Melinda Greyton (Elizabeth Taylor) is visiting England from America and meets Major Michael Curragh (Robert Taylor) at a fancy ball. It's a case of love at first sight for both and they end up married. First you have to set aside the discomfort of the age difference between the two. Elizabeth was 17 when this was made (playing an 18 year old) and Robert was 38 (playing a 31 year old.) It's not really that much of a problem. There's no real scenes of intimacy - or even much of affection - between them, but you certainly notice it. The story revolves around Melinda becoming gradually suspicious of some of her new husband's activities and finally discovering that he's actually a communist, and a Soviet spy, feeding information to Moscow about British and American defence plans. The movie then deals with the consequences of her discovery for them both.
As spy capers go, it's not especially thrilling. It's actually rather slow paced, and the story itself isn't all that riveting. In the first half of the movie really all that we glean is that being a member of the Communist Party is a real drag on your personal life. But both Taylors put on performances that make it worth watching. Elizabeth - in what seems to have been her first "adult" role - did a fine job portraying Melinda's evolution from a naive and innocent young girl who's completely smitten by Curragh to a more worldly woman who's suspicious of and even frightened by Curragh. She had a much more illustrious career to come, but this certainly shows her potential as an actress. Robert was effective in showing what were essentially the two different sides of Curragh - the romantic and sometimes even playful man who fell so easily in love, and the hardened communist agent whose love for his young bride was second to his devotion to his ideology. Robert did a good job of showing Curragh as a man torn between those two loyalties and his portrayal of a communist agent was somewhat ironic, given that he himself was virulently anti-communist who helped out so-called "reds" in the movie business to the House Un-American Activities Committee.
"Conspirator" certainly isn't a classic spy film, but it does do a reasonably effective job of building (albeit somewhat slowly) to its eventual climax. (6/10)
As spy capers go, it's not especially thrilling. It's actually rather slow paced, and the story itself isn't all that riveting. In the first half of the movie really all that we glean is that being a member of the Communist Party is a real drag on your personal life. But both Taylors put on performances that make it worth watching. Elizabeth - in what seems to have been her first "adult" role - did a fine job portraying Melinda's evolution from a naive and innocent young girl who's completely smitten by Curragh to a more worldly woman who's suspicious of and even frightened by Curragh. She had a much more illustrious career to come, but this certainly shows her potential as an actress. Robert was effective in showing what were essentially the two different sides of Curragh - the romantic and sometimes even playful man who fell so easily in love, and the hardened communist agent whose love for his young bride was second to his devotion to his ideology. Robert did a good job of showing Curragh as a man torn between those two loyalties and his portrayal of a communist agent was somewhat ironic, given that he himself was virulently anti-communist who helped out so-called "reds" in the movie business to the House Un-American Activities Committee.
"Conspirator" certainly isn't a classic spy film, but it does do a reasonably effective job of building (albeit somewhat slowly) to its eventual climax. (6/10)