Simply A Masterpiece

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

For some reason, I thought this film was a lot earlier than 1951. The reason is that it looks for all the world like a B movie and sounds like one. It's possible Bogart owed Warners a film, though what his excuse was for making "The Two Mrs. Carrolls" I've never figured out. He must have owed them a lot of films. Apparently the director became quite ill and Bogart asked Raoul Walsh, who refused to take any credit, to take over. This helps the film to come off well, but to me it still seems like a B movie with an A list star and director."The Enforcer" is a crime noir, with Bogart as Martin Ferguson, a frustrated District Attorney who loses yet another witness against a crime boss, Albert Mendoza (Everett Sloane). Ferguson's witness (Ted de Corsia) is due to go into court the next day, but he panics and tries to leave via a window too many flights up.Ferguson stays up the night before the trial with Captain Nelson (Roy Roberts) going over the case incident by incident, trying to figure out if there is anybody else who can help him put this killer in prison.There are flashbacks within flashbacks here as different people tell a story about the organization.I liked the denouement of this movie. I found it effective and also suspenseful.Bogart, as usual, is great, as the no-nonsense DA, and he has good support from Zero Mostel, Sloane, King Donovan, and Michael Tolan, among others.Good crime drama.

This is a very good film. It got me thrilled from the very beginning. The story starts when the main witness on a murder trial falls to death accidentally just the night before the trial, and then the District Attorney begins to review all the case over, seeking some other conviction clue against the defendant. From then on, all the movie is made of flashbacks which tell you (not always in chronological order) the whole police investigation that has been carried out to break up that crime organization.The keys: Actually this is not a Bogie's film, for he doesn't play an important part in the action: Most of the time, he just listens to what others do. In fact, this is nobody's film, for the play is quite well distributed between the characters. And the director has been clever enough to give each one of the players quite enough a part to describe his/her character perfectly.The details: There are a lot of details in the action, on which I didn't realize the first 4 or 5 times I saw the movie. But after seeing it a dozen times (believe it or not), I enjoy every one of them. For example, try to understand why Ricco's hand was slipping when Ferguson tried to grab it. Or guess whatever happened to Vince. Or what is the thing "you can carry around in the hat", as Mendoza said. Or just ask yourself why Rico was such a good employer for his employees: paying without having them work, providing lawyers, taking care of their families...The moral: I even try to figure out if there is a moral conclusion laying under the plot. Maybe there is one, if one comes to analyze the murderers characters: All of them seem quite tough when they have a gun, but they break down when feeling threatened (even the impassive and cool Mendoza), revealing themselves as a bunch of cowards. And there is another important fact: In the end, NO ONE GOT TO ESCAPE. Up to eight of them end up violently killed, and the other five regret (or seem to) and agree to collaborate with the police.The goofs: Unfortunately there are plenty of goofs in the action: Olga Kirshen talks too much, same as Angela Vetto; Big Babe hides in the church, as if it were a safe place to hide from murderers; Angela assumes Teresa's personality in a way which is not credible; Rico knocks poor Whitlow's head over the washbasin without Ferguson nor Nelson hearing it, although they are in the room next door; The apparent lack of impeachments for disappearing people in all those years of murders... Still, that doesn't harm the plot that much.Although not quite realistic, the acting (Ted De Corsia at his best), the plot and the direction make a thrilling picture which worths a view... well, more than one view.

"Murder, Inc" finds Humphrey Bogart playing a District Attorney who works closely with police detectives in the hopes of solving a series of violent murders. As the film progresses we learn that the murders were committed by a ring of assassins under the command of a devilish gang leader called Mendoza.Directed by Bretaigne Windust, the film is told largely through flashbacks. Unfortunately Windust's direction is flat and his script uninspired, the film only coming alive during 3 action sequences, two of which were ghost directed by Raoul Walsh.7/10 – Decades of television cop shows and police procedurals have diluted any impact "The Enforcer" might have once had. The always watchable Bogart turns in a solid performance, but the rest of the film is simply lacklustre. The film's finale is handled well, though, and a basement gangland meeting is suitably ominous.Note: The film is often classed as a "film noir". It is not.

Dire! This hard-boiled crime melodrama is about contract killing and it traces, rather naively I thought, the genesis of the whole enterprise and is said to be based on fact. It's distinguished slightly by the use of flashbacks within flashbacks and by some fine, moody cinematography by Robert Burks but, with the exception of Bogart, (and even he is playing well below par), it is appallingly acted. Still, sometimes a bad performance can be even more memorable than a good one and in this respect Ted De Corsia's 'Squealer' ends up stealing the film. On the other hand, both Zero Mostel and Everett Sloane probably reach a career nadir here. As for the direction of Bretaigne Windust, it's perfunctory at best. Inhabiting a vacuum somewhere between "The House on 42nd Street" and "The Phenix City Story", the film is neither fish nor fowl, (it's mostly foul). Missed opportunities all round.