Harry Lags This obviously is not one of Bogart's most famous films, it should be cause it is an entertaining film noir that holds your interest from start to finish. They don't make 'em like this anymore. The plot involves Bogart as a D.A., whose star witness in bringing the head of a murder racket to justice dies before the trial. In a lengthy flashback, Bogart retraces the case from the beginning, looking for some bit of testimony that might help him nail the killer before he gets set free. Bogart is good as his usual tough-guy self, and is trying to prosecute the boss man of a Murder Incorporated type of crime organization but keeps running into road blocks with people getting killed. Bogie plays it well although Bogie could play Mary Poppins and make it look good.At the end Bogie does what Bogie does well. This is a great movie. If you are a Bogart fan, this is a must have.

derekcreedon Towards the end of 1951 I turned fifteen, just a year away from legal admittance to an X-film. The new certificate, recently introduced, posed an unwelcome obstruction and a moral challenge though I had few problems at my local 'fleapit' where they didn't always question you. Joe Losey's version of M, Cy Endfield's THE SOUND OF FURY and Russell Rouse's THE WELL were stark compelling studies of civil unrest accentuated by the guilty thrill of the 'forbidden' logo. Up the road at the 'de-luxe' however was a different proposition. Amid much larger, grander and more formal surroundings my soul shrank at thoughts of confrontation, of deceptiveness, of "trouble on the door". Sheer funk kept me away from DETECTIVE STORY even with Kirk Douglas in the lead and I let Brando and STREETCAR rattle by unhailed. But then came the crunch, a moment of truth - Humphrey Bogart in MURDER INC. (as it was known over here). What self-respecting film-nut could let that one get away without a struggle. With a grace under pressure Bogie would have endorsed I faced the big guns - the old commissionaire, the manager, the Lord Lieutenant of Glamorgan, the lot. "What school do you go to ? What form are you in ? And you're 16 ??" I felt like one of the Bowery Boys in night-court. All I wanted was to see the Main Man in action, not study for a life of crime. Hang in there, Bogie, don't start without me. They finally let me in though I don't think they believed me and it was worth every bead of sweat. It was a shock to see Bogie with an X pinned to his lapel but what went on was rather alarming...It's an odd item in his chronology, a superior B-picture made apparently to wrap up his Warner contract. Relations with the studio that had made him a star (via some lucky accidents) had long been deteriorating and he was already making films for his own company through a deal with Columbia. As the Assistant D.A. doggedly trying to nail a reptilian crime-boss he was not so much the star here as the host, presiding over a series of flashback sequences before taking over command of the climax. He has no romantic interest (all the women in the film are small-part victims) and no 'personal' story is allowed for. His chief sidekick is a burly Police Captain (Roy Roberts), in effect a precursor of all the TV cop-shows waiting in the wings. The Bogart-link reminds us of his Thirties thrillers but there are no flashy nightclubs here, no wise-cracking molls, no cocky chipmunks fighting for territory. The hoods are murky and nervous in an atmosphere of dread akin to a horror-film which suffuses the whole piece. (It certainly felt like an X at the time). A slickly-wrought compression based on real events it introduced the business of "contract-killing" to the screen and never loses its grip. As others have noted it employs a CITIZEN KANE device - the hunt for a vital clue embedded in the past which may hopefully bring about closure and its nicely apt that Everett Sloane (as Mr. Big) appears in both films.The more extreme violence is always off-screen, no bad thing, but we do get a splendidly-prepared shoot-out at the end when the D.A. rescues his crucial witness (marvellously etched by Pat Joiner) from a stalking hit-man. Real-life D.As probably don't do that sort of thing but this is Bogie going gat-for-gat against Bob Steele, his old adversary from THE BIG SLEEP. It works perfectly and whatever the studio politics that led to it it's a smashing send-off.

