Really wanted to like 'The Conspirators' much more. It could have been great. It had a talented cast, hard to go wrong with the likes of Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet. An intriguing idea for a story with shades of an all-time favourite 'Casablanca'. A fine director in Jean Negulesco, with good to great films such as 'The Mudlark', 'Humoresque', 'The Mask of Dimitrios' and 'How to Marry a Millionaire' as examples. A great setting, with Lisbon being a beautiful place.
Yet somehow 'The Conspirators' managed to be an underwhelming disappointment. Great potential but the execution was very patchy. None of the cast are at their best, with the greater actors being underused and the leads not being strong enough, and this is for me lesser Negulesco. Not just as a film, with it being one of not many films of his to not rise above the average. But also from a directing standpoint, where one would think that the film was directed by somebody else entirely.
Will start with what is good here as the good things are there. 'The Conspirators' is gorgeously shot with plenty of style and atmosphere, the noir-ish lighting also creating a genuine eeriness. Max Steiner's score is luscious and creates a surprising amount of swelling emotional power not present elsewhere.
Greenstreet and Lorre are underused but they really do make the most of what they have and get a lot out of it. Greenstreet, always good at playing authority figures, especially. Lorre was similarly always great at playing a creep. The ending is exciting and suspenseful, the only scene of the film to be so.
Paul Henreid also does his best, but in order to be convincing as a tough guy he needed a lot more intensity than what he gave. As exquisitely beautiful as Hedy Lamarr is, she is stuck in a role that is worse than one-dimensional and does nothing with it, meaning she doesn't register. She and Henreid fail to generate any chemistry or warmth. Negulesco's direction is disappointingly lethargic, something that is not characteristic of his direction usually.
The script and story also bring 'The Conspirators' down. Hard. The story is formulaic, with its fair share of overused cliches, and when things get increasingly complicated it gets very convoluted, some of it is dull too. The script is too talky and gets very heavy-handed and at times obvious. Even with the convolutions, there is not near enough susprises or tension. Only at the end do any of those things happen.
Summing up, not awful by any stretch but not great either. All have done much better. 5/10
Yet somehow 'The Conspirators' managed to be an underwhelming disappointment. Great potential but the execution was very patchy. None of the cast are at their best, with the greater actors being underused and the leads not being strong enough, and this is for me lesser Negulesco. Not just as a film, with it being one of not many films of his to not rise above the average. But also from a directing standpoint, where one would think that the film was directed by somebody else entirely.
Will start with what is good here as the good things are there. 'The Conspirators' is gorgeously shot with plenty of style and atmosphere, the noir-ish lighting also creating a genuine eeriness. Max Steiner's score is luscious and creates a surprising amount of swelling emotional power not present elsewhere.
Greenstreet and Lorre are underused but they really do make the most of what they have and get a lot out of it. Greenstreet, always good at playing authority figures, especially. Lorre was similarly always great at playing a creep. The ending is exciting and suspenseful, the only scene of the film to be so.
Paul Henreid also does his best, but in order to be convincing as a tough guy he needed a lot more intensity than what he gave. As exquisitely beautiful as Hedy Lamarr is, she is stuck in a role that is worse than one-dimensional and does nothing with it, meaning she doesn't register. She and Henreid fail to generate any chemistry or warmth. Negulesco's direction is disappointingly lethargic, something that is not characteristic of his direction usually.
The script and story also bring 'The Conspirators' down. Hard. The story is formulaic, with its fair share of overused cliches, and when things get increasingly complicated it gets very convoluted, some of it is dull too. The script is too talky and gets very heavy-handed and at times obvious. Even with the convolutions, there is not near enough susprises or tension. Only at the end do any of those things happen.
Summing up, not awful by any stretch but not great either. All have done much better. 5/10