Conflict (1945) Online

"Conflict" has always been one of my favorite Bogey movies, even if it doesn't score highly with most viewers. Perhaps it's the chemistry between he and Sydney Greenstreet, who's character is a psychiatrist who specializes in the workings of the criminal mind. There's a great scene in which Professor Hamilton (Greenstreet) and Richard Mason (Bogart) exchange ideas on the "perfect crime", with all of the professor's insight focused on accurately describing Mason's uncertainty and attendant behavior following the murder of his wife. Hamilton describes Mason's conduct to a tee, leaving Mason speechless as he walks out the door.

There is really no mystery here, early on we know that Richard Mason faked the complications of an auto accident to set up a confrontation with Kathryn Mason (Rose Hobart) on a lonely mountain road. Astute viewers will catch the mistake that Mason makes to the police and Professor Hamilton, when describing his missing wife "the last time I saw her". If you don't catch it, you'll be aware of it during a repeat viewing and say to yourself, "how did I miss that?" The scene is deftly done, as Greenstreet's character doesn't give a hint of recognition at Mason's errant remark.

The remainder of the film relies on a considerable number of set ups intended to smoke out Mason. Granted, some of the circumstances require odds defying precision timing, and a highly unlikely alliance between the police and the professor. Maybe in simpler times, authorities might have been able to trap their victim as was done here, but I don't think it would work in a real life situation today. Nevertheless, as positioned in the film, each manufactured event is intended to make Mason believe that his wife may not be dead (even though he did kill her), or that he may slowly be losing his mind. Even random events conspire to trigger Mason's guilt - an engineering sketch by one of his partners, and a pile of logs rigged for a vacation lodge bonfire outwardly resemble the scene where Mason rigged his wife's unfortunate "accident".

Ultimately, many movies require some suspension of belief for their premise to work. "Conflict" is one of those movies where the characters, dialog and set ups meld together cohesively enough to offer an entertaining viewing if one can refrain from being too critical. On that basis, the film is well recommended.

Conflict stars Humphrey Bogart as architect Richard Mason, not in love with his wife (Rose Hobart) and infatuated with her sister Alexis (Evelyn Turner) Events soon take a sinister turn, when Richard hatches a plot to murder his wife on a remote mountain road. Just when he thinks he has committed the perfect crime, things start to happen which plant seeds of doubt in his mind.

Sydney Greenstreet gives a fine performance as a psychologist friend of the Masons who offers useful insights into the criminal mind and gives you food for thought as he voices his opinion on the human psyche.

With good performances all round, this is an atmospheric mystery which will keep you guessing to the end.

This may not be one of Bogart's best, in fact not even close to his best....but his pairing with Sidney Greenstreet makes it worth watching. There is something magical about the manner in which these two actors mesh that is seldom seen in film. Bogart is Bogart, always the tight lipped hero or villain with the clipped speech and slight chip on his shoulder. Greenstreet is the jolly fat man who hides behind that facade, either evil or cunning or both. Two actors with different personas which play perfectly against each other. They are seldom on the same side and although initially, in this film, they appear to be, the tables turn as the film progresses. The story is not a new one....man kills wife...or so he thinks....is she dead or isn't she? The ending is fairly predictable but it still holds your interest. Alexis Smith, as the target of Bogart's affections, is tall, coldly beautiful and rather detached....she does not seem vulnerable enough and can't seem to make up her mind about her feelings for Bogart's character. Watch this film for the exchanges between Bogart and Greenstreet...that's what it is all about. They make the rest of it worthwhile.

This is a not much known film noir directed by Kurt (Curtis) Bernhardt. Starring Humphrey Bogart as the architect Richard Mason who kills his wife because he is in love with her sister the movie switches from a straight forward crime story to a mystery when Mason gets letters from his wife though he knows she is dead. This is an clever idea but it's very easy for an experienced crime novel reader to pre-construct the movie after thirty minutes if you listen closely. This is somehow a weakness of the whole movie, nevertheless the interest is still there because of the other qualities the movie offers. The screenplay and the editing is fast paced, the dialog is sharp without any paraphrases, the acting is to the point. The plot line offers another question: Is the sister of Richard Mason's wife also in love with him as he thinks she is? Since we see the movie from his point of view it is very unclear.

