THE CONSPIRATORS
A Movie Partially Written by Ayn Rand
—
A review from the perspective of a fan
by David Hayes

Ayn Rand rewrote the dialogue for a movie script when she was employed by Hal Wallis, but subsequently her screenplay would be re-written again.  The movie is The Conspirators, and would be released in 1944 crediting as source the novel by Frederick Prokosch, with screenplay credit given to Vladimir Pozner and Leo Rosten.  Reportedly, two other writers created a completed script prior to Ayn Rand’s involvement, with the two credited writers being the last in a chain of possibly seven writers.  (The lack of Ayn Rand’s name on the finished film should not be taken as a slight to her.  Academy Award rules dictated that any writer credited for the screenplay must have written 25% of what reached the screen.  A writer who contributed less than 25% but more than 10% could receive an “additional dialogue by” or “additional material” credit.) (Concerning Rand’s involvement, see Letters of Ayn Rand, pg. 138)

The two most respected comprehensive references of capsule film reviews share a common assessment of The Conspirators.  Leonard Maltin’s movie guide describes it as “WW2 intrigue… with echoes of CASABLANCA.”  Leslie Halliwell in his “Film Guide” brands the movie as “a doomed attempt to reprise ‘Casablanca’ without Humphrey Bogart.”  It’s easy to grasp that Warner Bros. would have sought to make movies in 1944 that would share the audience appeal of Casablanca.

Casablanca had been a phenomenal public and critical success after its general release in late January 1943, following a premiere engagement limited to New York City beginning Thanksgiving Day.  Although the film’s belated Los Angeles release occurred that January and thereby prolonged the film’s eligibility for Academy Award consideration, Casablanca left such an indelible impression in Academy voters that in early 1944 they bestowed it many top honors for 1943.

Plans for a formal sequel to Casablanca took shape at Warner Bros.  The treatment had the action resuming where the previous film left off, with Capt. Reneau proving to have had a second agenda at the airport, and with he applying his rascally traits to the aid of the Allied forces.  Rick, however, becomes enmeshed with a Mata Hari-ish spy, and although Hal Wallis wrote memos to writers stating that this was unsuitable for the mood of a genuine sequel, no better plot threads were apparently suggested for the proposed and abandoned project.

Bogart nonetheless was part of a film attempting to repeat the success of Casablanca.  Passage to Marseilles reunited him with Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre from the earlier film, and again was set in—and had a title connoting—traditionally French jurisdiction on or near the Mediterranean.

Hedy Lamarr was not in the film of Casablanca nor in Passage to Marseilles, but she was a natural choice for a lead role in an attempt to re-create the atmosphere of the former film.  She was to play, or had played, Ilsa in a radio adaptation of Casablanca (opposite Alan Ladd), and was often considered for the same roles as Ingrid Bergman.  Lamarr, in her memoir (Ecstasy and Me: My Life as a Woman), names several films turned down by her that became successes for Bergman, as well as projects passed on by Bergman that Lamarr would accept to her advantage.  Both were eastern European in manner and accent, both exceedingly beautiful and demure.  Lamarr would be romantic lead in The Conspirators.

Ayn Rand would write in a letter, “I did it for Hal Wallis—and he has left Warners—and another producer [Jack Chertok would be credited] has taken over the picture, and changed everything, including the title.  So I don’t think there will be much of mine left in it.  Please don’t go to see it.  I’d hate to have you accuse me of somebody else’s mess.”  (Letters of Ayn Rand, pg. 138)

Is it a mess?  In many ways, yes.  Is there nothing discernible of Ayn Rand’s contribution?  The answer here is no, I believe, given occasional remnants in the movie of her sense of life.

A brief tour of the plot reveals how many story elements resemble those of Casablanca:

