MovieChat Forums > Conspirator (1950) Discussion > Stupidity run amok

Stupidity run amok

posted 14 years ago by moviegoingcat
9 replies | jump to latest

This is one of the silliest of the anti-communist films of those years. Everyone is stupid..(equal opportunity stupidity) All the husband needed to tell the wife was that he was a double agent. The whole thing is awful. Robert Taylor was made to atone for a pro-soviet film he made during the war. What was Sally Benson atoning for?

[–] TCMer 13 years ago

I have to agree. A deservedly forgotten film.

"What I got don't need pearls." -- Linda Darnell (1923-65)

[–] Zorione 13 years ago

All the husband needed to tell the wife was that he was a double agent.

This bothered me so much. So did the fact that he hadn't encoded such a blatantly incriminating message.

[–] Eightythreeyearoldguy 13 years ago

Elizabeth Taylor is in it. That's enough to get me to watch it and show it to my movie group a couple of weeks from this Saturday.

Life, every now and then, behaves as though it had seen too many bad movies

[–] simplemines 12 years ago

Umm, it seems she rather objected to his affiliation with the communists. I don't think it would've been okay with her if he fessed up.

And btw, Robert Taylor wasn't making up for the previous commie movie (he hated making THAT movie.) Taylor was a conservative and anti-communist in real life. Or didn't you know that?

[–] ginbelt 12 years ago

Moviegoingcat wrote: "All the husband needed to tell the wife was that he was a double agent."

Simplemines replied: "Umm, it seems she rather objected to his affiliation with the communists. I don't think it would've been okay with her if he fessed up.

He DID "fess up" in the film; we don't have to speculate about what her reaction would have been, she was indeed upset about it. Anyway, the OP isn't saying the husband should have "fessed up" that he's a SPY, he's saying the husband should have LIED and said he's a double agent for the Americans. There is a major difference of course, in his true affiliation. I doubt the wife would have objected so strongly to his being an American double agent fooling the Soviets by pretending to spy for them...she might have been a bit upset at the danger inherent in such a job, but there would not have been that strong moral objection she had when he came out and confessed to her he was a Soviet spy. Lying to her that he was a double agent for the USA would indeed have been the perfect excuse, the OP is right.

[–] robin-moss2 12 years ago

I've just watched the Warners Archive DVD-R of this movie. I really enjoyed it. I didn't find the whole thing awful.

[–] alistla 12 years ago

"This is one of the silliest of the anti-communist films of those years."

Beg to differ. This is actually one of the best-made, best-acted, and most suspenseful of that era's anti-communist films. A genuinely good (but not great) movie, period.

It often seems to me on these boards that lefties compete with each other to see who can deprecate and belittle anti-communist movies to the greatest degree. Please try to separate your ideology from your film criticism. Just as I see many progressive message movies overpraised, I see some conservative or anti-communist films excessively denigrated. Sure, many of them weren't very good. But some were, and Conspirator ranks among the best of the lot.

[–] rebekahrox 11 years ago

Amen. When I saw that the talented Sally Benson wrote this stupid movie, I couldn't believe it. WTF?

[–] vbel 8 years ago

18 year old wife is going to "talk to the colonel"? Too funny.