"Conflict" creates a dark atmosphere and we see Mason acting like an immoral person which we also can call existencialistic. He does not question his crime, it seems it is just something that had to be done.

Nice appearance by Sidney Greenstreet as the psychologist Hamilton.

Spoilers.

I've just seen this film again for the first time in about 20 years. I've held it as a personal favorite from an earlier viewing, all this time. It was with some trepidation, then, taking into account all the water that has washed under the gates in the last 20 years in cinematic terms, that I came to Conflict again. Would it still stand up as an authentic film experience?

For me, it has. --And what's more, there are resonances here, this time around, that flew over the head of a callow youngster. This go 'round, the film feels like nothing less than a meditation on regret, all those mistakes you wish you could undo, all those unfulfilled longings of middle age that arise out of a palpable sense of missed opportunities and fading last chances.

Bogart is perfect as Richard Mason, an engineer who is trusted to oversee the building of a bridge or skyscraper, but can't repair a 'simple little thing' like his damaged relationship with his wife. Mason regrets what has become of his marriage. He regrets feeling trapped in a 'situation.' He regrets that the time line of eternity has failed to synchronize the lifetime of his wife's much younger sister with his own. A cool and respected professional outwardly, he is, inside, a flailing, discontented man. What finally pushes him over the edge may be his wife's casual mockery in the films first scene, a preparation for their anniversary party. Amid some standard jibes and old-couple bickering, she throws out this taunt: that she hopes he never tells Evelyn, her sister, he has a thing for her, because she'd laugh at him. "I wish you hadn't said that" he thinks out loud. It's at that point that we begin to feel the wheels of escape turning in the engineer's head. With just a few thoughtless words, the relationship has turned a corner, from merely unrewarding to personally demeaning and thus intolerable. Therein hangs the tale.

By fade out, it is clear that Mason has one other towering regret: having killed his wife. The final scene, returned to the sepulcher he fashioned for his wife, Mason takes a long hard look with us alongside at existential despair. The empty tomb is a metaphor for Mason's life as he must feel it at that point: The emptiness of an empty life, the emptiness of death and eternity for one who has lived such a life. Whatever he was waiting for hasn't shown up this existence, and won't in the next. This is it for Richard Mason. Does it get any darker than this?

Conflict isn't included in most noir references because, I believe, some of the more psychologically aberrant elements of the characters and story are explained away rationally at the end, as part of a set up or a trick to trap a murderer. But I think the experts are mistaken in not having looked more closely at this film. The core of Conflict is, in fact, the purest noir: an existential view of life and death, struggles with doubts about ones own sanity, sexual longing as a spur to murder, and a cruel subversion of a cherished bourgeois institution (the 'perfect' marriage). If this isn't noir, then what is noir criticism but a transparent popularity contest-- like the earliest auteur criticism-- that speciously excludes films for having the "wrong" director, or for not having been endorsed by the "right" people?

Ten stars. Definitely worth your time.

Conflict (1945)

*** (out of 4)

Nice thriller about a husband (Humphrey Bogart) who murders his wife because he's in love with her younger sister (Alexis Smith). The husband is in a bad car wreck but he fakes how serious his injury is so he will have an alibi as to why he couldn't be the murderer but soon he starts seeing his wife and begins to fear he might not have killed her. I was pleasantly surprised to see how good this picture was even though some stronger direction would have helped matters. While watching the movie I was entertained every step of the way but at the same time I couldn't help but wonder what this would have been like with someone like Hitchcock behind the camera. What works best are the performances with Bogart leading the way and doing a very fine job in the role of the husband who slowly begins to crack once he realizes he might not have done a very good job in terms of his murder plot. Bogart manages to play the character's nerves quite well and makes the role very believable. Smith was also very good in her role bringing a certain type of innocence that really makes her register with the viewer. He own scenes of doubt over whether she should be falling for her sister's husband were well done. Sydney Greenstreet plays the friend/psychologist who tries to keep Bogart calm throughout the matter. Greenstreet's calm, nurturing voice certainly makes him perfect for the character. The screenplay also works very well as we're given two different mysteries to keep in our mind. The first being whether or not the wife is actually dead or is something more supernatural going on. The second is, if she's dead, will Bogie get away with it. This film really has a lot of elements of a horror film or at least the Val Lewton productions that were being made around this time. This film is quite dark and really fits into that genre so fans of the Lewton films will certainly want to check this out.

