VividSimon Simply Perfect

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

pronker pronker Five years in and the marriage fighting gloves are off -- Bogie obsesses over his wife's years younger sister, who was mentioned 'too young' to be dating material when Wife and Bogie first met. Well, she's not now, and Bogie has it bad.What with the atmospheric cabin in fog shrouded mountains, dangerous roads, and Beta Couple Alexis Smith and Charles Drake's melodrama, it's easy to lose sight of the marriage that ends with Bogie murdering his wife. Rose Hobart, playing the wife, has a reserved demeanor that knows her husband very well and for some reason, propriety perhaps, or maybe greed over their accumulations which include a pretty darn nice looking home *with servants, yet!*, will not let him go. She pays for that with her life, perhaps thinking herself invulnerable due to her intelligent reasoning. She proves herself vulnerable in little ways, such as wanting to wear a piece of jewelry because "it goes with the suit", surely a girly way to think, and her hesitant look when leaving Bogie as an invalid, even though he urges her to drive away and flatters her driving ability.This woman cares for her husband, not blindly or romantically, but practically, and a point can be made that she will await his coming to his senses, but he doesn't return to her as her partner in any way. He kills her. The movie doesn't show any sort of struggle, it's like she gave up completely upon discovering his deception and he killed quickly, efficiently, with what he thought was a super dee dooper hiding of the wreckage. Oh darn, it didn't work. Nice ghostly touches in the plot that I really enjoyed, not to mention his straining to figure it all out without succumbing to superstition. Good drama.

Alex da Silva Humphrey Bogart (Richard) is married to Rose Hobart (Katherine) but has the hots for her sister Alexis Smith (Evelyn). Hobart knows this and makes it clear that she will never divorce him. So, Bogart takes an alternative route to dispose of Hobart and give himself a clear run at the sister. However, Hobart doesn't seem to actually go away….I never used to like Humphrey Bogart and couldn't understand why people thought of him so highly. Well, I now get it. I've seen a few more of his films and I find him great entertainment when he plays a bad guy. The rest of the cast are all excellent although I'm not sure about Bogart's taste in women. Alexis Smith over Rose Hobart? I don't think so.The film has a story that keeps you watching with tense scenes as Bogart is plagued by one haunting incident after another that points to one conclusion. But it can't be! Can the dead return? The film reminded me of "Les Diaboliques" although "Conflict" was released 10 years earlier so came first.

kennethfrankel We are watching a movie, which tries to show real scenes. A jury would not see this movie, they would have evidence presented to them.1) Why would the Bogart character Mr. Mason be guilty if he went down to the wrecked car? His lawyer at the trial could simply say that Mr. Mason was very upset at his wife's disappearance. He would look for evidence of an accident as he drove around the area. So Mr. Mason remembered that he saw that the pile of logs had been disturbed and went down to check it out. How can you really dispute that? It does not mean that he knew what only the killer could have known.2) The business of the rose - OK, he slipped up. But he might have imagined that his wife liked a rose or other flower pinned to her outfit. The doctor friend gave the wife a rose, while Mr. Mason was supposed to be a shut-in, with a bad leg. He did need a cane to get around, after all. Bad, yes, but not enough to convict.I had wondered how Mr. Mason got down the hill with a bad leg. Looking at it again, it really was not that far down and there was a sort of series of steps or ledges. But at night in the fog, with slippery rocks, with street shoes ... What was really amazing was how did the doctor get down? Greenstreet is not exactly in mountain climbing shape.3) The doctor and police were tampering with the evidence, and planting evidence, in order to shake the tree and see what falls out, to push Mr. Mason over the edge. A defense lawyer might get much of the evidence thrown out due to prosecutorial misconduct.The wife was found by the police right away. We did not see how she was killed. Was it obvious that the crash did not do it?Sort of has echos of ANGEL FACE (1953) or IMPACT (1949).

robert-temple-1 This is an excellent film noir, featuring a very pert and pretty Alexis Smith as the object of a nasty Humphrey Bogart's lustful obsessions. Good old Sydney Greenstreet is as jolly and quietly scheming as ever. Regarding Smith, who is his sister-in-law, Bogart has 'gotta have her' but has not bothered to ask her first how she feels about that. Not waiting for such trivial information as what anyone else thinks, he hastens to commit 'the almost-perfect murder' of his wife so that he can be free to pursue his fantasy relationship with her sister. Greenstreet notices the giveaway-clue but with his poker face says nothing. This is all good vintage Hollywood stuff. The film was directed by German refugee Curtis Bernhardt, who fled the Gestapo and became one of Hollywood's many Germans, along with Fritz Lang and all the others. The next year, he directed the famous Bette Davis film A STOLEN LIFE. Robert Siodmak, another well-known émigré German director of noirs, wrote the original story for this one. Good expressionist angst.