"The Enforcer" is the first really good cops-and-robbers picture to arrive in Boston for a long time. Marvin Racken's taut, original story of the apprehension of Killers, Inc.--a Kansas City murder syndicate--insures a better than average show from the start. But it is Director Bretaigne Windust's skillful presentation of detail and his avoidance of customary melodramatics that lifts "The Enforcer" out of the ordinary.

The time span of the primary plot is less than twelve hours: from the time that District Attorney Ferguson's (Humphrey Bogart) star witness commits suicide until the trial next morning. With the only man who can positively identify the head of Killers, Inc. now a corpse, Ferguson frantically flashes back over all of his evidence to hit on a new lead.

It is the expert presentation of these flashbacks that manages to keep suspense high through the full two hours. New twists like the undertaker who is kept busy full time interring ice-pick murder victims, and the disinterment of these same good people by the steamshovelful, help to replace the sirens-and-shooting histrionics of grade B gangster pictures. There is only one fisticuffs brawl, and Bogart as D.A. properly lets one of his assistants go through the motions.

Nothing is overdone--this is the picture's main virtue. Music is only inserted at the few climax points in the flashbacks. The photography is documentary in style, carefully avoiding the overgloomy.

The only blemish on the whole job is the slight confusion created by the first flashback within a flashback. This, however, detracts little from an otherwise top-rate film.