Conflict (film)

The owner of a successful engineering company, Richard Mason ( Humphrey Bogart ) lives in a rich house in a suburb of Los Angeles with his wife Catherine ( Rose Hobart ). Outwardly, they make up an ideal married couple, and many friends and acquaintances envy their marriage. However, on the fifth anniversary of their wedding, Catherine accuses Richard of being overly carried away by her younger sister, Evelyn Turner ( Alexis Smith ). Katherine tells her husband that she will never give him a divorce, and Evelyn is too decent to answer his feelings.

A family friend, psychiatrist Mark Hamilton ( Sidney Green Street ) organizes a party in his house in honor of the anniversary of Richard and Katherine. Hamilton invites Evelyn to the party, wanting to introduce her to her young colleague, Professor Norman Holdsworth ( Charles Drake ). During the conversation, it is noticeable that Richard looks at Evelyn with undisguised adoration. When it comes to the nature of psychology, Hamilton declares that thought can turn into a dangerous disease, and he is just about to free the patient from such a thought. He adds that love is often the root of psychological problems.

On the way home, Richard is driven by Katherine and Evelyn in a car. Having looked at Evelyn, who is sitting in the back seat, Richard loses control of the road and gets into an accident. Richard is in the hospital with a broken leg, and Catherine and Evelyn get off with minor injuries. A few weeks later, when doctors believe that Richard’s leg should have completely healed, he continues to claim that he cannot stand and walk, and uses a wheelchair.

The doctor recommends that Richard swim more to strengthen his muscles, after which Richard and Kathleen decide to go together to his mountain house with a lake. Before leaving, Richard pretends that he had an urgent job and stays at home, promising to come the next day. Katherine sets off alone at the wheel of a car. Stopping by on the way to Hamilton, she asks him to look after Richard, and check the next day in the morning if everything is okay with him. As a keepsake, Hamilton cuts off one of his roses and inserts it into Katherine's buttonhole. In the mountains near the house, another car is blocking Katherine's road. Suddenly, Richard appears from the shadows, strangling Katherine. Then he pushes her in a car from a cliff, when falling, a bunch of heavy logs fall asleep on top of the car.

Richard quickly returns home, where he holds a pre-planned business meeting with his engineers, providing himself with an alibi. During work, he calls the mountain house several times to inquire about the arrival of Katherine, but she still does not appear there. After a while, Hamilton calls to inquire about Richard’s health status. He replies that everything is fine with him, but he cannot find Katherine. Immediately after this conversation, Richard calls the police and reports the disappearance of his wife. At a meeting with detectives in the presence of Hamilton, Richard describes in detail what his wife was wearing and what decorations she wore. Richard also calls Evelyn, who left for her mother for a few days, and asks her to return.

The police cannot find Katherine, but after a while they catch a tramp who finds a ring belonging to Katherine. The tramp says that he pulled him out of the handbag of some woman in the city. The police suggest that Catherine may be alive and just ran away from her husband, or that she has amnesia and does not remember her name, place of residence and relatives. Returning home, Richard discovers in the living room the perfume of Katherine, as well as her key to the safe on his desktop. Richard understands that in his absence, someone was in his house, and immediately calls to report this to the police. In the safe, he also discovers Katherine's engagement ring.

Since the police are not able to clarify the situation, Richard comes to Hamilton and asks him to help sort it out. He says that if Richard came to see him as a psychotherapist, he should tell him the whole truth. Seeing that Richard is not ready for this, Hamilton offers Richard just to unwind and go fishing. Hamilton offers to invite Evelyn to the trip, and also takes Dr. Holdsworth with him. During her stay at the mountain motel, Holdsworth makes an offer to Evelyn, but she does not give him a definite answer. Upon learning of this, Richard declares her love, counting on her reciprocal feelings. However, Evelyn refuses to reciprocate. Then Richard yields and sends Holdsworth to Evelyn, encouraging him to show more perseverance.

The next day, Richard returns to the office, where he receives an envelope, the address of which is written in a handwriting similar to Katherine's. Inside the envelope lies a pawnshop receipt. Richard comes to this pawnshop and finds out that Katherine's medallion is laid there, and her name is indicated in the registration book. Richard leads the police pawnshop. However, upon arrival, it turns out that a completely different employee works at the pawnshop, who knows nothing about Richard’s visit, no one handed him a medallion, and there is no entry in the registration book. Returning to the office, Richard sees through the window on the street a woman whom he takes for Katherine. He runs out into the street and tries to call out and chase the woman, however she does not pay attention to him, enters the house and hides in the apartment. At the request of Richard, the landlady opens the apartment, but the apartment is empty.

