Conflict ** (1945, Humphrey Bogart, Alexis Smith, Sydney Greenstreet) – Classic Movie Review 3,881

Humphrey Bogart stars in the 1945 film noir Conflict as a man who kills his wife to swap her for her younger sister (Alexis Smith), only to find his victim may be still alive.

Director Curtis Bernhardt’s 1945 black and white film noir suspense thriller Conflict has its moments but it is one of Humphrey Bogart’s least good and least well-known pictures from his best period.

Engineer Richard Mason (Bogart) sends his hated wife Kathryn (Rose Hobart) over a cliff on a lonely mountain road in order to swap her for her younger sister Evelyn (Alexis Smith). But is she really dead? When he smells her perfume, finds her jewellery and sees an envelope with her handwriting, he goes back to the scene of the crime.

Sydney Greenstreet is on entertaining form as the family friend psychiatrist, Dr Mark Hamilton. But everyone else, including director Bernhardt and even Bogart, who was perhaps understandably reluctant to play a wife murderer, seems uneasy with this preposterous yarn.

So, Conflict then! In the spring of 1943, while about to film Passage to Marseilles (1944), Bogart got into a conflict with studio boss Jack L Warner over doing the role in Conflict, saying he disliked the screenplay and at first refusing to play the role.

A stenographer transcribed Jack Warner’s call to Bogart to persuade him to take the part, in which Bogart told Warner: ‘I’m sorry, Jack. I just can’t do it. My stomach will not let me. I am an honest man and I have to be honest with myself in this manner. If you want to get tough with me I will feel that I have lost a friend.’

Some friend! Warner then said he would stop production of Passage to Marseille or cast another star if Bogart would not appear in Conflict.

So Bogart caved in and shot the movie in 1943, but a dispute over the rights to part of the story delayed the release until June 15, 1945. After filming Conflict, Warner Bros then cast Bogart and Smith in another movie on a similar theme, The Two Mrs Carrolls (1947), which was shot from April to June 1945, but not released until 1947.

The film ends up as the only one of the five starring Bogart and Greenstreet where Bogart, not Greenstreet, is the bad guy.  

Somehow it still manages to be occasionally tense and atmospheric, even if it is always contrived and mechanical. The wobbly screenplay is by Arthur T Horman and Dwight Taylor, based on the story The Pentacle by Alfred Neumann and Robert Siodmak.

Conflict was cheap to make at $774,000, and lucrative, earning a total of $3,707,000 worldwide. Bogart was very popular and Jack Warner very persuasive and rich.

Also in the cast are Charles Drake, Grant Mitchell, Patrick O’Moore, Ann Shoemaker, Frank Wilcox, James Flavin, Edwin Stanley, Ralph Dunn, George Carleton, Wallis Clark, Harlan Briggs, Jack Mower and Emmett Vogan.

There is also a cameo appearance of the Maltese Falcon statue.

The cast are Humphrey Bogart as Richard Mason, Rose Hobart as Kathryn Mason, Alexis Smith as Evelyn Turner Sydney Greenstreet as Dr Mark Hamilton, Charles Drake as Professor Norman Holsworth, Grant Mitchell as Dr Grant, Patrick O’Moore as Det. Lt. Egan, Ann Shoemaker as Nora Grant, Edwin Stanley as Phillips, Frank Wilcox, James Flavin, Ralph Dunn, George Carleton, Wallis Clark, Harlan Briggs, Jack Mower and Emmett Vogan.

Conflict is directed by Curtis Bernhardt, runs 86 minutes, is made by First National, is released by Warner Bros, is written by Arthur T Horman and Dwight Taylor, based on the story The Pentacle by Alfred Neumann and Robert Siodmak, is shot in black and white by Merritt Gerstad, is produced by William Jacobs, is scored by Frederick Hollander and Leo F Forbstein, and is designed by Ted Smith.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3,881
Check out more reviews on: derekwinnert.com