Der Ring der Verschworenen

You know that Warner Brothers - once they have their hands on a hot property, they slice it, dice it, and put it in the Mixmaster. Just look at the three versions of "The Maltese Falcon." Now it's wartime, and that hot property is, of course "Casablanca." In "The Conspirators," part of that magnificent cast is reunited - Paul Henried, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre - in this story of a Dutch freedom fighter, Vincent Van der Lyn, in neutral Lisbon and having trouble figuring out who wants to help him and who wants to hurt him. The suspects are Greenstreet, the head of a resistance group, Lorre, one of its members, and the exquisite Hedy Lamarr, married to a Nazi official.

The story is harder to follow and ultimately, the film is not as good as "Joan of Paris," another World War II film starring Henried, but it still has great atmosphere and is fairly intriguing. There just isn't enough of Greenstreet or Lorre, one of the great screen teams. Paul Henried, a very useful actor during World War II while the stars were away, does a good job as Van der Lyn. Lamarr is positively outrageously beautiful - no, she's not much of an actress - it's a face made for the closeup, and one can just look at her forever. What she brings is a certain enigmatic quality, probably by default, but who cares.

If this pops up on TCM, you won't be sorry you saw it, but you won't be swept away either.

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.

This is not a sequel to "Casablanca" but quite a different story with totally different circumstances. The main thing here is perhaps the music, since the Portuguese "Fado" culture plays an important part here. The "Fado" songs of Portugal are always overbearingly melancholy, and they are usually about love and death - one of them is a kind of figurehead to this intrinsic plot of extremely complicated machinations, since so many nations are involved in it - there are, besides the Portuguese, mainly policemen, also Germans, Poles, French, a flying Dutchman, and the main target is England, where some number are trying to get away to, one getting murdered for it. Hedy Lamarr is as shiningly beautiful as ever and steals the whole film, while Paul Henreid acts the more although in her shadow, which he is honest enough to confess himself. Peter Lorre has too small a part like Sidney Greenstreet, who always fills the screen but here not enough although well enough after his very late arrival. Max Steiner fills the background with splendid music as usual, so there is actually nothing mssiing in this muddled up espionage thriller with too many actors crowding on each other, leaving piteously small space for a romance like that in "Casablanca". Hedy Lamarr is no Ingrid Bergman, but instead she is Hedy Lamarr. This hotch-potch of late war entertainment in a duck soup of intrigue never really gets serious, but exciting enough in total suspense most of the way, although the script has some flaws, but the dialogue, cinematography and direction are magnificent. Paul Henreid's prison companion deserves some special attention and credit of sympathy, having been there for 18 years with his broom and staying there.

The greatness of this film lies in its ability to make you feel absorbed in the story, characters' lives, and outcomes. Negulesco's masterful direction and the excellent cast's strong delivery leaves you wanting to follow every move and hear every word.

There is also a nice variety of scenes throughout that engage you in the complexities of the characters' thoughts and lives. It adds to the sense of anxiety they felt during the war, even in neutral Portugal. Through Henreid's early anti-German sabotage in the Netherlands, music at Café Império in Lisbon, barroom conversations and back alley meet-ups, everything feels and moves perfectly, adding depth to the story. No scene, word, or movement is ever out of place.

The entire movie was interesting and enjoyable and I watched it several times in 1 week. Isn't one hallmark of a high quality movie the need to watch it several times to pick up all the nuances? Even so, I never felt like it was on repeat.

One final note - the picture is a little dark, so I increased the screen brightness and turned off the lights in the room and that helped. Also, wish it were available in HD, but otherwise highly recommend!

OK, if you want Casablanca then watch Casablanca!. I could never completely understand the fuss people make over that film. Yes, I know it has many very good qualities, but some shaky ones as well (alright, perhaps it's time I looked at it again). As for this particular movies attempt to capitalise on the success of the earlier film (Hollywood has always followed the proved formula method - and even more so now) so it might also be said, if this film had come along before Casablanca, it may just have received all the accolades. I'm assuming 'Conspirators' would have been given the bigger budget (it has a more expensive look about it) and as it seems Casablanca was not anticipated to be the hit it turned out, so Warner's would then have hoped to follow up with another winner.

Arthur Edeson's standout Cinematography is mesmerizing. The knockout classic lighting coupled with the great Direction of Jean Negulesco (others have called him insensitive and pedestrian - how unobservant they show themselves to be! best look again is all I can say to them) The strong Max Seiner music score is quite unique to many of his other works ~ with the masterful Orchestrations of veteran arranger Leonid Raab giving the score a potent sound that's perfect for this story. If anything, the post production alterations would have contributed to the movies hard to follow moments and contrivances, but this was typical with many films from this otherwise spot on studio. That said, let's face it, Hedy and Paul do make the most of their exhausted and very scared characters...theirs were strained times to be living through.

Look at it on it's own entertainment merits, the script may have some unevenness and some characters a little familiar, but overall this is not nearly as bad as some might have us believe. Some will, some won't.......KenR