Conflict

2nd tier

3.5

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cafesolo

12/02/2025

Conflicted about Conflict

I want to love this film, there’s a lot of great things about it, including Sydney Greenstreet as Dr. Mark Hamilton and some interesting paranoia inducing moments. Bogart is good too, but his character, Richard Mason, is not very lovable. I wish we had more opportunities to develop some empathy for him.

The thing that bothered me the most, however, is that the two women are shown either as a nagging wife or as helpless woman who only worries about if she’ll marry. I watched Conflict the day after seeing Phantom Lady, both dealing with killers in loveless marriages that are identified by the experts as egomaniacs. And they both have disappearing ladies in big hats.

Phantom Lady (1944) and Conflict (1945) also have Robert Siodmak in common, as he directed the first and the co-wrote the latter. You could argue that Phantom Lady’s Kansas (Ella Raines) also wants to get married, but she’s smart, driven and sweet. And she carries the film. But enough about the Lady. Even with all its flaws, Conflict is worth a watch. Maybe even a re-watch so that I can like it better the second time. 3.5 stars

Curtis Bernhardt

William Jacobs, Jack L. Warner

Arthur T. Horman, Dwight Taylor

Robert Siodmak, Alfred Neumann (original story)

Merritt B. Gerstad

Friedrich Hollaender

Ted Smith

David Weisbart

Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet, Alexis Smith, Rose Hobart, Charles Drake, Grant Mitchell, Patrick O’Moore

As history has shown, whether playing good guy or villain, Bogart plus a fantastic plot makes for outstanding film noir. In Curtis Bernhardt’s dreamy Conflict, Bogart plays the putative happily married Dick Mason who has fallen in love with his wife Kathryn’s (Rose Hobart) younger sister Evelyn (Alexis Smith). Confronted by Kathryn on their fifth anniversary, he admits his attraction to Evelyn, and when Kathryn makes it clear divorce is out of the question, Dick’s only option is to make her disappear, but will it be permanent? Conflict is brilliantly plotted, perfectly scored, and effectively directed, a thread of damaged psychology linking key moments and leading up to suspense on a foggy, treacherous mountain road. Illusions battle with reality, which gives the film a halcyon luster which even Bogart’s reliably down-to-earth presence can’t fully escape.