Having seen a great deal of Humphrey Bogart’s filmography, I approach any films of his I have not seen before with some apprehension. I am especially leery of any movies of his I have not even heard of before. So, I stunned to find how much I enjoyed 1945’s Conflict.
What had me even more reluctant to undertake a viewing is he is reteamed here with fellow Casablanca actor Sydney Greenstreet. Warners was always so desperate to do anything that might recapture some of the magic from that movie, but I have found anything starring a combination of actors from that should be approached with trepidation. Such as the was the case with the previous year’s Passage to Marseille, which had Bogart and Greenstreet along with Claude Rains and Peter Lorre. Rarely has such a stacked cast been in service of such lackluster material.
One element in this movie’s favor is Bogie is not just playing an anti-hero, but a flat-out villain for a change. He actually looks a tad uncomfortable throughout this, but that plays well in a tale of a man who murdered his wife, yet seems to encounter traces of her presence everywhere. He is a haunted man, whether by a ghost, his conscience or the possibility he failed to kill Rose Hobart.
I wasn’t rooting for Hobart to get killed, yet she is intensely unlikeable in the short time she’s on the screen. This is roughly the thousandth picture I’ve seen where I wonder whatever made two such bitter and incompatible people come together in the first place. When we first see them, they are having a row about mutton, which she insists he likes, despite his statements otherwise. Her: “You can eat anything if you put your mind to it.” Him: “I like to eat with my mouth and not my brain.” If the tone was different, this could be sitcom dialogue, but it is put across icily here.
They do a good job of acting like a happy couple while at their fifth anniversary party, which is held at the home of psychiatrist Greenstreet. I could never quite work out how Greenstreet is a friend of Hobart. I was even more confused by why the couple would have been at such a gathering for their anniversary, and also wondered why Greenstreet hosts this at his home. I guess the fact the couple even made it to five years is astonishing. Per their host: “I wouldn’t have bet an old umbrella on your marriage lasting more than a year.” Still, I found it telling the first thing we see in the film is a reminder Greenstreet is writing them of the upcoming event.
Also in attendance is Hobart’s sister, played by Alexis Smith, a woman for whom Bogie has the romantic stirrings he no longer feels for his wife. Smith is there with Charles Drake, an affable man who Bogie seems to regard as competition for the hand of a woman who will eventually be revealed to have never been interested in him.
Driving home in the rain after this, Bogie ends up in a crash that breaks his right leg. The leg heals much faster and thoroughly than anybody knows, which sets the stage for his murder of Hobart.
The plan is to make it appear the couple are going on vacation, only for Bogie to fake a work emergency which will keep him at home. He tells her to go on without him. She does, but not without a final dig: “Funny how virtuous a man can be when he’s helpless.” Her assumption he is so helpless will be her undoing.
Bogie’s plan is clever, but I can’t help but wonder about what we don’t see of it, and I sense some flaws I don’t feel compelled to explore further. In a second car, he will pursue her vehicle on a treacherous mountain road and somehow get ahead of her. Despite there being two roads to this remote location, I still doubted he could leave after her, take a longer path and somehow end up ahead. Although the road is a studio set carefully rearranged a few times, it effectively suggests difficult terrain, which makes this seem even less likely.
Still, she finds the parked car blocking her progress, backs up a bit to start turning around, and then is dumbfounded to see her husband step out from the shadows. Presumably, he shoots her, though we don’t see this. But we will see her car go over the embankment, hitting a stacked pile of logs on the way down. The result is wreckage that is completed obscured by the logs atop it, which have accidentally assumed a curious shape vaguely resembling a teepee.
Hobart must be dead, yet a great many mysterious things start happening. It is obvious from the start Bogie’s conscience is needling him, as he sees in various objects shapes recalling the teepee structure of those logs. He will soon experience episodes which might be entirely in his mind, such as the scent of her perfume in the bedroom. But these soon escalate into tangible matters that are of an increasingly creepy nature. What started as noir starts to feel more like horror, as her wedding ring turns up in their home safe and a pawn shop ticket is mailed to him in an envelope addressed in her handwriting. Turns out that ticket is to claim the heart-shaped locket he once gave her. Soon, he’s following a woman who appears to be her into an empty apartment where she has inexplicably disappeared.
It is not the most original setup, but it is well-done and it has a good buildup of suspense. Bogie is in fine form and the supporting actors all deliver performances which are shaded in a manner as to be open to a number of interpretations. It isn’t that hard to figure out what has happened, but it is enjoyable to see how the story unfolds.
Conflict was quite a pleasant surprise, so unknown to this Bogie fan that it brings with it some of the wonder of a previously lost film. Given that, I realize my praise might be a bit too enthusiastic. At least, I was able to overlook those weird lapses in Bogie’s plan I alluded to earlier. To the movie’s credit, I wasn’t distracted from enjoying this picture.
Even so, I find myself days later still nagged by certain elements. For example, there was the car Bogie uses to block the road. Hobart doesn’t seem to recognize it, so it can’t be a vehicle they own. And I doubt it is, as she takes one car, and Bogie has the chauffeur take the other one for he and the maid to start their own vacation. So, whose car does Bogie use when driving at lightning speed on dangerously curvy and steep roads to take the longer route to a place where he can intercept Hobart? For that matter, how did he never pass her on the road?
Dir: Curtis Bernhardt
Starring Humphrey Bogart, Alexis Smith, Sydney Greenstreet
Watched on Warner Archive blu-ray