Tonight I watched another Humphrey Bogart movie, "The Enforcer" (1950), a hard boiled crime thriller in which Bogey plays a District Attorney out to shut down an organization of hired contract killers, who in the film were modeled after the real life gang "Murder Inc". As the film begins, he has a lone witness - the #2 man in the gang - set to testify the next morning at a trial that will put the bossman in the electric chair. They didn't mess around in those days. Think about that for a minute; they used to put guys in the electric chair. Not to say that some of these guys didn't have it coming, but man what a horrible way to go out. Well anyhow, in crime movies from the Golden Era, it's always The Chair that the killers end up sitting in, and here, at the beginning of "The Enforcer", the only way Bogey is gonna be able to convict the Gang Boss and put him in The Chair is through the testimony of his #2 man. But now, that man is scared and having second thoughts, even though DA Bogart has assured him the full protection of the city government.
The night before the trial, the cops have #2 sequestered, locked down tight in the DA's office. A dozen guards stand watch to ensure he testifies in the morning.
From there the plot begins, and I really can't tell you any more without giving away spoilers and the details of some great detective work. "The Enforcer" is hard as nails, and doesn't qualify as a Noir, in my opinion, because there isn't the melodrama, or a tortured romance, or the cynicism of a doomed protagonist. The script is all procedural police work, though the story is told mostly via the Noir device of flashback sequences and the sterling black and white photography does exhibit Noirish characteristics of long shadowing and sharp angles. But overall, it's a crime film about murderous psychopaths, a four decade precursor to movies like "Mean Streets" and "Goodfellas. The criminals may have gotten more suave and stylish as 1950 passed to 1990, but at their core they were ever the same, just as brutal and sociopathic. The cops and DAs who have to deal with them know what they are like - men without conscience - and this awareness is made very clear by the steadfast drive on the part of Bogey to stamp out this gang who murder people for money, for they are the Devil Incarnate.
Two Very Big Thumbs Up for "The Enforcer", a film I had never heard of until I did my recent Humphrey Bogart search in the Libe database that turned up several new titles, a few of which, like "Enforcer" have recently been remastered by Olive Films, a small label in the film restoration effort, of which Criterion is king. Olive did an expert job with "The Enforcer", and probably had a crisp print to begin with because the dvd is as clear as if you were in the theater seeing the movie on opening night in 1950. /////
We have more Bogart movies lined up, so stay tuned. ///
I have to unfortunately mention politics, and this time I am talking about the party I am registered to, which is the Democratic party. I don't feel beholden to Democrats, because I don't feel beholden to politics, and in lots of ways I cannot stand politics, but I do vote Democratic, and I must say I was very disheartened today to hear a newly elected representative from Michigan use the worst profanity to refer to her desire to impeach Trump. This woman actually used the MF word on an open microphone, knowing exactly what she was saying, doing it deliberately, and I just thought, "what have we become"?
Is this the best that we've got to elect? What happened to the examples of yore? Isn't Government supposed to be serious business?
And on that score, we seem to have also elected someone on the Democratic side who, to my estimation, is just as unqualified as Donald Trump, albeit in an entirely different way. This person is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who in her short time as a member of Congress has been featured preening, acting like a high school kid in the tunnels beneath the buildings, and - after a very juvenile dance video surfaced of her - instead of growing up and distancing herself from her college years, she "owned" it as they say, and recreated a little bit of dance for the cameras, so in love with herself is she, instead of acting like a legislator who has just been elected to the United States House Of Representatives.
I am sorry, and this might offend some, but she is a first class Idiot, a no-brainer, and so is that woman from Michigan who used the MF word against Trump. Between the two of these nitwits, we might be able to scrape together a half dozen brain cells.
Look folks, you know how I feel about Trump, and I know how you feel. We know we've gotta get rid of him before he destroys our beloved country. But is these are the people we have elected to do it, imbeciles like Miss Octavio Cortez and the Michigan Foul Mouth, then we Democrats are in big trouble.
Where are the Statesmen and Stateswomen? Or is Congress just a free for all now, open to anyone?
What say you? ////
See you in the morning with tons of love sent until then. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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