That was an excellent one.

An action-packed slog

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

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)

Robert and Elizabeth Taylor star in this weak film dealing with a woman discovering that her husband is a spy for the Soviet Union. I guess they were thinking of these things in 1949, at the height of the cold war.Elizabeth Taylor is absolutely churlish at the beginning of this film. She talks like an 8 year old and only shows some maturity required for the part when she discovers that her husband is a traitor.Bob Taylor seems uncomfortable in the role mainly because he was such a right-wing individual in real life.The picture probably would have been somewhat better had they showed some of his escapades in spying. How she discovers his infidelity is so predictable at best.The ending is pure soap opera.

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.

(Some Spoilers) Uninteresting suspense/drama that has all-American heart throb and US government friendly witness Robert Taylor as the British turncoat and sleazy communist spy Maj. Michael Curragh. Who in order to show his loyalty to the great "Cause and Movement" is ordered to murder his gorgeous young wife Melinda, Elizabeth Taylor. Who caught on to his spying and is a threat not only to Michael but to the Communist cell in London that he's a member of. Melinda at first going completely banana's over the handsome and dashing Major Michael after meeting him at a big social gathering in which no man there even bothered to ask her or a dance! they must have been either blind or crazy or both! Michael and Melinda hit it off right away and before you know it their married and living happily after after or so we, or they, thought. Melinda quickly caught on to Michael, and his secret life, but at first she thought that he was cheating with another woman behind her back. When Melinda took some bills from his pocket, to pay for a gift that she bought for him, she found a note going to his handler, Commie London spy chief Radek (Karel Stepanek), about the latest secret military strategy report of the UK & UK. Michaels communist handlers ware already ticked off at Michael for marrying Melinda without telling them about it, as well as not inviting them to the marriage ceremony. Now with her snooping around into his business with them he was given a direct order to do her in once in for all and leave no fingerprints of himself or his involvement with them behind. Michael later tries to shoot and kill Melinda at a duck hunt when he took her to his Aunt Jessica's, Marjorie Fielding, place out in the country but chickened out and just shot over her head. Or was it, like he explained to his bosses, after his hunting dog distracted him only knocking Melinda out. Were told by Michael that his dedication to the communist movement goes back to his days as a youth in Ireland where he fell under the spell of the ideas of Marx & Engles. As well as Michael's dreams of being a part of the greatest social experiment in the history of the world! Yet just one look at the beautiful Melinda showed him just how much BS that great revelation in human evolution, on his part, was. Now Michael got lost in the fog of his own muddled half-baked and self-delusional thoughts.It later turned out that it wasn't necessary for Melinda to turn Michael in to the authorities since the British M15 already knew about his communist activities long before he even met her. All this became moot with Michael seeing himself deserted by Melinda, as well as the local commie spy cell, beat them to the punch with a self-inflicted gun-shot wound to his head. It was hard to believe that Elizabeth Taylor was still in her teens, she was 17 at the time, when she made "Conspirator" back in 1949. She not only was beautiful beyond words but also a far more mature young woman then her age actually indicated.