The Enforcer (1951)Humphrey Bogart makes this film, and if you like him, you'll love this. If you don't know or care about Bogart, you'll see what he's all about here. The rest of the film is good, very good, but it's standard fare. And it has a few moments of just incredulous stuff, like toward the beginning when they are protecting a key witness and they ignore the obvious problem of having the witness sit in front of a window across from a hotel. Naturally, a sniper takes a shot at him. I won't say whether he succeeds, but it sets you up to be suspicious of the director and writer from there on.But there's Bogie, the relentless investigator. He needs to put a terrible crime boss in the chair, and sets off to find proof against him, running up against mobsters who seem to be one step ahead, covering up or wiping out (with bullets) anything or anyone who might know something. It's good stuff, but not great stuff. Director Bretaigne Windust had done some Broadway and a couple of films, but he doesn't pull this together. I'm surprised a Bogart film at the top of his career was handled by Windust, but at this time Bogart had been battling the Hollywood Communist lists and blacklists, and he got his independent Santana production company going, and I'm guessing that he was working against a lot of the Hollywood mainstream at this point (as was John Huston, who used Bogart in "African Queen" the next year). But this is Bogart at his best, really, just after "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and "In a Lonely Place." The photography is first rate (Robert Burks was by this point doing a whole bunch of Hitchcock films, too). In all, a decent, well made if unexceptional film.

"If you're smart you can be a hero, if you're dumb you can be dead!" Joseph Rico (Ted De Corsia) tells D.A. Martin Ferguson (Humphrey Bogart) in this very dark, intense factual story of a Murder for Profit organization. Rico offers to give Ferguson the top man Albert Mendoza (Everett Sloan) if Ferguson plays ball. Ferguson needs Rico's testimony to convict Mendoza. In the building while under surveillance by Sgt.Whitlow (King Donovan) awaiting trial the next day, Ferguson loses his only eyewitness when Rico falls to his death.From this point on the movie reveals it's plot & storyline from a series of flashbacks & several times we see flashbacks within a flashback. The flashback device is effective & even adds a dimension to the crime/film noir genre. Despite Bogart's star billing he doesn't dominate the film & is not in every scene & his absence is not missed due to the top notch supporting cast led by Ted De Corsia, Zero Mostel, Bob Steele, Jack Lambert etc.Though we already know Rico is dead he is very much seen afterwards & dominates the film from the flashback scenes. Eventually when the movie transports us back to the present situation we still hear Rico's voice from a tape recorder.Bogart's role as the D.A. Martin Ferguson is reminiscent of his earlier role in the 1937 film Marked Woman opposite Bette Davis as D.A. David Graham modeled after real life D.A. Thomas Dewey who convicted Lucky Luciano in 1935. For once Bogart appeared in a gangster film as a crusader of justice & again in 1951 in The Enforcer.I really enjoy watching this movie but what I find disappointing is the abrupt, unexpected & inconclusive ending that leaves you up in the air. Bogart's exit line is "Alright Miss Vetto you got a date in court, I want to see the look on Mendoza's face when he looks into those big blue eyes again". Well as the viewer I would've also liked to have seen the doom & gloom on Mendoza's face when he see's Angela Vetto's big blue eye's. As Ferguson rebuilds his case with a new eyewitness.We are robbed & deprived of all this & the subsequent courtroom trial proceedings & the chilling death scene of Mendoza walking his last mile to the hot seat, while a gloating Martin Ferguson watches as he has finally burned Mendoza in the chair in the name of justice. Just like James Cagney's electric chair scene in Angels With Dirty Faces or when he blows himself up in White Heat. 2 very strong endings. No place else to go. The Enforcer is a strong movie with a weak ending that could've been a lot better.

I've long been convinced that popular fiction and movies are true barometers of social history and The Enforcer tends to bear me out. What five-year-old child at any time in the last forty years would be unable to interpret 'contract' and 'hit' when encountered in the context of a thriller/noir/caper/gangster movie yet here, in 1951, both hard-bitten detectives and an Assistant District Attorney are as bemused as Hoosier tourists hearing Urdu for the first time whilst on vacation in the sub-Continent. For a few moments this tends to strain credulity when watching this in 2010 but we're soon wallowing in the great casting that tosses such disparate actors as Bob Steele, Zero Mostel, Everett Sloane, Roy Roberts, Ted de Corsica and Bogie into the mix. Bogie is, it must be said, strangely subdued as yet another D.A. -he had, after all, been playing them since Marked Woman, Knock On Any Door, etc - but even the multi flashbacks can't really spoil this good old-fashioned 'thick ear' entry.

Literally one of the darkest of noir films, though not everyone's favorite it seems.THE ENFORCER is criticized in several comments posted on IMDb in part for its portraying cops learning code words such as "hit" and "contract", for the first time.The words are a minor springboard device which aren't crucial to the evidence. Eye-witness testimony is what the cops badly need to put the top man in the chair.The historical context loosely linking the plot to Murder, Inc. hardly diminishes the ability of the film to hold up as an edgy crime suspense drama some 55 years later. It's a movie with a great ensemble cast of character actors relishing the juicy dialog.Of course viewers today aren't going to drop their jaws over the cinematic debut of words that have long since become common in the colloquial lexicon.Especially when there are plenty of great lines in the film to enjoy, and even mimic over and over again:Such as Ted De Corsia's "He ain't human!", "I gotta get-out-of-here!" and "You know what to use. Use it!"And the meeting between the #1 man and his #2 man, whose repartee enriched with sinister gestures is well worth rediscovering:Mendoza- "I've been worked over by some of the best, and you're just what I'm looking for." Rico -"What? You want some more?" Mendoza - "I can use a guy like you!"Rico - "You must be nuts!" Mendoza - "I've still got a dime left. C'mon, I'll buy you a cup of coffee!"Mendoza - "Someday you'll realize I'm a great man. I'll make you a rich man." Rico - "I must have kicked you in the head!"Mendoza - "This is my first contract. I'm getting paid $500 for the hit." Rico - "You'll never have $500 as long as you live!"My favorite shock scene is when a hit man realizes he's about to be "taken care of" by an old crony, he makes a desperate break for it into the night, letting out a blood-curdling scream.THE ENFORCER is not presented as a bio or semi-documentary at all, really. There is no narration, no final moral. Bogey doesn't indirectly lecture the viewers, instead he's picking his own brain as Ferguson. Though he's a dedicated lawman, Bogey's not playing a preachy reformer as did John McIntire (Police Commissioner Hardy), quite admirably to be sure, in the 1950 John Huston crime caper classic, THE ASPHALT JUNGLE. ASPHALT JUNGLE and FORCE OF EVIL are also films with scenes of double-crosses and back- stabbing that I enjoy as much as THE ENFORCER.Relentlessly grim, and for the most part original, THE ENFORCER stands on it's own.The ending is a bit anti-climatic only because it wraps up so quickly after all the tension and flashbacks have reached the anticipated moment of the "pay-off", so I rate it a 9 out of 10. I had no problem with the way the story unfolds as we are given pieces of the puzzle. The flashbacks get better and better so my advice is stick with it. Underrated gem, deserving better than the reserved reviews and short shrift it often gets.Zero Mostel, Everett Sloane, Ted De Corsia, Jack Lambert etc. all contribute what are perhaps among their best, if brief, performances on film,TWO ICE-PICKS, WAY UP!