There is a back story to the movie Conflict that perhaps is even more interesting than the film itself. The details of this little known matter are discussed at considerable length in the definitive biography Bogart by A. M. Sperber and Eric Lax (1997).
In 1943, Humphrey Bogart's stormy marriage to Mayo Methot was reaching its nadir. Professionally, he had just completed his acclaimed WWII tank saga Sahara on loan out to Columbia, and was looking forward to his next planned production Passage to Marseille (PTM) (the studio had misspelled the city's name by dropping the final "s"). PTM was planned as a major Warner Brothers picture that would reunite many members of the creative team that made the classic Casablanca (producer Hal B. Wallis, director Michael Curtiz, music by Max Steiner and actors Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre).
Unexpectedly, Jack Warner then presented Bogart with a script titled The Pentacle (later renamed Conflict), and asked him to take it on before beginning PTM. Bogart immediately rejected the idea; he found the writing weak, the narrative dull and the story uncomfortably threatening. It was about a man who plans to kill his wife after celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary, and appears to be more than just an example of art seeming to imitate life. (In fact, the Bogarts actually celebrated their own fifth wedding anniversary during the filming of Conflict).
Warner and Bogart extensively argued about the matter without any resolution. Warner threatened to remove Bogart from PTM and replace him with French actor Jean Gabin, who was temporarily in Hollywood because of the German occupation of France during WWII. Lurking in the background during this impasse was an internal dispute at Warner Brothers over Jack Warner's insistence on getting executive producer credit on all WB films, including those that had been made under Hal Wallis's leadership (e.g. Casablanca, Now Voyager and Watch on the Rhine). Conflict (the film) was intended as a Jack Warner production from the beginning, which may explain his heavy involvement in the decision to cast Bogart in it.
On June 3, 1943--in the middle of this conflict over making Conflict--the world learned of the sudden death of actor Leslie Howard. His plane was shot down by Nazi fighters over the Bay of Biscay apparently under the mistaken impression that Winston Churchill was also aboard Howard's aircraft. Howard had been Bogart's co-star on Broadway in The Petrified Forest, and was responsible for establishing his film career by insisting that for his first movie Bogart re-create his role of Duke Mantee in the film version of the celebrated play in which Howard also would appear. Howard's tragic death so affected Bogart that he saw his dispute with Warner in perspective as really a matter of little real significance. He quickly agreed to make Conflict, which was not theatrically released until two years later.
And what about the film at the center of all this drama? It is one of Bogart's lesser known and regarded movies of the 1940s. But in it, he created a character who was a warmup for future roles about men who are undone by mental stress and serious personality disorders (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, In a Lonely Place, The Caine Mutiny, etc.). It is a satisfying and entertaining performance, and deserves to be seriously reconsidered by a contemporary audience.
In 1943, Humphrey Bogart's stormy marriage to Mayo Methot was reaching its nadir. Professionally, he had just completed his acclaimed WWII tank saga Sahara on loan out to Columbia, and was looking forward to his next planned production Passage to Marseille (PTM) (the studio had misspelled the city's name by dropping the final "s"). PTM was planned as a major Warner Brothers picture that would reunite many members of the creative team that made the classic Casablanca (producer Hal B. Wallis, director Michael Curtiz, music by Max Steiner and actors Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre).
Unexpectedly, Jack Warner then presented Bogart with a script titled The Pentacle (later renamed Conflict), and asked him to take it on before beginning PTM. Bogart immediately rejected the idea; he found the writing weak, the narrative dull and the story uncomfortably threatening. It was about a man who plans to kill his wife after celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary, and appears to be more than just an example of art seeming to imitate life. (In fact, the Bogarts actually celebrated their own fifth wedding anniversary during the filming of Conflict).
Warner and Bogart extensively argued about the matter without any resolution. Warner threatened to remove Bogart from PTM and replace him with French actor Jean Gabin, who was temporarily in Hollywood because of the German occupation of France during WWII. Lurking in the background during this impasse was an internal dispute at Warner Brothers over Jack Warner's insistence on getting executive producer credit on all WB films, including those that had been made under Hal Wallis's leadership (e.g. Casablanca, Now Voyager and Watch on the Rhine). Conflict (the film) was intended as a Jack Warner production from the beginning, which may explain his heavy involvement in the decision to cast Bogart in it.
On June 3, 1943--in the middle of this conflict over making Conflict--the world learned of the sudden death of actor Leslie Howard. His plane was shot down by Nazi fighters over the Bay of Biscay apparently under the mistaken impression that Winston Churchill was also aboard Howard's aircraft. Howard had been Bogart's co-star on Broadway in The Petrified Forest, and was responsible for establishing his film career by insisting that for his first movie Bogart re-create his role of Duke Mantee in the film version of the celebrated play in which Howard also would appear. Howard's tragic death so affected Bogart that he saw his dispute with Warner in perspective as really a matter of little real significance. He quickly agreed to make Conflict, which was not theatrically released until two years later.
And what about the film at the center of all this drama? It is one of Bogart's lesser known and regarded movies of the 1940s. But in it, he created a character who was a warmup for future roles about men who are undone by mental stress and serious personality disorders (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, In a Lonely Place, The Caine Mutiny, etc.). It is a satisfying and entertaining performance, and deserves to be seriously reconsidered by a contemporary audience.