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‘The Enforcer’ takes the difficult road to tell a revealing tale about criminal business practices

Director Bretaigne Windust, helped in some capacity by the more vividly remembered Raoul Walsh (albeit un-credited during the opening titles), along with screenwriter Martin Rackin do their part in pushing the limits of the complexity of timelines in exploring the long and winding road that eventually leads The Enforcer’s protagonist, Martin Ferguson, to snatch his man. More to the point, one of the picture’s more unexpected qualities is the confidence in which it near-seamlessly engulfs the viewer into multiple levels of the past in order to reveal the full pertinent details of Mendoza’s recent crime wave.

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‘Pursued’ sees another dark past give chase to Robert Mitchum

Pursued Written by Niven Busch Directed Raoul Walsh USA, 1947 In a small, dilapidated home in the middle of the New Mexico desert, the beautiful but worried Thor Callum (Theresa Wright) arrives to convene with her on-the-run lover Jeb Rand (Robert Mitchum). From whom or what he is fleeing is unclear at first, but he …

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‘High Sierra’ is where wannabe nice guys finish last

Last week’s column entry, White Heat, was a film directed by Raoul Walsh which exemplified some of the very best assets of both the gangster and noir genres within the same picture. Given that the latter evolved, in part, out of the former, it only seemed natural that by the end of the 1940s, when the gangster pictures were less prominent at the theatre and noir was picking up considerable steam, the two would coalesce seamlessly.

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‘White Heat’ has James Cagney so hot not even the world can stop him

Where would people be without their mothers? Whether by birth, adoption or simply maternal figures, these great dames have, since time immemorial, commanded love, admiration, respect and devotion from their children. Codes of conduct, signs of affection, life lessons, mothers are so often considered the obvious heart and soul of one’s family, the father more commonly seen as the backbone.

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