Sidney Greenstreet was only in motion pictures for nine years, but he left a mark as large as his physical presence. He was lucky to be taken through his initial appearance in films (he was past 60)by one of the great modern film directors (John Huston). And after THE MALTESE FALCON he was lucky enough to appear in a second film by Huston (ACROSS THE PACIFIC) co-starring his "Maltese Falcon" friends Bogart and Mary Astor. With that build-up he was set. Unfortunately, he also had been set in the role of villain, and for as long as he was connected to Warners Brothers (which was most of his whole career) he was usually playing villains. There would be exceptions: He was in comedies like CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT, THE HUCKSTERS, PILLOW TO POST. But most of his films were dramatic, with him playing the villains. Sometimes his villains were sympathetic, or the type the audience secretly cheered on (his Superintendent Grodman avenges himself and a wrongly hanged man in the course of the film THE VERDICT). Sometimes he destroyed a truly evil figure (usually Zachary Scott), like in THE MASK OF DEMETRIOS.

Because of THE MALTESE FALCON and the Warner Brothers connection, Greenstreet and Bogart found themselves teamed together, frequently with Peter Lorre or Mary Astor in these films as well. In most of them Greenstreet played a villain or a semi-sinister figure (his role in Casablanca is not a total villain in the film). But CONFLICT is a real exception. It was the only time Greenstreet and Bogart were in a film together and Bogart is the villain, while Greenstreet is the man who solves the murder. It is good reverse casting (reminding us that Bogart's period as a supporting actor in the 1930s was one where he played villains against Edward G. Robinson or James Cagney). Greenstreet is excellent as the the man who uses psychological warfare to crack the killer's conscience. And it is so subtly done we never know what was the cause of Greenstreet's discovery of the truth - it all comes down to an issue of horticulture...so to speak.

This is an obvious though very entertaining film with a cast that includes the radiant Alexis Smith, Sydney Greenstreet, and of course, the star, Humphrey Bogart at his sinister best. He plays an unhappily married man who is in love with his wife's sister (Smith). Greenstreet is a friend of the family.

Considering the circumstances of his death, it's always disturbing to see Humphrey Bogart with cigarettes, and if he's not smoking in this, he's lining them up in his cigarette case.

Mystery loving audiences will pick up the all-important clue immediately. Whether you do or don't, it's hard not to enjoy the most standard of films with a cast like this. As an added kick, the film has a psychological feature to it, which started to become all the rage toward the end of WWII.

This movie and the above named movie were both made in 1945 (though The Two Mrs. Carrolls was released two years later), both starred Humphrey Bogart and Alexis Smith, and both had a plot involving a man who had murdered his wife. In fact, they are so similar that I had mixed the two films together in my mind. However, I recently watched both films just a few nights apart and found Conflict to be the better of the two films, though neither are great films. However, considering that an okay Bogart film of the 1940s is still very watchable, this shouldn't discourage you from seeing the film. The problem, I'm sure, for many is that both films are so against type for Bogey that you may feel turned off by his character. Plus, the plot is awfully hard to believe. BUT, if you suspend belief and just watch it for its entertainment value, this is a good film--particularly for the fine supporting performance by Sidney Greenstreet.

...but it isn't really that unusual if you consider the films Bogart made after "High Sierra" and he began to get meatier film roles instead of the one-note gangster roles Warner Brothers often put him into from 1936 until 1941. Bogart was quite a versatile actor to put it mildly, and this film showcases yet another side of his talents.

Bogart plays Richard Mason, an engineer who is celebrating his fifth wedding anniversary with his wife Kathryn (Rose Hobart). However, Richard and Kathryn have been snapping at each other for the last few weeks. In a bit of a showdown before attending their anniversary party, Richard admits that he is in love with Kathryn's sister Evelyn, and Kathryn admits her short temper has been because she realizes this. Kathryn also states that she would never agree to a divorce. Realize that Evelyn (Alexis Smith) is innocent in all of this as Richard has been worshiping her from afar.

