Showing posts with label Zero Mostel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zero Mostel. Show all posts

The Enforcer (1951)

Who is The Enforcer?  

Is it Humphrey Bogart who plays District Attorney Martin Ferguson, the guy who enforces the law, slapping hoods where necessary, an enforcer of morals in a sick crime game?

Is The Enforcer Everett Sloane as Moriarty-like mastermind Albert Mendoza, a man so feared in the city that even the mention of his name enforces a certain silence, an absolute fear, the inevitability of a violent death? 

Or is The Enforcer tough guy turned snivelling snitch, Rico, played by Ted De Corsia, whose king-pin status keeps the whole racket going; Rico who enforces the deadly conviction of the mysterious boss man, until his own nasty death?

It is not possible to keep track of the flashback-cum-story within a story structure of The Enforcer.  The first ten minutes take place near the end of the story, and from thence the editor dives to the start, periodically dipping further into the past as hood and victims tell their stories, generally to Ferguson, the character played by Bogart.