The Conspirators (1944) Directed by Jean Negulesco

(Review originally written at 19 January 2008)

Often problem with these war time made WW II movies was that they were all basically the same. They of course all had a different story but were still all the same in terms of storytelling, overall style and character portrayals. In that regard "The Conspirators" is one of those dozens of typical made war time made movies about WW II.

The movie features a quite messy disjointed story, involving Nazi's, underground fighter's, a romance and one traitor. It also is nothing too spectacular or original.

The movie once more features both Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet. They played in quite a few movies together in the '40's, of which of course the most notable ones were "Casablanca" (also starring Paul Henreid) and "The Maltese Falcon". My only complaint is that their roles are being pushed too much to the background. It focuses too much on Hedy Lamarr and Paul Henreid and their romance, which just isn't the most convincing or interesting element of the movie. Especially Lamarr is dreadful and feels terribly out of place within this movie.

I must admit that the ending is absolutely fantastic though, which involves a game of roulette, with the resistance fighters sitting across a couple of Nazi's, while it is known that one of the resistance fighters is a mole and traitor and must pass a message to the Nazi's within 10 minutes, while they are playing the roulette. It probably sounds very James Bond like to you know but trust me if I say that this is one great and tense build up sequences, that forms a perfect finale for the movie, even though the movie does not end right after it.

The movie as a whole just isn't always the most fast going one and therefore it also doesn't make this movie the most exciting or tense movie within its genre.

Still of course the movie remains a perfectly watchable enough one.

6/10