That night, on the way back from their anniversary party, Richard is gazing at Evelyn through the rear view mirror and has an automobile accident as a result of not paying attention to the road. Evelyn and Kathryn are unharmed, but Richard has broken his leg. Richard uses this injury, and the fact that no doctor can be sure at what point he'll regain the use of his leg, to come up with a rather clever scheme for killing his wife. After recovering his mobility, he continues to behave as though incapacitated. With everyone believing him immobilized by his injury, he intercepts his wife's car on a remote mountain road, blocking the road with his own car. He kills his wife and then sends the car off a cliff with Kathryn inside. A large group of logs go off the cliff with the car making a kind of eery formation on top of it and obscuring the wreck. The car does not catch fire.

Now all Richard has to do is go back to town undetected, still playing the cripple, and now playing the worried husband as well when his wife does not reach her destination. With Evelyn at his side to provide moral support, his plan is to wait for the alerted state police to find his wife's car and thus her body. Then he'll be free to court Evelyn. However, there is one snag - the police never find Kathryn's body or her car. On top of that, Kathryn's things that were with her when she died are showing up one by one - in Richard's desk, in his bedroom, in his luggage when he goes on a trip. The scent of Kathryn's perfume fills their room one night. He even sees someone who is dressed just like his wife on the street one day and follows her - she disappears into thin air. Whatever is going on here? Was Kathryn unharmed in this second accident as well? Is she playing with him? Unlike most mysteries, this one is not something that needs to be explained to the audience at the end, although it is. If you watch the film closely enough you'll figure out exactly what happened before it starts happening - but you have to pay attention. Highly recommended.

This is an excellent film noir, featuring a very pert and pretty Alexis Smith as the object of a nasty Humphrey Bogart's lustful obsessions. Good old Sydney Greenstreet is as jolly and quietly scheming as ever. Regarding Smith, who is his sister-in-law, Bogart has 'gotta have her' but has not bothered to ask her first how she feels about that. Not waiting for such trivial information as what anyone else thinks, he hastens to commit 'the almost-perfect murder' of his wife so that he can be free to pursue his fantasy relationship with her sister. Greenstreet notices the giveaway-clue but with his poker face says nothing. This is all good vintage Hollywood stuff. The film was directed by German refugee Curtis Bernhardt, who fled the Gestapo and became one of Hollywood's many Germans, along with Fritz Lang and all the others. The next year, he directed the famous Bette Davis film A STOLEN LIFE. Robert Siodmak, another well-known émigré German director of noirs, wrote the original story for this one. Good expressionist angst.

Richard Mason (Humphrey Bogart) kills his wife Katherine on a remote hill road. With a good alibi he feels it is the perfect crime and plays the role of the concerned husband as the police follow up a missing persons report. However things begin happening that convince Richard that his wife is very much alive.

This is not a classic Bogart role. He is quite good as the murderer who begins to unravel as his crime begins to catch up with him, he quite convincingly gets increasingly frantic during the film as things keeping happening that couldn't happen unless his wife was alive. However it isn't as strong a role as some of his classics. The strongest performance is Sydney Greenstreet as Doctor Hamilton who supports Bogart through his loss.

The story requires on two mysteries to keep your interest - one, is his wife still alive or is he being played by someone with an ulterior motive? and two - will he get away with the murder? As a mystery it doesn't quite grab you as much as it should. The two mysteries are not enough to drive you until the end but are quite entertaining - especially where Bogart believes he is losing his mind when someone plays games with him. But it's not that great a mystery - we know that either she's alive or she's not - the options are limited so the solution doesn't exactly come out of left-field! The ending is therefore not great, although it is clever, in particular finding out the mistake that Bogart made in his otherwise perfect crime. But it's all a bit of an anti-climax and you feel that you suspected as much the whole way through.

A reasonable mystery film but it doesn't have the tension or mystery that it needed to keep it's audience on a knife's edge for the duration

This is one of Bogart's best movies. He could go either to hard bitten private detective Sam Spade or to paranoid types like the role he plays in this movie or what he did in Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Like most Hollywood movies, murder seems a bit unrealistic given the characters as they are written out and portrayed. But get by the murder and the contrived plot that follows, Bogart still is nothing less than fantastic in this movie. Alexis Smith's part as his wife's younger sister is another reason not to throw this film in as a minor and forgettable Bogart effort. Leave it to director Curtis Bernhardt, who was known for making "women"s films, to make a film that explores so well a man's infatuation and insecurity.

