Conspiracy (1930)

Simply A Masterpiece

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

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.

A conversation between a trio of "out of towners" along the lines of "we'll have to go back to our hick towns to find the excitement that was missing in this city"... of course behind the door a crime has taken place. Bessie Love frantically tries to escape the room where a man's corpse lies.Love had been around since the teen years and it was her dynamic portrayal of Hank in "The Broadway Melody" that gave her career a boost. "Conspiracy" was made in the middle of her revival although the next year she made her last American movie for 20 years. Co-starring with her was the zany Ned Sparks, always a terrific asset to any movie he appeared in and also Hugh Trevor. Trevor was a reluctant star who had come to the attention of a relative who worked at Radio. He was considered handsome and could carry a song so he was given the male lead in "The Cuckoos". He ended up in a few crime movies before drifting back to the insurance profession.This is a terrific little crime movie with Bessie in an all stops out, highly dramatic performance, proving her emoting in "The Broadway Melody" was no fluke. It has you reeled in instantly as Love, going by the name of Martha Hunter (one of the many aliases she goes by in this movie) flees to the local Neighbourhood House where she concocts a story of being an "innocent alone in a big city" and in desperate need of a job (anything that will take her out of circulation)!!! The manageress takes pity on her but in her younger days she was also a "sob sister", so she also feels pity for a young news hound Jack Howell (Trevor) who comes searching for a young girl he helped out of a jam earlier that evening. You guessed it - it's Martha and finally the truth comes out - she is the sister of a missing crusading D.A. and she is trying her best to expose gangster Romano's drug empire. With her it is personal: she has seen too many of the girls she worked with go down that road. Her story proves a sensation and when eccentric amateur criminologist Winthrop Clavering requires a stenographer - Martha is hired. But Clavering seems to have a first hand knowledge of the recent crime... it's Ned Sparks and rarely has he had a role where he is centre stage!! The role gives full vent to his raspy voice and oddball sense of dry humour. I kept on expecting him to whip off his old man's disguise and chuckle "I fooled you all - it's really me, Ned"!! Playing the terrible trio of crooks were Ivan Lebedeff, the beautiful Rita La Roy and growly Walter Long."Conspiracy" first saw light of day as a long running stage play from 1912-1914 written by John Emerson who along with his wife Anita Loos, was responsible for many of the scintillating scripts for the silent movies!!

In New York City, the camera catches blonde stenographer Bessie Love (as Margaret Holt) standing over a dead body, wielding a sharp letter opener. Hearing folks outside the deceased's hotel room, Ms. Love takes the fire escape to elude arrest. Young newspaper reporter Hugh Trevor (as Jack Howell) is on the scene and falls in Love. He learns the victim was a big-time narcotics pusher who had abducted Love's brother. Her brother is a district attorney. Investigating the crime is cantankerous mystery novelist Ned Sparks (as Winthrop "Little Nemo" Clavering). To make it easy, Love goes to work for Mr. Sparks, who lives in a mansion with slavish Gertrude Howard (as Martha)...This is a re-make of a Broadway play and "silent" movie starring John Emerson. It should have been left there. Top-billed Love, who worked with Mr. Emerson and director Christy Cabanne in the 'teens, had a career resurgence in "talking" pictures. Appearing uncomfortable herein, Love most notably wears a fox fur that is complete, from head to tail. Too bad her character is not a ventriloquist. It's probably a good thing Love plays second-fiddle to Sparks, who is the actual leading player in the story. While it's good to see Sparks in a rare starring role, his character is annoying throughout. Those looking for racial stereotypes in old films should find Ms. Howard's "Martha" of interest.*** Conspiracy (8/3/30) Christy Cabanne ~ Ned Sparks, Bessie Love, Hugh Trevor, Gertrude Howard

