THE CONSPIRATORS (1944)

A CASABLANCA knockoff that's not bad, but would be a whole lot better if it wasn't always reminding us that it supposed to be a CASABLANCA knockoff. Paul Henreid is a Dutch resistance fighter known as the Flying Dutchman on his way out of Europe to England, spending an enforced 2-day layover in neutral Lisbon (not nearly as exotic as Vichy Casablanca) where he is supposed to meet up with a local underground figure. Hedy Lamarr, also in the resistance, witnesses a man she has just passed information to get shot in an alleyway, so she ducks into the Cafe Imperoli (way fancier and not nearly as fun as Rick's) and runs into Henreid. After this, the events happens fast and furiously, with lots of sound and fury but not signifying much. Sydney Greenstreet, the head of the local underground group, suspects that one of his associates is a double agent. Is it Peter Lorre, the only one with more than a couple lines of dialogue? And what's going on with Lamarr's "secret" husband (Victor Francen), a German diplomat?; he may be a Nazi but he also managed to get Lamarr out of Dachau and might be a closet member of the Resistance. Some elements that seem designed to conjure up CASABLANCA include a deadly dust-up in the streets over identity papers, a song sung in a club that affects the listeners (not patriotically but sentimentally), and a roulette game called in French. The pace of the movie never flags, but the lack of chemistry and relative listlessness of the leading duo, particularly when compared to Bogart and Bergman, cause much of the film to feel flat. The finale at a seaside casino is filled with action but is awfully convoluted. Most of the pleasures here are in the noir-inflected cinematography and the supporting players. Greenstreet effortlessly steals every scene he's in, and it's nice to see him as a good guy; Francen does a fine job keeping us in the dark about his ultimate sympathies, and Joseph Calleia does an OK turn as a Claude Rains-ish cop. Steven Geray and Kurt Katch, as the other underground members, don't have many lines, but add atmosphere as they skulk in the shadows. Supposedly Marcel Dalio, the croupier from CASABLANCA, is also the croupier here, but I didn't notice him. [TCM]