a crooked war profiteer. With visitors to the annual fiesta occupying all of San Pablo's hotel rooms, Gagin is adrift until he meets gregariously soused Pancho (Thomas Gomez), fondly called “Pancho Villa,” a carousel operator who invites him to flop in his makeshift home. Director Montgomery creates a claustrophobic space where danger resides in the familiar, the exotic “other” becomes an unexpected ally, and, like the karmic carousel in this forgotten noir, what goes around comes around.