Conflict 1945 Movie: How To Choose Between 2 Love Interests?

(*Warning for possible spoilers for Conflict, a 1945 black-and-white suspense film noir made by Warner Brothers)

Conflict (1945) (#ad) is about an engineer, named Richard Mason (played by Humphrey Bogart), who kills his own wife, named Kathryn Mason (played by Rose Hobart). Was he able to commit the perfect crime or will he eventually get caught?

Who is Evelyn Turner?

Evelyn Turner (played by Alexis Smith) is the reason why Richard kills his own wife. She’s the younger sister of Kathryn and Richard is madly in love with her. He believes that getting rid of Kathryn will give him a chance to be with Evelyn.

But there are many confusing things about Evelyn’s character that it really seems like she hasn’t been properly characterized and that she’s missing a bit more depth.

There were many questions about her that just weren’t answered. There were so many things that were so vague and that hadn’t been made clear in the least.

Love in Conflict – who is in love with whom?

For example, is she in love with Richard Mason or not? There were moments when it seems like she is such as when she turns down the marriage proposal of Doctor Norman Holdsworth (played by Charles Drake), a friend of the Masons, and yet there are also other moments when it seems like she isn’t like with how she seems so indecisive about being with Richard or when she says that Kathryn will always be between them (Richard and Evelyn).

Why Richard believes that Evelyn loves him?

Part of this confusion can stem from how Richard seems inclined to believe that Evelyn is also in love with him. He tells Evelyn that the reason she refused to marry the doctor was because she was actually in love with him.

But, while that is a plausible possibility, another possibility could be that she does like the doctor. It does seem that way at times with how the 2 talk and interact.

Maybe she is just playing hard to get. Or maybe she was just unsure about suddenly being asked to get married that she couldn’t give an answer when the doctor proposed to her.

Maybe she just needed more time to think things through since this is a life-changing event. Besides, she was probably still worrying about her sister since she doesn’t know yet exactly what happened to Kathryn; she doesn’t know if her older sister is dead or alive. It’s too bad that the Conflict movie couldn’t be clearer about Evelyn’s character. What do you think?


*Notes:
- Image with added text was modified by Freya Yuki (CC:BY-SA) based on the image by hayashinomura (CC:BY-SA) from deviantArt
- Image is meant to symbolize confusion about Evelyn since the figure in said image looks confused and thoughtful
- YouTube video features the Conflict movie trailer