Conspiracy (1930)

Director:

Christy Cabanne

Writers:

Robert M. Baker (play)
Beulah Marie Dix
(more)

Release Date:

10 August 1930 (USA)

Genre:

Mystery

Plot:

For the last four years Margaret Holt has been helping her brother, assistant D.A. Victor Holt, to try...

Plot Keywords:

One Word Title | Melodrama | Based On Play

Cast

Bessie Love	...	Margaret Holt
Ned Sparks	...	Winthrop 'Little Nemo' Clavering
Hugh Trevor	...	John Howell
Ivan Lebedeff	...	Miller
Rita La Roy	...	Nita Strom
Gertrude Howard	...	Martha
Otto Matieson	...	James Morton / Marko
Jane Keckley	...	Rose Towne
Donald MacKenzie	...	Captain McLeod
George Irving	...	Mark Holt
Bert Moorhouse	...	Victor Hold (as Bert Moorehouse)
Walter Long	...	Weinberg
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
James Bradbury Sr.	...	Bit Role (uncredited)
Robert Dudley	...	Bit Role (uncredited)
Nanci Price	...	Bit Role (uncredited)
Bernard Siegel	...	Bit Role (uncredited)

Directed by
Christy Cabanne

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Robert M. Baker		play
Beulah Marie Dix
John Emerson		play

Produced by
William LeBaron	....	producer
Bertram Millhauser	....	associate producer

Original Music by
Roy Webb		(uncredited)

Cinematography by
Nicholas Musuraca

Film Editing by
Arthur Roberts
Sam White

Art Direction by
Max Rée

Costume Design by
Max Rée

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Dewey Starkey	....	assistant director

Sound Department
John E. Tribby	....	sound recordist

Visual Effects by
Lloyd Knechtel	....	photographic effects

Production Companies

• RKO Radio Pictures

Distributors

• RKO Radio Pictures (1930) (USA) (theatrical)
• C&C Television Corporation (1955) (USA) (TV)
• R&B Video (2005) (USA) (VHS)
• Warner Home Video (2012) (USA) (DVD) (DVD-R)

Runtime:

69 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Photophone System)

Company:

RKO Radio Pictures

Movie Connections:

Version of The Conspiracy (1914)

As close to playing a lead as Ned Sparks ever got ...

... and the results are weird and wondrous. If you've always wanted to see Ned Sparks dressed like Darkman jumping up and down on furniture like an ape and constantly addressing himself in the third person such as "Little Nemo" does this and "Little Nemo" does that, this is your film.

The movie opens on a scene in a hotel room with a dead body on the floor, and Bessie Love as Margaret Holt standing over the body with a bloody letter opener in her hand. She's a victim of circumstance right? Wrong, she did it, but there is much more to the story than her looking embarrassingly guilty of cold blooded murder.

Margaret escapes down the fire escape before she can be discovered and goes to a neighborhood house - what passed for social services before there really was such a thing and seeks a job under an alias claiming she's a traveler who has lost her purse and thus all of her money. Unfortunately for her the police know who she is, know what she looks like, and know she was in the room. She'd be caught in no time if not for two people. First, a reporter that figures out who she is and how she figures in the crime but loves the girl at first sight and decides to help her. Second is irritable author "Little Nemo" alias Winthrop Clavering (Ned Sparks). The reporter gets Margaret a job as Clavering's stenographer since Clavering is such a hermit when he's working nobody will ever look for her in his home. The complicating factor here - Clavering is a crime author who is proud of his record of solving every crime he puts his mind to, and his new crusade is to solve and write about the murder Margaret just committed before the police figure it out. This leaves Margaret with the distasteful job of transcribing the details of her own crime. I'll let you watch and see how this all unravels.

Like the other reviewer, you just can't help but be struck by two things - both concerning Bessie Love. First there is that fur, which is actually the entire animal, wrapped around her neck. It looks like she just clubbed the poor beast ten minutes ago and hung it there. Secondly is the over emoting Bessie Love is doing during the entire film. If I hadn't already seen Love in earlier talkies over at MGM and had seen her talent in talking film, I'd have my doubts about her, but given past performances I'll have to chalk this one up to probable bad direction. At the film's midpoint it gets so tedious you want someone to tell the girl to switch to decaf if there was such a thing in 1930.

The real drawing point of the film though, is the irascible Ned Sparks as Little Nemo. This has got to be his weirdest role ever and he just makes the film. He is made up so strangely with that disheveled hair and those dark glasses that if it wasn't for his trademark voice it would be hard to recognize him. He steals the film and I highly recommend that you watch his larceny.