I remember seeing the film "Conflict" on video back in the early 1990s when the film was part of a Humphrey Bogart collection. My brother warned me that "Conflict" was only a standard film and he was right. The plot and everything else about the film is only routine. It is one of those films where everyone concerned is just going through the motions. Bogart has a strong leading lady in Alexis Smith, she made some good films and was a very capable performer. Sidney Greenstreet offers more solid support in yet another Bogart vehicle and is cast as a decent character for a change. It helps that the film is only on for 83 minutes, otherwise the story would lose all momentum. There isn't much of a twist to the tale, in spite of what some people may think. Watchable but nothing special.

There are two items which reveal Warner Brothers' cheap-skate stagecraft and lack of continuity among their "pulp" film productions like "Conflict": First, Bogart's wife in pic is wearing the actual same sparkling brooch that Ingrid Bergman wore in her first scene of "Casablanca" - this jewelry is so unique and distinctive (and would be a near-priceless auction item nowadays) that it is as iconic as the film "Casablanca" itself; and Second, - believe it or not - the actual "Maltese Falcon" statuette from the eponymous film is perched on top of a filing cabinet in a scene at police headquarters. Was some wardrobe mistress or grip playing a tasteless joke? Or was WB so stingy that they couldn't afford separate jewelry or props for different films? Did they think we wouldn't notice such visual gaffes? Unpardonable.The Premise of pic is that Bogart's character is a man who sees his temporary incapacity from a broken leg as an alibi in his plan to rub out his shrewish wife and then hook up with her dazzling younger sister. Picture Bogart as a closet Walter Mitty character with pathetic delusions of romantic grandeur. Seriously?Bogart is miscast as the villain, visibly uncomfortable without the armor of his usual dour anti-hero persona. Bogie tricks his wife into going on a trip without him, but later confronts her suddenly on a dangerous mountain road (what a coincidence!), killing her and pushing her car with her body in it over a cliff. Sidney Greenstreet is also miscast as a perspicacious yet compassionate psychiatrist (picture Jabba the Hut from "Star Wars" with a heart-of-gold) who sniffs out Bogart's mendacity about his wife's disappearance, and then goes on to orchestrate an elaborate "Gaslight" plan with the police to trip up Bogart's character and have him tip his hand. Guess who wins?In real life, the younger sister (and I do mean younger - the dazzling Alexis Smith at twenty-four was in her prime and 22 years younger than the aging, sickly-looking Bogart) wouldn't give a second glance to a humorless, gloomy old geezer like Bogart. Bogie finally confesses his love to her during the search for her sister, and then mercilessly cross-examines her about why she should love him when she rejects him. Even the most perverse, masochistic woman wouldn't tolerate Bogie's nasty hectoring. It was like he was trying to verbally beat a confession out of a criminal rather than win the affections of a woman who looked young enough still be in college. Bogart was always miscast as any kind of a ladies' man. This film really shows Bogie's inability to charm anyone, much less either of the two principal leading ladies. Add to this the glistening, disgusting drool he always has in the corners of his mouth, like that of a die-hard chewing tobacco addict. Bogart always comes off as a man totally who is uncomfortable with women - i.e., a real man's man. Bogart doesn't play the villain well either. Besides his heartless demeanor with Alexis Smith as the woman for whom he invented the entire murder plot of his wife, he actually made a woman playing a bit-part scream for help, he was so intimidating. His tough-guy persona informs every facet of all of his performances, however inappropriately, as here.Bogie's man's man image does work wonderfully in guy-flicks like "The Caine Mutiny," "Sahara," his first big movie role, "The Petrified Forest," and Bogie's best performance ever, that of the psychotic gold prospector Fred C. Dobbs in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre." To bad Bogie didn't stick to the roles that suited him, not ridiculous melodramas like "Conflict" where his character needed to be able to charm a woman.

Great actors, great story, good pacing, however...there's something wrong with it. It doesn't deliver the whole way through. I don't know exactly what is wrong with Conflict, it just leaves me unsatisfied.It might be that the musical score - the usual highfaluting 40s score - is less suited for this kind of surrealistic psychological drama than for the other Bogart movies.It might be the dialogue, rather uninspiring, definitely neither Chandleresque nor Hitchcockesque.It might be the unconvincing love story between Bogart and his sister-in-law.Compare it to Spellbound and you'll get my point.

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.