Conflict was the last film teaming of Humphrey Bogart and Sidney Greenstreet and for this one the roles were reversed. For once Mr. Greenstreet was a good guy and he set about to trap his friend Bogart who he suspects of murdering his wife.

I guess it's the psychiatric training for Greenstreet for that's what he plays in Conflict. Bogart and wife Rose Hobart are a seemingly happy couple, but in fact they've grown quite apart and Bogart fancies himself in love with Hobart's sister, Alexis Smith.

One night he and his wife are to go up to a mountain hotel resort, but work keeps him home temporarily at the last minute. Hobart drives up alone and doesn't return.

Let's just say that an elaborate trap has been set for a man that there is no direct evidence on. Let's say that Greenstreet's professional training comes in mighty handy for the games that are played.

Conflict is not in the same league as Maltese Falcon or Casablanca. Still it has a modicum of suspense and should keep the viewer interested.

An architect (Humphrey Bogart) murders his nagging wife (Rose Hobart) in hopes he can be with her younger sister (Alexis Smith). After the murder things start to happen that make him question whether his wife is really dead after all.

Entertaining film despite a plot that's easy to get ahead of. It's helped by some good acting and decent direction. Similar in some ways to The Two Mrs. Carrolls, which also had Bogie plotting to kill his wife so he could marry Alexis Smith. Of the two movies, this is the better, helped largely by the presence of Sidney Greenstreet. Bogart also gives a less over the top performance here than in the other movie. Both films have something else in common: they both sat on the shelf for two years after filming before they were released.

Conflict is definitely a disturbing and horrifying psychological thriller. With it's maliciously unnerving mood and heavy, dismal cinematography, the film aspires to achieve an all-new level of anxiety.

It's about a guilt-ridden man - Humphrey Bogart's arguably most sinister role ever - who gradually plunges deeper and deeper into state of a devastating mental illness. Hinting at a thorough psychological evaluation in the beginning, Conflict analyzes how a fearless and brutal man - convinced that he's just killed his innocent wife - is trapped in a vortex of clues, which might lead to a mightily shocking revelation. The more observant viewers might already be able to uncover the whole mystery in the first act, but for those who are in desperate need of a satisfying and suspenseful intrigue Conflict brings a genuinely captivating mystery.

Sydney Greenstreet - with his usual charm, sophisticated mannerism, and most-cheerful laughter - plays the psychoanalyst and a friend to Mr. Bogart. The manner in which he exhibits his impeccable intelligence is the film's most-promising quality. And Bogart, with all his devilish attitude and increasing fear is as convincing (and as stylish and graceful) as he was in Casablanca or The Maltese Falcon.

Conflict is a lesser-known film noir, but it's crucial to note that its mightily clever and disquieting premise - along with a bunch of twisted and deranged sequences - delivers a seriously thrilling melodrama that's not to be argued with.

Remarkable black and white; average crime drama. Police struggle to crack the alibi of a savvy wife-killer(Humphrey Bogart), who admits on his fifth wedding anniversary that he is in love with his wife's sister(Alexis Smith). Bogart begins to worry when he finds little signs that may indicate that his wife(Rose Hobart)is not dead after all. Very good support from Sydney Greenstreet.

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** I like to call some movies (such as "Mirage"), "A Hitchcock movie not made by Hitchcock." "Conflict" reminds me more of one of his hour-long TV shows, although more intricate and finely wrought. It is done with the same sardonic approach to the horrors that result from entanglement in murder.

Richard (Humphrey Bogart) and Katherine (Rose Hobart) have the perfect marriage. At least, that's what all their friends think, including skeptical Freudian psychologist Dr. Mark Hamilton (Sydney Greenstreet), who tells Katherine he is amazed -- that five years ago, when they married, he wouldn't have given it the slightest chance.

But the story opens with Katherine accusing Richard of having fallen in love with her younger sister, Evelyn (Alexis Smith). He denies it, but Katherine has sensed the truth. She says she will never give Richard a divorce, and that Evelyn would laugh at him if she knew how he felt.

