The Enforcer (1951) was one of the toughest, most violent crime thrillers of its period, and one of the most demanding of its audience both in terms of its violence and its story arc, incorporating multiple interwoven flashbacks in the manner of Citizen Kane. The latter attribute was rather coincidental, since the man at the center of this film, whom we don't even see until more than 69 minutes into the movie, is played by Everett Sloane, one of the stars of Kane. The Enforcer's story is based on the successful prosecution of Louis "Lepke" Buchhalter, the notorious New York mobster, and his gang of professional killers, which was known in the popular press as "Murder Inc." The death of Joe Rico (Ted de Corsia) while in custody echoes real-life key witness (and executioner) Abe Reles' fall from a guarded room on the top floor of a Brooklyn hotel; Sloane's Albert Mendoza is also a stand-in for Buchhalter (who was executed in 1944). The movie's directorial pedigree has always been a bit hazy. Broadway theater veteran Bretaigne Windust is credited with making The Enforcer, but it was action film veteran Raoul Walsh, working uncredited, who actually directed a major chunk of the movie, including all of the violent scenes. Between the two filmmakers, they created a film so engrossing that viewers were able to willingly suspend their disbelief. In that regard, The Enforcer (which was retitled "Murder Inc." in England) is more effective than the much more painstakingly accurate 20th Century Fox movie Murder, Inc. (1960), drawing the viewer into its complex story tapestry and overcoming some of the worst lapses in the script.
Despite its being a police procedural in content, The Enforcer is often grouped with film noir movies, due in part to Robert Burks' deeply atmospheric photography and the choice of actors. Beyond Humphrey Bogart and Roy Roberts, Michael Tolan (billed as Lawrence Tolan) as the doomed strong-arm man Duke Malloy, Jack Lambert as asylum inmate/hitman Philadelphia Tom Zaca, Zero Mostel as whiny, neurotic Big Babe Lazick, John Kellogg as shaky, neurotic Vince, and Bob Steele as Herman (the gang's own enforcer) are made up and photographed to be like normalized versions of the kind of grotesque hoods seen in Dick Tracy cartoons. Steele is even scarier here than he is in Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep (1946), radiating quiet, calm menace in one key scene involving the execution of three colleagues. Even the incidental players, such as Susan Cabot in a small, but pivotal, role, and Adelaide Klein as mob contact Olga Kirshen resonate well in scenes of just a few seconds. Coupled with the dark moodiness of the whole film -- every scene seems to radiate menace -- the movie is an extraordinary achievement and, ironically, one that isn't as well known as it should be. Although it was made at and originally distributed by Warner Bros., The Enforcer belonged to its producer, Milton Sperling, and his United States Pictures, and later passed into the hands of Republic Pictures. It did a fair job of distributing it, but the movie was never packaged or grouped with Bogart's other Warner-distributed titles, such as High Sierra, The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, or Key Largo, with which it would have fit.