helsinki027 A teenage American hottie arrives for a visit to the UK and fall in love with a 38-year-old English military man. For some unclear reason he falls for her as well, so they get married.The teen wife, however, soon learns that her perfecto husband is in fact a Soviet spy. How does she learn it? Well, she finds in his pocket a typed letter saying – and I quote almost verbatim – "In view of my success in obtaining secret information for the USSR, I'd like to have a personal interview with the head of Soviet intelligence." I'm not kidding – the letter was not coded in any way, and it had the word "Soviet" printed in plain language. Poor Liz, finding and reading it, literally blanches. Her hubby is a Russian spy! He's a traitor! It's unclear, however, as to why the word "traitor" should have any strong meaning for her – she's not from the UK, but from another country altogether, so she's basically a traitor herself – betraying her motherland on a whim of romance.Ah, traitors… This word features prominently in an earlier scene where a bunch of guys discuss intelligence matters. "They are criminals!" an older dude proclaims angrily. I wonder why such strong emotion concerning treason, seeing as England has not been in a serious defensive war since 1760s. (The only exceptions are Napoleon 1812 and Hitler 1940 – and in both those cases it was Russia who saved the British ass from becoming enslaved by France and Germany.) There were tons of AGGRESSIVE wars of course – but is it appropriate to talk about criminal behavior when your country's been slaughtering innocent folks all over the globe for centuries? Poor Russia in this movie is presented as a Sort-of-Enemy, while America's presented as an ally. Weird considering that Russia never ever fought England nor betrayed it crassly, while the Americans both fought it and betrayed it - by signing the Declaration of Independence.The Founding Fathers of America are doubtless the biggest English traitors ever. Biggest. Traitors. Ever. Because of them, Britain lost millions of miles of fabulous land, trillions of pounds in money, incalculable amounts of mineral resources, and had its military and geopolitical prestige undermined forever. But let bygones be bygones, I guess.In a conversation with friends where both husbands and wife were present, Liz says contemptuously : "My husbands decided to give up his career – he's gonna be a Communist instead." Everybody present thinks it's a joke on her part, of course, but Liz is full of venom. Those terrible commies! It doesn't bother her that she, an 18-year-old girl, is served around the house by a lady in her mid-fifties – she never for a moment questions the justice of it. "No one is, like, forcing her to serve me, right? Let her eat cake or whatever." Yeah, servants are great; commies suck.But on the whole, taking into account the time and historical circumstances when this movie was made, it's a pretty decent picture with a number of effective scenes and a passable performance from ET – something that not all her movies can boast.

nomoons11 Wow. After watching this I can see why it's not high on anyone's list for greatness. It's really not that good.Where to start. How about the mish mash of a script. They jump from one scene to the next without any explanation or lead-in. They go from the two just meeting to marriage to her finding out he's a spy for the commies. I mean there are a few times when he goes and sees his handlers and such but there really needed to be more filler in this one to have and heart to it. More depth I guess. The acting performances are pretty average all the way through.Maybe it was the script that did the editing in but some scenes jump together way too fast. They give you no time to get into the feel of each scene. To get involved as it were.I think the only standout thing about this film at how boring and forgettable it really is. It was flat as a pancake all the way through. Robert and Elizabeth Taylor have both done better works than this by a country mile. Seek them out and run far away from this one.