At their fifth anniversary party that night, Richard moons over Evelyn like a lovesick puppy. On their way home, Evelyn's announcement of her incipient departure causes Richard such emotional turmoil that he runs the car into something (we never see what). He awakes in the hospital, and his first words are, "How is Evelyn?" Only later does he ask about Katherine, and doesn't seem too happy to hear that she has escaped without a scratch.

Richard tries to make it up with Katherine, but she withers him with, "It's funny how virtuous a man can be when he's helpless." He uses the fact that his is bound to a wheel chair as the mechanism to enact a plan that he has obviously made, although we don't see him making it. He pretends he can't walk, even though he has recovered. He puts on a convincing show for the doctor, who tells him that his problem is mental now rather than physical.

Richard sets up a vacation at their lonely mountain cabin, ostensibly to aid in his recovery. At the last minute, he fakes a business emergency and tells Katherine to go to the cabin without him; he'll meet her there the next day. He drives ahead, intercepts her on a lonely, fog-bound mountain track, and kills her.

Dr. Mark, who has been a sort of second father to Katherine and Evelyn, is suspicious from the first. Evelyn returns, and Richard is consumed by desire for her. She submits to his attentions, and agrees to spend some time with him at the mountain cabin.

But things are far from perfect in this hellish paradise Richard has created for himself. Katherine's possessions keep turning up, as do people who claim they have seen a woman dressed exactly like Katherine was on the day of her death. Richard becomes increasingly convinced that she is still alive somehow. The uncertainty gnaws at him, and eventually causes him to make a fatal blunder.

Humphrey Bogart presages his role as Captain Queeg in "The Caine Mutiny" here, portraying a madman not as a hair-tearing raver, but in a subtle, understated manner that is much more chilling. (If you like this kind of character, it was also played masterfully by Robert Mitchum in Charles Laughton's "Night of the Hunter.")

Alexis Smith is utterly fascinating, combining sirenish seductiveness with wholesome, girl-next-door qualities in a way that is rare, and difficult to pull off. It is easy to see why Bogart is so obsessed with her and dumps his shrewish wife for her.

Sydney Greenstreet is at his enigmatic best (although perhaps not quite as good as in "The Velvet Touch"), warm, jolly and seemingly innocuous on the outside, but coldly calculating, relentless and almost vicious on the inside.

Although the ending of the film is abrupt and a bit weak, the denouement is superbly brought off by Greenstreet. The acting is strong, and the lead-up to the climax is handled with suspense that will grab your interest and not let go.

Have you noticed the similarities between, not only «Conflict» and «Vertigo» (1958), but also with «The Two Mrs. Carroll» (1947)? Indeed, in these movies, there is at least one of the following occurrences : 1) A husband planning to get rid of his wife. 2) A woman who «mysteriously» disappears after entering a building while being followed by a man. 3) A clue that gives away the guilty person (a rose, a necklace). I'll stop here : if you're familiar with the three movies mentioned -- or just curious about the «mechanics» of good suspense/noir films plotting -- then I'll leave it to you to find more connections. You may argue that, since «Vertigo» came after the others, if any «imitation» is to be pointed out, then Hitchcock's film would be the one to «blame». Perhaps.... Yet, none of the other two come close to the first part of «V.», in the atmospheric and hypnotic suggestion of a «romantic ghost».

Every time I find myself driving on a lonely, densely wooded mountain road with precipitous drops just past the shoulder, I am reminded of the 1945 movie `Conflict', a film that I view every year or so. When I recently discovered that the story behind `Conflict' was named `The Pentacle', credited to Alfred Neumann and Robert Siodmak, I viewed `Conflict' again in order to determine the relationship between the film and the word `pentacle'. A `pentacle' is roughly defined as `a five-pointed star enclosed within a regular pentagon, and enclosing a smaller regular pentagon'. The pentacle is a favored symbol among devotees of the occult, but `Conflict' is not a movie about the occult. The pentacle symbol appears in `Conflict' as a visual motif, nagging the engineer Mason (Humphrey Bogart) with memories of his terrible deed. The first appearance in the film of a clearly identifiable pentacle is a technical drawing depicting a five-sided bridge foundation to be used in shale by Mason's construction company. Mason's imagination dreamily relates this drawing to a big pile of logs hiding the wreckage of an automobile in a mountain valley, the result of his grim obsession. Perhaps a `pentacle' of imaginary lines of mental force can be imagined by the movie's viewer as the engineer Mason (Humphrey Bogart) appears in the center of a tense human pentacle, the five vertices of which are the psychiatrist (Sydney Greenstreet), Mason's wife (Rose Hobart), the sister-in-law (Alexis Smith), the suitor (Charles Drake), and, finally, the police detectives. Changing the subject slightly, the terse dialog in `Conflict' always seemed to me to be very upper class English. I have often imagined the movie with a British cast of the period, with Mason perhaps played by Dirk Bogarde or Trevor Howard instead of Humphrey Bogart, the psychiatrist by Nigel Bruce instead of Sidney Greenstreet, and the police authorities cast as aloof Scotland Yard detectives instead of friendly American cops. However, the actual cast did just fine, in my opinion, with the result that I, for one, am an unreserved fan of `Conflict'!

