You won't hear "The Enforcer" mentioned when it comes to Humphrey Bogart's body of famous work, but it's a very watchable mystery that pulls you in early, and keeps you interested with each new revelation. Bogie's character is Assistant District Attorney Martin Ferguson, who along with police pal Frank Nelson (Roy Roberts), unravels a murder for profit enterprise in a deftly told story with a clever twist that finally sinks the big fish behind it.<br /><br />Like the Charlie Chan films of an earlier era, I found that keeping a scorecard for the colorful cast of characters is helpful to keep track of the action. You've got names like Big Babe, Philadelphia Tom, Smiley, Sad Eyes and Duke Molloy to keep track of, all as the story unfolds in a flashback within a flashback framework. One of the more interesting things for me in this 1950 film was it's explanation of the terms "contract" and "hit", obviously recent additions to the crime lexicon for it's day, though hardly unknown today.<br /><br />The movie offers a lot of clichéd lines that were probably fresh at the time, take Ferguson's command to the paranoid Rico (Ted De Corsia) the day before he's set to testify against mob boss Mendoza (Everett Sloane) - "He'll die, he's got to die, and you're going to kill him." Though Rico dies in a fall while trying to escape from testifying, we later see him in a flashback scene recounting how he was present at Mendoza's first "hit" of a café owner. Apparently, Mendoza's murder for hire racket had quite a few customers; when Ferguson has the authorities dredge a swamp where a couple victims were expected to be found, they wound up with an evidence room table filled with the shoes of his victims. That was one of the credibility defying scenes that seemed a little over the top, even though done in understated fashion.<br /><br />With only a few hours to find a way to put Mendoza away for good, Ferguson strains his memory for a possible clue that may have been largely ignored when Rico initially gave himself up. I think they had a song for it - "Don't it make your brown eyes blue".<br /><br />If you can get your hands on this little gem, give it a try. One of Bogie's last films, it holds up well, even though certain elements mentioned earlier mark it as a period piece. For all that, it offers a capable cast that delivers it's story well, amid dingy interrogation rooms and sordid back alleys. Have fun!