Conspirator

Fans of early and obscure Elizabeth Taylor vehicles can't get much more obscure than this early cold-war drama set in 1949 London. As a Yank in postwar Britain, she meets and falls for another Taylor, Robert, dashing in his uniform. Once married, however, hubby grows secretive and borderline abusive, and is forever disappearing on mysterious nighttime errands. Playfully kibitzing, young Liz stumbles onto the truth that he's a Soviet operative, possibly the clumsiest and most careless ever. Orders come down that he must eliminate her.... About two-thirds of the way through, this tepid romance decides it's going to be a Suspicion-like thriller, and not a moment too soon. But it has its moments (the male Taylor covering his tracks as he takes the tube to an assignation, for instance) and reflects the rather restrained concerns of the British Empire in the wake of the Gouzenko defection in Ottawa in 1945.