theowinthrop Most of the anti-Communist films of the 1940s - 1950s are crap. No doubt about that. Thrown together they had preposterous plots emanating from the Kremlin to sap our national resources or strength. For example one film has Lee Marvin heading a major atomic spy ring outside a missile range from a hamburger/hash stand! The best films of the period dealing with communist threats were the science fiction films like THE THING or THEM wherein the monster was a symbol for the threat to Americans (from an "alien" source). Occasionally a semi-documentary might attract attention, but not much.Oddly enough this early movie was somewhat above average. First it correctly looked at our wartime friend and partner England as a possible source of leakage. This turned out to be somewhat true (but the Rosenberg Case would soon show homegrown spy rings existed as well). Secondly it showed something usually ignored or rendered minor in most of these films. Here it is developed into the issue: who are you going to show greater loyalty to, the Communist Party or your naive spouse?What I really like about CONSPIRATOR is that Robert Taylor plays the central figure - whom American and British audiences were to hiss at. He had tackled a few ambiguous characters before World War II, most notably William Bonney in BILLY THE KID (but that screenplay, like Darryl Zanuck's film of JESSIE JAMES, whitewashed a great deal of the bad out of the central character). But after the war MGM treated Taylor (now a seasoned leading star of theirs) to a wider variety of parts, including more villainous characters. Think of him in the somewhat earlier UNDERCURRENT with Kate Hepburn and Robert Mitchum. Both of these films could not have been made with Taylor in the 1930s.I also sort of enjoy the idea that Taylor, a friendly, but sincere witness for the H.U.A.C subcommittee against Communist infiltration into the movie industry actually did this film. It is his only chance to show what he thought of a Communist agent, and his interpretation (and the screenplay's) show he saw them as naive fools.Also it is the first time in his career that Taylor starred with the only female star of his rank (or higher) with the same last name: Elizabeth Taylor. Just leaving such films as NATIONAL VELVET, LITTLE WOMEN, and LIFE WITH FATHER, she finally came of age here as a young bride. In some ways I have always felt that Ms Taylor's glorious beauty was at a pristine height in films of the early 1950s like this one or FATHER OF THE BRIDE. Here she is in love with her dashing wartime hero husband, whom she gradually realizes is not as heroic (for England) as she thought (though he would disagree - witness his scene telling her about how he has joined one of the great causes of all time!).The film follows their courtship, their marriage, and the discovery of his treason by her. The issue of course is whether or not he will be turned in by her, or will he love her enough to withstand pressure by his Kremlin bosses to (errr)...eradicate his error totally.The film (as mentioned in another recent review) is above average. Taylor does play this English "Col. Redl" (of an earlier war, in a different country - but serving another Russia) as a man torn apart, but refusing to acknowledge his error of judgment. In fact his final decision puts to stop to any type of acknowledgment. The one flaw in this film is similar to the later, wretched ROGUE'S MARCH with Peter Lawford and Leo G. Carroll. The omnipotence of the British Secret Service in ferreting out traitors is shown at the tale-end. I may add that in 1949 that Secret Service (MR5) contained such "patriots" as Burgess, McClean, and Philby. Yeah they really would have been watching Taylor closely!

blanche-2 Elizabeth Taylor is a lovely, vibrant American woman who falls in love with older Communist spy Robert Taylor in "Conspirator," a British film that was Elizabeth Taylor's entry into adult stardom. She received her first screen kiss, in fact, from co-star Robert Taylor - not bad, but then, this is Elizabeth Taylor we're talking about.The stars and supporting players (including a very young Honor Blackman) aren't the problem. For me the script and therefore the character actions are questionable. Elizabeth is supposed to be passionately in love with her new husband, as well as insecure and naive. On learning Taylor, a British officer, is a Communist, she grows up fast. We're told. We really don't see it, nor are we given an idea of how much time has passed to give her an opportunity to reach this new maturity. We're supposed to believe he was unable to stave her off with some tall story? Also, for a superficial young woman interested in redecorating her house, she certainly is suddenly a very committed patriot. As for Robert Taylor, a man who's been involved with the party for so many years would certainly have known the trouble he'd be in for failing to carry out orders and how bad it would look to beg for help and make excuses. Come on.There's nothing wrong with the acting, and Elizabeth Taylor is dazzlingly beautiful, though in my opinion, it will be a couple of more years before her beauty truly is at its height. But she certainly performs her adult role well. Robert Taylor is appropriately dashing and menacing, with his widow's peak, something my mother always mentioned about him, in full prominence. They certainly made a beautiful couple. But in "Conspirator," alas, they're not meant to be.