Conflict is directed by Curtis Bernhardt and collectively written by Arthur T. Horman, Dwight Taylor, Robert Siodmak and Alfred Neumann. It stars Humphrey Bogart, Alexis Smith, Sydney Greenstreet, Rose Hobart, Charles Drake and Grant Mitchell. Music is by Frederick Hollander and cinematography by Merritt B. Gerstad.

Still under exposed after all these years, Conflict is deserving of reappraisals by the film noir crowd. Plot has Richard Mason (Bogart) stuck in a loveless marriage to Kathryn (Hobart), with his misery further compounded by the fact he's in love with his sister-in-law, Evelyn (Smith). Finally having enough, Richard murders his wife and intends to woo the younger Evelyn into his life. However, when Richard starts glimpsing his wife out in the city and little items of hers start turning up, Richard starts to doubt his own mind.

In essence it's a psychological thriller spiced with German Expressionism, perhaps unsurprising given that Bernhardt and Siodmak are key components of the production. The psychoanalysis angle played out would of course become a big feature in the film noir cycle, and here it makes for a most interesting story as Bernhardt and Gerstad dress it up in looming shadows, rain sodden streets and treacherous mountain roads. The pungent air of fatalism is evident throughout, the pace of the piece purposely sedate to marry up with the sombre tones as Richard Mason, a disturbed menace, him self becomes menaced.

OK, you don't have to be an ace detective to figure out just exactly what is going on, so the reveal at film's closure lacks a bit of a punch, but the atmospherically tinged journey is well worth undertaking regardless. Bernhardt's camera is often like some peeping tom spying on the warped machinations of Mason, and all the while Hollander adds thematically compliant music to proceedings. Bogart was pretty much press ganged into making the picture, but come the final product it's evident that even though he may have been unhappy initially, he ended up delivering one the most intriguing turns in his wonderful career.

Greenstreet is his usual presence, here playing the psychiatrist family friend who delivers the telling lines whilst being ahead of the game. Unfortunately the two principal lady characters aren't done any favours by the otherwise taut screenplay, especially Evelyn, who as the catalyst for the sinister shadings never gets chance to build a strong emotional bridge to Richard Mason's psychological make-up. Still, when you got Bogart as an unhinged killer attired in trench-coat and fedora, and a director who knows how to place him in the right visual scenarios, the flaws can't kill the film's strengths. 7/10

Not a bad Hitchcock style mystery/thriller at all. It's nothing major and it sort of goes through the motions setting up the rather familiar premise, but once film legends Bogart and Greenstreet start playing their little cat and mouse games, it becomes genuinely suspenseful. I found myself enjoying it quite a bit, though Bogart's benevolent change of heart regarding his obsession Alexis Smith made little sense. (This is compensated for, however, by one of those surprise endings that you sort of see coming but are surprised by anyway.)

**SPOILERS** Big time architect Dick Mason, Humphrey Bogart, had been having his eye on his old lady's kid sister Evelyn Turner, Alexis Smith, ever since before he married the old bag, who's 14 years older the Eve, but just couldn't bring himself to make a play for her. It's Dick's wife Katherine, Rose Hobart, women's intuition that has her realize her husbands feeling about her sister that cause a great amount of tension between, in public, the loving couple. Dick finally gets his chance to put an end to his very unhappy marriage after he was involved in a car smash up, by looking at Evelyn in the rear view mirror instead of the road, that left him wheel chair bound with his passengers Evelyn and Katherine totally unhurt. Laid up at his house Dick with his mind working overtime, but not on his job as an architect, concocts this plan to get rid of his overbearing and nagging wife once in for all.