Richard comes back to Hamilton and asks for his help, but Hamilton replies that the psychiatrist in this case cannot help him. In desperation, Richard travels to the crime scene to check on Katherine's whereabouts. The car is still littered with logs, and Richard descends from the cliff to look into the car. As soon as he opens the door, he is surrounded by police officers with Hamilton. Hamilton explains that he realized that Richard was lying after the first interrogation, Richard said that when Katherine left the house, she had a rose in her buttonhole. Richard could not know this, since Hamilton gave Katherine a rose after she left home. The police discovered Katherine's body the day after the murder, but since they had no evidence of Richard's guilt, they decided to trap him so that Richard's own fears would bring him to self-disclosure.

• Humphrey Bogart - Richard Mason
• Alexis Smith - Evelyn Turner
• Sydney Green Street - Dr. Mark Hamilton
• Rose Hobart - Katherine Mason
• Charles Drake - Professor Norman Holsworth
• James Flavin - Detective, Lieutenant Workman (uncredited)
• Frank Wilcox - Robert Freston (uncredited)

Director Curtis Bernhardt was born in Germany and worked there until 1933, then worked in France, and moved to the United States only in 1939, staging his first Hollywood film at the age of 40 years ^[2] . “Conflict” was one of Burnhardt’s first vivid films in Hollywood, followed by the successful film noir “ Obsessed ” (1947) with Joan Crawford and “The High Wall ” (1947) with Robert Taylor and Audrey Totter , as well as the drama “ Stolen Life ” (1946) and Pay-Per-Demand (1951) with Bett Davis ^[3] .

The main roles in the film were played by Humphrey Bogart , Sidney Green Street and Alexis Smith . One of the leading actors in the noir genre, Bogart is famous for films such as “ Angels with Dirty Faces ” (1938), “The Maltese Falcon ” (1941), “ Casablanca ” (1942), “ To Have and Not to Have ” (1944), “ The Big Dream ”(1946), Key Largo (1948) and many others ^[4] . Sidney Green Street is famous for his vivid episodic roles in the films The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Casablanca (1942). He also starred in such noir films as The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), The Three Strangers (1946), and The Verdict (1946). Together with Bogart, he also played in such wartime spy thrillers “ Across the Ocean ” (1942) and “ The Way to Marseille ” (1944) ^[5] . This film was "the only joint film of Bogart and Greenstreet , where Bogart, and not Greenstreet, played a villain or a corrupt character" ^[6] . After this picture, Alexis Smith played in the film Noir “ Two Mrs. Carroll ” (1947), “The Scourge ” (1948) and “ The Turning Point ” (1952) ^[7] .

As film critic Bob Nixon points out, by 1943, when work on the film began (its release on the screens was delayed for two years), Bogart grew from being just a reliable and strong actor to the main star of the studio, mainly due to his strong play in films “ High Sierra "(1941)," The Maltese Falcon "(1941) and" Casablanca "(1942). “For Warner , it’s at least unusual to shoot a fast-growing star in the role of an evil, flawed and mentally unhealthy killer, and not in the role of a tough guy who has everything under control - the type of hero the audience expected from him. But the producers apparently felt that there was something valuable in such a career move, and they forced Bogart to play against his desire, threatening to remove him from the picture in which he wanted to play - “ The Way to Marseille ” (1944), until he completed his work in this the film " ^[8] . The film was completed in 1943, but was released 18 months later ^[9] . Two years after Conflict, Humphrey Bogart again played a mentally unbalanced man who planned to kill his wife for the love of Alexis Smith in the film “ Two Mrs. Carroll ” (1947) ^[8] .

The film was evaluated by critics ambiguously. In the New York Times, Bosley Crowther called it “a cold and calculated film for an unpretentious audience” ^[10] , and “ TimeOut ” - “a passing film noir ” ^[11] . Dennis Schwartz described it as “a monotonous, monotonous melodrama that sometimes looks lethargic and slow” ^[9] , and Craig Butler noted that ““ Conflict “could become a classic noir thriller, rather than an ordinary routine,” adding that “ unfortunately, the constituent elements of the film did not work out in such a way as to raise “Conflict” above the average level ” ^[12] . Only Rob Nixon described the picture as an “exciting psychological thriller” ^[8] . According to Nixon, the film is distinguished by "a strong script and a strong production of a number of scenes by Bernhardt ." He writes that Bogart commits an almost “perfect crime, ... but the unexpected appearance of strange evidence and mysterious evidence suggests that his wife may still be alive, and this leads him to the brink of madness” ^[8] . Crowther calls the film a psychological drama about the killer’s mental anguish, which “is interpreted with considerable melodramatism” ^[10] , noting that “the story and the denouement are obvious enough from the very beginning ... and the whole question is how much tension and sadistic curiosity will ignite the film. In this particular case, he succeeds ” ^[10] .

