Conspirator (1949)

Director:

Victor Saville

Writers:

Sally Benson (adaptation)
Sally Benson (screenplay)

Release Date:

24 March 1950 (USA)

Genre:

Thriller | Drama

Tagline:

The Man She Loved Was A Traitor, Sworn To Kill Her!

Plot:

London, 1949. A young American beauty, Melinda Greyton, flighty and immature, falls in love with a dashing but solitary and lonely English major...

Plot Keywords:

Communism | Spy | Based On Novel

Cast

Robert Taylor	...	Maj. Michael Curragh
Elizabeth Taylor	...	Melinda Greyton
Robert Flemyng	...	Capt. Hugh Ladholme
Harold Warrender	...	Col. Hammerbrook
Honor Blackman	...	Joyce
Marjorie Fielding	...	Aunt Jessica
Thora Hird	...	Broaders
Wilfrid Hyde-White	...	Lord Pennistone (as Wilfred Hyde-White)
Marie Ney	...	Lady Pennistone
Jack Allen	...	Raglan
Helen Haye	...	Lady Witheringham
Cicely Paget-Bowman	...	Mrs. Hammerbrook
Karel Stepanek	...	Radek
Nicholas Bruce	...	Alek
Cyril Smith	...	Detective Inspector

Runtime:

87 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Finland:(Banned) (1950) | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (certificate #13717)

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Movie Connections:

Featured in Some of the Best (1949)

Taylor vs. Taylor in tepid cold-war drama

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.