What makes it different from others?

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

"Silver Chalice" director Victor Saville's tepid Cold War espionage thriller "Conspirator" casts Robert Taylor as veteran British Guards officer who has fallen hopelessly in love with an impressionable, 18-year old American girl played by Elizabeth Taylor. This lackluster spy saga cannot conjure up a shred of credibility, and one can only hope that Humphrey Slater's novel that Gerald Fairlie and Sally Benson adapted was infinitely superior for what passes on screen. Ironically, the American born Taylor plays an Englishman, while the English born Elizabeth was cast as an American. Unfortunately, none of this irony permeated the film. She is a giddy young lady who meets Major Michael Curragh at a ball and falls for his 'ferociously" good looks, but Curragh doesn't realize that his Soviet handlers oppose his marital plans. Curragh insists that he can lead a split-existence, but his handlers warn him that a spy cannot have a wife who will interfere with his activities. Initially, Melinda Greyton (Elizabeth Taylor) believes that she can convince Michael to resign from the party. Michael's Soviet superior Radek (Karel Stepanek) orders the major to do away with his wife. As it turns out, Melinda has her beliefs that her husband is a traitor. Naturally, Michael struggles to explain his life-long participation in the Party. He lies to her at first that he has cut himself off from the Party, but Melinda learns that he has lied to her. Eventually, during a holiday duck hunt, Michael tries to kill her but he cannot bring himself to murder him. Melinda can only tolerate so much treachery and she goes to the authorities. Michael realizes the desperate predicament that he can gotten himself into and shoots himself rather than be taken into custody. The irony is that Michael's military superiors had caught of whiff of his seditious activities and were using him. They plead with Melinda to say that her husband committed suicide.The characters in "Conspirator" are hopelessly naïve about themselves. Michael has abandoned all sense of propriety and hoped that he could keep Melinda from learning anything about his nocturnal activities. Michael's handlers sent postcards of the old London Bridge when they wanted him to report to them with any useful information. Robert Taylor delivers a fine performance as a man caught between to political ideologies and at odds with his young wife. Elizabeth Taylor is appropriately paranoid about her husband after he appears to accidentally shoot her during the duck hunt. Future James Bond actress Honor Blackman plays Melinda's best friend. Saville keeps the action—as improbable as it is—flowing throughout this 87-minute yarn. "Conspirator" was shot on location in the United Kingdom. Altogether, Robert Taylor is wasted as a low-profile Communist. No surprises enliven this forgettable epic.

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.

Here's an example of the paranoia that had gripped the Western world after WWII. There's ample propaganda and we're really not allowed to see the real motivations behind Robert Taylor's devotion to the cause of Communism and his willingness to be a spy. But what we do see I found riveting. If this film has any real problem it's that it's predictable. The flip side is that I didn't care. It kept me interested and for that I credit the actors.It's interesting to note that handsome Robert Taylor, a staunch conservative, acquitted himself better than is his usual. His portrayal was far from one-dimensional and his anguish regarding his ideology and instinct for self-preservation versus his love for his wife was very credible. Elizabeth Taylor was lovely as always. The camera loves her and her full-head shots are indeed memorable. Her motivations were not entirely clear though. For example it wasn't clear, considering her apolitical mindset, why she thought her husband was so despicable for being a spy. But then again the paranoia of the times would have made such introspection unnecessary.The supporting cast was also very good with a special mention for Honor Blackman who always lends a touch of class to anything she's in. The camera work was appropriately sombre or gay when needed. So even though I wouldn't consider it great the performances make it worth seeing and more than once.

The film demonstrates that her acting was fresher, more spontaneous, and more compelling…"Conspirator" was designed to guide Liz from young girl to woman in much the same way that "Cynthia" moved her from child to young girl… As the movie opens, she's the young American in London, worrying over being asked for a dance at a ball, and preoccupied with shopping sprees…Like many of the parts she's played, her young lady here is a woman with nothing on her mind… Superficial, devil-may-care, Liz is yet a beguiling flirt; there's a particularly charming scene early in the film in which she chatters foolishly and at length in order to make less her fears of the dark…The plot of the movie is to take her from frivolous girl to bruised but knowing young woman, and the change is effected, of course, by her relations with an attractive man…After a whirlwind courtship, she marries a handsome British army major who's the answer to her schoolgirl notions of romance… With typical Taylor luck, her husband turns out to be a spy for the Russians… When she finally discovers his double life, she decides to turn him in… Her scene of momentous moral decision is unique: it's the only time in her career that romance is mixed with politics…In its own simplistic way, "Conspirator" is a message movie (with excellent use of London's streets and parks…), and Liz, for a change, is a reasonable person, expressing dismay at her husband's duplicity and urging him to the greater rewards of loyalty to country… Liz is a patriot; as she says, she doesn't know much about politics, but, instinctively, she knows right from wrong and what her husband is doing is wrong…As storm warning or political statement, "Conspirator" was Fifties naive… It was also, of course, Hollywood's response to the early Fifties Communist scare… The film was a firm warning that Communist sympathizers will end unhappily