Conspirator (1949 film) - Alchetron, the free social encyclopedia

Conspirator trailer 1949

Conspirator is a 1949 British thriller film directed by Victor Saville and starring Robert Taylor and Elizabeth Taylor. Based on the 1948 novel Conspirator by Humphrey Slater, the film is about a beautiful eighteen-year-old American woman who meets and falls in love with a British Guards officer who turns out to be a spy for the Soviet Union. After they are married, she discovers his true identity and forces him to choose between his marriage and his ideology. When his Soviet handlers order him to murder his young American wife, he is faced with the ultimate choice. Conspirator was made for distribution by MGM.

The film created some controversy over the age difference between Robert Taylor, who was in his late thirties, and Elizabeth Taylor, who was only sixteen at the time of production. The producers were careful to cut mentions in the film of British traitors during the Second World War, such as John Amery and Norman Baillie-Stewart, out of fear of litigation by their families. An indirect mention of Baillie-Stewart remained in the film, however, with him being referred to not by name, but simply as "that fellow in the Tower". The plot of the film also bore some similarities to the later case of the Cambridge Spies, including Donald MacLean.