Nixon notes that “many critics saw in No Conflict one of the first Hollywood examples of the genre of film noir with romantic fatalism and stylistic influences of German expressionist cinema .” In addition, it is “one of the first movie plots that relies very seriously on ideas and methods of psychoanalysis ” ^[8] . “ TimeOut ” cites the phrase of the hero Sidney Greenstreet , which, according to the magazine, is the main theme of the film - “Sometimes a thought can become something of a dangerous disease and absorb the will” ^[11] . “ Variety ” calls the film “a convincing portrait of a murderer, with the help of psychological techniques brought to the point that he himself reveals his crime” ^[13] . According to Crowther, this “uninteresting and gloomy theme” film may appeal to those viewers “who like to listen to the desperate beating of a self-giving heart” ^[10] .

Butler believes that the film rises only to an average level, despite the fact that he has “the right actors and director, and the main message of the film could make it outstanding.” In his opinion, the film’s failure “was mainly blamed on director Curtis Bernhardt and a trio of authors. They all seem to have a vision of where the film should go and how it should look, but they could not find the right way to realize this vision; as a result, we are left with a film that has a skeleton but no flesh. ” Evaluating the work of the director, he writes: “ Bernhardt , often a very good director, as if he left his imagination behind the door; his work is strong, and he copes with it, but for the most part he lacks the taste and style necessary for a project of this kind ” ^[12] .

Crowther described the work of the scriptwriter and director as follows: “The story by which Bernhardt directed the film is neither original nor deep, it is performed in a darkly muffled tone and pace. Events develop slowly and generally weakly, visual images are traditional, but durable, and the details of nervous excitement are precisely and carefully worked out " ^[10] . Schwartz notes that Bernhardt leaves the plot with “too many far-fetched tricks for the film to work” ^[9] . On the other hand, Variety positively characterizes Bernhardt’s work, noting that the director’s work and acting “provide interest in the events, despite some evidence of the plot and the final result” ^[13] , and Schwartz emphasizes that “being like Siodmak , comes from from Germany, Bernhardt used German expressionism to color the film. ” ^[9]

Most critics agree that the acting side of the film was the acting of Bogart and Greenstreet . So, Butler writes: “Fortunately, Humphrey Bogart and Sidney Greenstreet play in Conflict, who play, as usual, reliably. In an interesting turn (in their career), they changed their usual roles, and Bogart became a villain, and Green Street - a bit of a detective. This made their game a little more complicated than usual, since Bogart adds sympathy (to the villain), and Greenstreet's cunning has a slightly insidious connotation ” ^[12] . Crowther believes that “Mr. Bogart is pulling everything on himself, he is appropriately unresponsive, cold and cruel, but he is not the devil, and perhaps a little too closed and sullen closer to the finale” ^[10] . “ Variety ” notes that “ Bogart gives a convincing reading of the heavy role” ^[13] , and Schwartz writes that “the only thing that has no shortcomings (in this film) is Bogart’s confident play in the role of a tormenting killer and full-time supporting actors of the studio “ Warner Brothers ” ” ^[9] .

Butler writes that “both (the main actors) are good, but Green Street delivers particular pleasure” ^[12] . Variety writes that " Sidney Green Street is convincingly restrained in the role of a psychiatrist and family friend." ^[13] Crowther notes that "Green Street plays a waddling psychologist with an ease that makes the pompous platitudes he is forced to utter almost ridiculous" ^[10] . Butler believes that “the other actors are also good, although Alexis Smith doesn’t make the impression that her character should probably be poorly spelled” ^[12] , “ TimeOut ” writes that Smith does not look focused on the role " ^[11] On the other hand, Crowther calls her “blonde and an iceberg of serenity” ^[10] , “ Variety ” notes that “ Smith is also interesting in the role of a sister who is pleased with Bogart 's courtship, but who deviates from him because of her loyalty to family values” ^[13] .

• Conflict on the Rotten Tomatoes website
• Conflict on Turner Classic Movies website
• Conflict Trailer on YouTube