Making like he can't walk which in fact he could Dick has Katherine travel out to her, as well as his, favorite mountain resort-Mountain Springs-telling her he'll meet her there later in the afternoon when his butler will give him a lift out there. Getting to Mountain Springs before Katherine Dick murders the startled woman, who never suspected to see him there so soon, and dumps her and her car down a steep cliff where they gets crushed and buried by a sh*t load of fallen timber. With Dick thinking that he committed the perfect crime he now drives home and plans to get it on with Evelyn after the mourning period for Katherine is over; Or so he thought!

As things turn out in the movie Katherine instead of being killed somehow seemed to have survived her, in what Dick wanted everyone to think, tragic accident! Everywhere he goes, in the city or around the house, Dick sees things that Katherine had on her, when she was murdered by him, suddenly and unexpectedly pop up. It's as if she deliberately left them here to screw up his already very confused and guilt-ridden mind.

Even Dick's attempt to get romantically involved with Evelyn quickly falls apart in her sensing that he's not exactly playing with a full deck in his confusion in if his wife Katherine is still alive making him, if he ever marries Evelyn, a bigamist as well as a possible murderer! The final shoe to drop, on Dick's head, is when Evelyn realizing what a triple "A" nut-case he is and drops him for her boyfriend Professor Norman Holdsworth, Charles Drake, who's as nuts about her as Dick is. The difference is that Norman didn't have to murder or try to murder her sister in order to get Evelyn to fall in love and marry him!

The man who had Dick's number right from the start, as shown at the very beginning of the movie, was non-other the legendary "Fat Man"-of "Maltese Faclon" fame-himself Sidney Greenstreet playing the part of psychoanalyst Dr. Mark Hamilton. It was Mark who in studying Dick's bizarre behavior while his wife Katherine was both alive and later missing soon came to the conclusion that he beside being slightly mentally unbalanced was also capable of murder as well! *** MAJOR SPOILER**** But it was the gift of a rose that Mark, an armature botanist, gave to Katherine just before her fateful trip that tipped him off to what that devious husband of her's Dick was really up to. That's when Dick not really knowing the significance of what that rose meant, in his wife's disappearance, finally after covering all the bases ended tripping himself up!

Not the most imaginative title in the world. How about:

Evelyn; The Red Rose; I want her Dead; Some come Back; Impulse

Watching Bogie's detective stuff, you tend to forget he started off as bad guys. This is kind of a throwback to the earlier stuff, and is genuinely shocking in parts. He really is a very, very nasty character who develops an obsession with his step sister, who really doesn't care if he lives or dies. Bogie heartlessly kills his wife, (because he wants to) faking an accident, then starts to find her personal objects he thought he left with her, coming back around the house! Maybe she isn't dead? Maybe it's her ghost?? Best bit: Bogie goes in a pawnbrokers, finds one of her possessions and her signature in the goods register, comes back with a cop, but; it's a different man! And her possession isn't there! And her signature isn't in the book! The film at times is sort of a cross between the Twilight Zone and Columbo. The ending is a bit weak and i suppose may be a reshot version. The film as a whole would have benefited from some kind of shootout or gruesome, ironic twist, perhaps Bogie being driven mad, ending up in an asylum? Also, he seems to be wearing a lot of makeup to make him look younger, although that may be my imagination. I know he didn't usually, so i could be wrong.

I recently picked up Conflict from a market stall and was very pleased I did.

After Richard Mason gets found out by his wife that he is having an affair with her sister, he bumps her off and makes out she was killed in a car crash by pushing the car down a cliff. He then gets hallucinations that his wife could still be alive including a letter in her writing and seeing "her" going into a flat. At the end, we found out the real reasons for all this...

This movie is rather atmospheric and has a good music score.

The Cast includes the great Humphrey Bogart (The African Queen, Casablanca), his Cssablanca co-star Sydney Greenstreet, Alexis Smith (The Two Mrs Carrolls, which also starred Bogie), Rose Hobart and Charles Drake.

Conflicty is a must for all Bogie fans. Excellent.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5.