seymourblack-1 "The Enforcer" is a gripping tale about an investigation into the activities of a crime syndicate boss and the efforts of an Assistant D.A. to bring him to justice. The criminal in question was the head of a group of contract killers who carried out murders to order and avoided detection because their operatives never had any connection with their victims and so there were never any known motives or obvious leads for the authorities to follow up in their investigations. This concept, although very familiar to audiences today, was something very topical at the time of the film's release and also a matter of great public interest.In the period immediately before the release of "The Enforcer", Senate Committee hearings on organised crime were chaired by Senator Estes Kefauver. These hearings were given national television coverage during a period when the medium was very new to most viewers and the revelations about the pervasive nature of organised crime and the existence of the outfit known as "Murder Incorporated" attracted extremely large audiences. It was during these broadcasts that the general public first became aware of some of the jargon used by hired killers and "The Enforcer" is credited as being the first movie to feature the words "contract", "hit" and "fingerman" in this context.After a four year investigation into the activities of crime boss Albert Mendoza (Everett Sloane), Assistant D.A. Martin Ferguson (Humphrey Bogart) has a witness who has agreed to testify that he saw Mendoza kill a man. When the witness, Joe Rico (Ted de Corsia), dies suddenly as the result of an accident, Ferguson and Police Captain Frank Nelson (Roy Roberts) undertake a meticulous review of their investigation to date to try to find another piece of information which could lead to them being able to get Mendoza convicted.The case files confirm that the investigation started when a frantic young man called "Duke" Malloy (Lawrence Tolan) visited a police station and reported that he's been forced to kill his girlfriend. It transpired that he was a hired killer who'd fallen in love with his intended victim and when he'd initially refused to go through with the job, he'd been pressured by other gang members into completing the contract. The overwrought Malloy hanged himself in a police cell and the investigation that followed involved police officers in gathering information from a variety of people including Malloy's fellow gang members.Ferguson and Nelson's review eventually brings to light the name of another person who would be a perfect witness but unfortunately Mendoza becomes aware of this person's identity at the same and this leads to a desperate race against time for the police to find the potential witness before Mendoza's men do.The movie's structure is interesting as an account of the police investigation is given in flashback with the stories of each of the interviewees often constituting a flashback within a flashback. The action is delivered with a good deal of pace and tension and despite the story's closeness to real events, the movie's style is always entertaining and not overly solemn in the way that some docu-noirs can be.The colourful collection of characters featured in "The Enforcer" are brought to life vividly by the excellent cast and Humphrey Bogart is especially good as a man who is extremely determined and powerfully focused on his task but is nevertheless also very controlled and methodical when necessary.

bkoganbing Although the star of the film in terms of first billed in The Enforcer is Humphrey Bogart, the film's main character is Ted DeCorsia in what is probably his best screen performance.Taking a lot of inspiration from Citizen Kane, District Attorney Humphrey Bogart and his two police investigators, Roy Roberts and King Donovan try and piece back together a case against Everette Sloane who has started a new racket, murder for profit. The chief witness is Ted DeCorsia who after an attempt on his life, falls to his death while trying to escape from a window.After DeCorsia's demise the night before the trial was to commence, Bogart and Sloane start listening to hours of tape from several witnesses to see if they can salvage the case. Like Charles Foster Kane's life, the story of the racket is told in flashback through the tapes. DeCorsia is the main character because all roads lead to him as the number two guy, but only he can finger Sloane. DeCorsia is seen as the frightened witness and also as the tough racketeer. It's almost two characters in the same film, but DeCorsia delivers on both.Everette Sloane is one chillingly evil villain. He's decided to sell the services of killers to those who need them. To other racketeers and to outsiders as well. No motive, the police can't track down the ] perpetrators. The words of this racket, like 'contract' and 'hit' are all familiar terms now, but then it was something fairly new.Bogart's function is like the reporter{s} who pieced together the life of Charles Foster Kane. It's essentially passive, he's one of the few people whoever played a District Attorney in films who never got a courtroom scene. But in the end, frantically trying to find and protect a crucial witness, he becomes quite proactive to say the least.Of course this is all borrowed from the stories about Murder, Inc. and it was familiar to the movie going public. But The Enforcer is a really taut crime drama that never lets your interest flag.It's so good that I can almost forgive a major plot flaw. Through some gross stupidity on Bogart's part, Sloane realizes there's a witness out there who can nail him and he takes appropriate steps. I can't see in real life how that could have happened.Still The Enforcer is a personal favorite of mine for Humphrey Bogart films and I think you'll like it too although when you see it you will see what Bogey did that almost blew the whole case.