Conspiracy (1930) is a really weird movie. It's not a good movie, mind. It's not even a movie I would recommend to anyone except rabid fans of Bessie Love and Ned Sparks – and even they would probably not be impressed. Bessie Love plays a murderess. Although she could plead self-defense (and the gangster she kills deserved a bullet anyway), she is a wake-up to New York's corrupt police force and knows only too well that she wouldn't even last a night in their "custody". So she flees and somehow manages to find sanctuary with a really weird oddball who fancies himself as a mystery writer and solver of all capital crimes, both real and imaginary. The oddball is played – in an outlandish disguise that he never removes – by Ned Sparks who totally forgets – and when I say "totally", I mean "TOTALLY" – that he's making a movie on a sound stage, not treading the boards at the Belasco. In a hammy, disguised voice, he shouts every word of his lines to penetrate the furthest rows of the Gallery. And what was the director doing while Ned was sparking away? Nothing! Poor old Christy Cabanne didn't have a clue how to direct a sound film – this was his first, although sound effects and a music score were added to his Annapolis (1928) – and that lack of expertise is painfully obvious. RKO had such little faith in the movie, they couldn't even nail down a release date for me, although it would have to be either August 3 or August 10. Nor was there any record that the movie had even played in New York (where the story is actually set), but I was able to tell them the movie opened in Los Angeles on September 3, 1930. RKO did have a synopsis in their files, but most of the first half of the plot does not appear on the screen at all. Either it was cut before the movie was released or it was never filmed at all. Available on an excellent Warner Archive DVD. For completists, an excellent print is now available on a cut-price Alpha DVD. The best thing about it is the superb cover which reproduces the original theatrical one-sheet poster. The poster is great -- one of the most startling I've ever seen -- but the movie is not. In fact, the poster is totally misleading. I'd describe the film as a ham and eggs movie. The ham is supplied by Bessie Love and Ned Sparks, both of them easy winners of 1930's top awards for the year's hammiest performances. Sparks is obviously under the impression that movie acting is the same as stage acting. He shouts every line -- and I mean EVERY line -- at the top of his voice. Worse still, the movie is all talk and very little action. Even the climax disappoints and the lovely Rita La Roy has only a tiny role.

Once upon a time, television was a place of wondrous discovery. The most strange and surprising things were liable to turn up at any time, despite the fact that most people only had 8 to 12 channels to choose from. Alas, with the advent of syndication and cable, those days have virtually disappeared. Now, we are blessed with 500 channels of bland, cookie cutter pap. Which brings me to the case at hand.I saw "Conspiracy" at 3:05 CDT this morning. It ran on WLS Ch.7 in Chicago. Ch.7 - bless 'em! - is one of the last stations in existence to maintain a film library stocked with treasures that, in some cases, may not have been seen in the last 50 years. "Conspiracy" was one of those rare treats that TV used to be all about. It's a true oddity even for it's time ( 1930 ). Starring the redoubtable Ned Sparks, an actor once well enough known that Warner based a cartoon character - ( a suspender wearing rooster ) - upon him, it's about a woman in peril ( Bessie Love ), an intrepid reporter ( Hugh Trevor ) and a bizarre crime novelist named Winthrop Clavering who, for some reason, goes by the nickname of Little Nemo. Oh, and it's based upon a play, which helps explain some of the, at times, stilted dialogue.As for details of the story; well, there really isn't much need to go into them. Oh, OK; a girl murders a mobster who is out to get her brother and spends the rest of the film dealing with the characters mentioned above, as well as trying to protect the brother from mob vengeance. Mostly the movie deals with the oddball Nemo, a cantankerous coot who is convinced he can outsmart the cops and solve the mystery. Still with me? The fascination of obscurities such as "Conspiracy" is that they give us a glimpse into a world that is so alien to most of us that it is positively breathtaking. These are characters that even a 60 year old codger such as myself find totally unfamiliar. For example, the heroin is clad in a fox stole that would give PETA the screaming heebie jeebies. I mean, this thing is so complete - head, tail and feet - that you almost expect it to start talking. Other period touches include a Black maid with a smart mouth, and assorted exotic villains who speak in indeterminate foreign accents and wear odd jewelry.Now, if all this sounds as intriguing to you as it was to me, then I urge you to seek out "Conspiracy" at all costs. Unfortunately, it won't be easy. Perhaps a better idea would be to give your "local" cable company bloody heck for not having more programming such as this readily available. In either case, good luck!