Conspirator (1950)

Pretty Good

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

. . . nearly half as bad as America's current dire straits. About 20% of the characters portrayed in the 1900s England of this CONSPIRATOR flick are Russian Red Commie KGB tools or sympathizers. A poll taken this week in the USA disclosed that slightly more than 40% of Today's U.S. population currently falls under the sway of American Strongman Putin, making up his "base" of "core supporters." Stalin's master spy CONSPIRATOR "Mike" has the "back story" of being a third generation representative of an I.R.A. malcontent Crime Family. Putin's master spy "Donnie" has a similar background as the grandson of New York City's wealthiest pimp, and the son of a KKK Community Organizer. Mike man-handles and shoots at his wife, cackling that no one will believe her as he burns the evidence of his treason. CONSPIRATOR Donnie is a court-documented spouse rapist, cackling that no one will believe his brazen mistreatment of many other women (who are keeping Putin's spin masters on the 24-hour Putin TV channel working overtime). CONSPIRATOR emphasizes the need to round up and liquidate or deport all of the KGB traitors, tools, and enablers threatening to overrun 1900s England. Today's CONSPIRATOR viewers may well recognize a similar necessity to round up, liquidate or deport all of Putin's U.S. traitors and their dupes, ASAP.

This is as much a response to samhill5215's review of CONSPIRATOR as it is a review of the film itself. Sam Hill seems to think that paranoia about Soviet infiltration of the West was unjustified, even though around the same time this film was being made (1949) the Rosenbergs were selling nuclear secrets to the Russians and Philby was funneling intel to them from his perch over in England.Sam wonders why Elizabeth Taylor's character -- who the film paints as being naive and apolitical -- would be rattled to discover that she'd married a Soviet spy. I wonder if Sam would be making the same observation if the time line were adjusted to World War II and Taylor had learned her husband was a Nazi.I suppose it matters not to Sam that Mao and Stalin together killed approximately 94 million people. 94. Million.Nine-four, Sam. Million. The number is beyond staggering. It defies belief.Adolph Hitler, one of the most evil humans of the 20th century, was a piker by comparison.But according to Sam, regardless of this kind of unprecedented barbarity, Liz's character was just a Silly Billy to care so much.Unbelievable.The movie itself is okay, but far from great. It's well photographed and professionally acted... the story is intriguing... but it all feels rather insubstantial, as if several important scenes were missing.Perhaps it got butchered in the editing room.Too bad. Like samhill's review.

Conspirator gives us MGM's first on-screen pairing of Robert Taylor and Elizabeth Taylor. (They reunite a short time later in Ivanhoe.) The story is rife with political intrigue and benefits from on-location filming in Europe; a somewhat suspenseful cold war plot; and top-notch studio production values. However, doesn't the ingénue seem a bit too young to play a wife? In the story, she is meant to be 18 (but is actually 16 in real life); and Mr. Taylor's character is said to be 31 (but he is 37). At more than twice her age, he is old enough to be her father; and yet, this fact is barely even mentioned and hardly a story point. One supposes that this is what is known in the film business as dramatic license. It certainly couldn't be a case of miscasting, could it?

(Some Spoilers) Uninteresting suspense/drama that has all-American heart throb and US government friendly witness Robert Taylor as the British turncoat and sleazy communist spy Maj. Michael Curragh. Who in order to show his loyalty to the great "Cause and Movement" is ordered to murder his gorgeous young wife Melinda, Elizabeth Taylor. Who caught on to his spying and is a threat not only to Michael but to the Communist cell in London that he's a member of. Melinda at first going completely banana's over the handsome and dashing Major Michael after meeting him at a big social gathering in which no man there even bothered to ask her or a dance! they must have been either blind or crazy or both! Michael and Melinda hit it off right away and before you know it their married and living happily after after or so we, or they, thought. Melinda quickly caught on to Michael, and his secret life, but at first she thought that he was cheating with another woman behind her back. When Melinda took some bills from his pocket, to pay for a gift that she bought for him, she found a note going to his handler, Commie London spy chief Radek (Karel Stepanek), about the latest secret military strategy report of the UK & UK. Michaels communist handlers ware already ticked off at Michael for marrying Melinda without telling them about it, as well as not inviting them to the marriage ceremony. Now with her snooping around into his business with them he was given a direct order to do her in once in for all and leave no fingerprints of himself or his involvement with them behind. Michael later tries to shoot and kill Melinda at a duck hunt when he took her to his Aunt Jessica's, Marjorie Fielding, place out in the country but chickened out and just shot over her head. Or was it, like he explained to his bosses, after his hunting dog distracted him only knocking Melinda out. Were told by Michael that his dedication to the communist movement goes back to his days as a youth in Ireland where he fell under the spell of the ideas of Marx & Engles. As well as Michael's dreams of being a part of the greatest social experiment in the history of the world! Yet just one look at the beautiful Melinda showed him just how much BS that great revelation in human evolution, on his part, was. Now Michael got lost in the fog of his own muddled half-baked and self-delusional thoughts.It later turned out that it wasn't necessary for Melinda to turn Michael in to the authorities since the British M15 already knew about his communist activities long before he even met her. All this became moot with Michael seeing himself deserted by Melinda, as well as the local commie spy cell, beat them to the punch with a self-inflicted gun-shot wound to his head. It was hard to believe that Elizabeth Taylor was still in her teens, she was 17 at the time, when she made "Conspirator" back in 1949. She not only was beautiful beyond words but also a far more mature young woman then her age actually indicated.