The Conspirators (1944)

Paul Henreid plays a Dutch freedom fighter who finds himself in Lisbon with an underground resistance group, one of whom is a traitor. He also meets and, in typical movie fashion, falls in love with Hedy Lamarr after knowing her for two seconds. Forgettable melodramatic wartime thriller with some story elements reminiscent of Casablanca. The story is nowhere near as good though. Paul Henreid is dull as dishwater. Hedy Lamarr, while beautiful, has no chemistry with Henreid and brings little to the table beyond looking great in close-ups. Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet are given uninteresting roles. The supporting cast deserves better. This one's a dud.

No matter how hard they tried Warner Brothers just could not duplicate the magic that was Casablanca. They tried it was in Background To Danger where George Raft who was considered for Humphrey Bogart's role got the lead. It was a routine action/adventure film set in Turkey.In The Conspirators this time it was Hedy Lamarr who was originally considered for Ingrid Bergman's part finally made it to Warner Brothers. She is the wife of Victor Francen who is a German embassy official and both are part of an underground group which Sidney Greenstreet heads and Peter Lorre is also a member.Into all their lives comes Dutch resistance fighter Paul Henreid and the two have big eyes for each other, but there is a traitor in that little underground group who is spoiling things all around political, geographic and personal. A murder is committed and Henreid is the suspect and both the underground and the Portugese police in the persons of Eduardo Ciannelli and Joseph Calleia are on his trail.The atmosphere of intrigue in World War II Lisbon just as in World War II Casablanca is nicely created by director Jean Negulesco. But the magical chemistry of Bogey and Bergman just isn't there. Like Background To Danger, The Conspirators is just another action/adventure film with an exotic background.

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.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Hedy Lamarr is never more beautiful and it is always a pleasure to see Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre together. The story line is fairly good for the era but the on-screen results disappoint. The movie is justifiably compared with the much much better Casablanca. Paul Henreid is escaping from the Nazis in neutral Lisbon. Hedy, Sydney, and Peter all offer help but there are complications. Conspirators abound -- who is to be trusted? All is revealed an a too predictable ending. See this film as an example of movie making during the war or to round out your viewing of its cast. On the other hand, my wife loved it! Go figure.