The Enforcer

Introducing the American public to terms like “contract” and “hit,” Bretaigne Windust’s The Enforcer is a dark and densely plotted film that documents the commercialization of the murder craft. The first act pits terrified police witness Joseph Rico (Ted de Corsia) against assistant district attorney Martin Ferguson (Humphrey Bogart) in an extended suspense sequence with silhouettes of armed guards and squads of fedoras marching up a darkened staircase; one gripping scene features Rico escaping through a tiny bathroom window after smashing the guard’s head against the sink. We then flash back in time to the start of the case when a disoriented “Duke” Malloy (Michael Tolan) appeared in a police station muttering, “They made me kill my girl;” the subsequent investigation plays out against expressionistic backdrops of wet streets, garbage cans, high walls, and crates, including a barber shop straight out of Sweeney Todd. The story winds around and around while Windust (and/or Raoul Walsh, who replaced him) animates heavy noir tropes like horizontal blinds refracting striped light, prison bars, floor-mounted cameras to record nervous pacing, classic overhead gangster lamps, headlights in the woods, and thick fog on the dubious docks.