• Most of the action takes place in Lisbon (the intended destination of the refugees in Casablanca, as Lisbon offers transportation to the United States), but the film opens in Netherlands.  The character played by Paul Henreid narrates: “I traveled by night… to Madrid, then to the last open port on the continent: Lisbon—Lisbon, the gateway to freedom.” (2 min.) (Not unlike the escape from the Nazis of the character played by this same actor in Casablanca, only there the escape occurs offscreen.  The Conspirators also copies Casablanca in this opening by having a narrator convey the background information about Lisbon being “the great disembarkation point,” to quote the earlier film [quoted from memory].)
• We shortly thereafter see the Lisbon airport, bathed in its searchlights.  Once again, Burbank Airport in California’s San Fernando Valley served as filming location, and the shot itself appears to have been taken from Casablanca. (at 2:55 within The Conspirators; all subsequent references to time refer to The Conspirators)  A scene in which hordes file through the immigration checks at the airport, seems like the opening scenes on the street in Casablanca. (3m)
• The meeting place for spies is an elegant restaurant (first seen at 9m) resembling that of Casablanca.  The logo “Cafe Imperial” even has the slanting-upward style of the sign for “Rick’s Cafe.”
• A whistle blows, and cops come.  A dead man is examined by the local authorities in the alley where he was felled.  (10m)  Again, an incident from the opening scene of Casablanca has been redone.
• Back in the restaurant, Hedy Lamarr, sits down at Henreid’s table, and it’s apparent they have not met before. (11m)  “Didn’t we meet in Paris?,” Lamarr says to Henreid, naming the city where Rick and Ilsa had met and fallen in love in the earlier film.  Lamarr and Henreid each use the word “explanation” to the other to indicate what they do not seek to give to, nor what they expect to receive from, each other.  Lamarr makes a toast with wine to Henreid: “To no explanations,” evoking Rick’s toast to Ilsa in Paris, “To no questions,” after she has used the latter two words to him several times.
• Peter Lorre then has his first meeting with Paul Henreid, with Henreid approaching Lorre in the restaurant to deliver the code-phrase which identifies one agent to another: a request for a recommendation of a local pawnshop.  They do little more than determine where and when they’ll meet again.  In Casablanca, Henreid’s character had met a fellow agent at Rick’s and, while pretending to gather information on a watch offered for sale, had learned that Lorre’s character (Mr. Ugarte) had been killed before the two could meet. (14m)
• The town’s gambling palace is Henreid’s next stop (getting its location at 15m).  Roulette is the game most conspicuously played (as at Rick’s).
• Later, in the street, near outdoor merchants, a man without his identity card starts fight. (27m)  He looks like the man who does the same in the opening of Casablanca: white shirt, thin build, pencil mustache.
• Sydney Greenstreet is an indoor merchant, and although his place isn’t called “The Blue Pelican” this time out, he is a man with connections in town. (He’s first seen at 28m.)
• A love song is sung by an exotic foreigner who accompanies herself on guitar.  She comes across as a combination of the guitar-accompanied [guitar-strumming?] woman singer at Rick’s and of Sam, who sung “As Time Goes By.”(41m)
• Henreid’s purpose for going to the gambling palace was to see Lamarr again.  In this second meeting, she tells him that she had been in a concentration camp for four months, and that the man she went to the palace to meet, Hugo, had taken her out: “It was Hugo who got me out, it was Hugo who saved my life, I’ll do anything for him.”  (This is not unlike Casablanca, wherein Henreid had been in a concentration camp, had escaped, to be met again by Ilsa, who said she stayed with Henreid out of devotion for his bringing ideas into her lonely, meaningless life.)  Henreid senses that Lamarr’s emotions are misplaced, just as Rick and Henreid had with Ilsa, and gently attempts to help her clarify them.  Her rejoinder comes as if a slap, and duplicates a revelation in the earlier film: “He’s my husband.”  (In both films, the woman is attempting to justify her staying with the man, and connotes that she’s without true passion.) (44m)
• Henreid’s proximity to the man killed in the street leads to his being arrested and jailed for the crime. (52m).  Henreid’s character had been captured, arrested and held (this latter off screen, though) near the end of Casablanca.
• Henreid’s attempts to argue his way out of being held place him against a police official who is just as “snake-like” as Claude Rains had been in Casablanca.  (Eduardo Cianelli plays the role.)
• Henreid had mistakenly assumed that Lamarr had furnished information that led to Henreid’s arrest, but Lamarr proves herself loyal to him when she reports to the police that she knows that Henreid had not been near the murdered man at the time that the killing would have taken place.  Henreid and Lamarr nonetheless exchange harsh opinions of each other, and Henreid goes about locating the other local agents in his organization.  He finds Greenstreet as the leader, and Lamarr as another member.  Other members suspect that Henreid is a mole, but in private conversation between Greenstreet and Henreid, Greenstreet realizes from a cryptic statement that Henreid relates having been told, that Henreid is on the their side and that a mole is among those present.  A plan is hatched to ferret out the mole and to accomplish the original mission without jeopardizing its secrecy, but the details given are sketchy, relate to events not shown in the movie, and seem deliberately written to not communicate to the audience too much of what will subsequently occur in the movie.
• Henreid needs not only to accomplish his tasks, but to avoid notice of a police detective played by Joseph Calleia, who wants him in connection with a second murder.  Calleia does catch up with Henreid and place him under arrest, but respectfully allows him to continue his operations within the casino ballroom provided that Henreid remain where he cannot escape.(84m)
• Greenstreet has learned that the enemy’s newly-arrived master spy is in room 865, but that many of the other enemy spies don’t know this yet.  They know that the room number is to be communicated to the latter spies at 1am, but, not knowing how this information is to be conveyed, they carefully watch the gambling room and try to determine how the message will be delivered.  A sudden realization is that the roulette table can serve this purpose.  At 1am, one bettor at the table places chips on the numbers “8-6-5.”  (90m)  (This dependence upon the roulette table for a turn of luck recalls Rick’s prompt, “Have you tried 22?”)  The hands with the incriminating chips turns out to be Hugo’s, thereby conveniently freeing Lamarr so that she can love he for whom she has the most passion.
• Calleia finds that Henreid hadn’t killed the man in Henreid’s room and that he has captured the true culprit, so Calleia throws into the sea the gun that had been the evidence. (97m)  Likewise, Claude Rains had symbolically thrown away the Vichy Water after Rick had closed the case on the murders of Casablanca.

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The Conspirators occasionally presents philosophic approaches contrary to Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism.  These moments frequently have antithetical-to-life beliefs expressed by the protagonists, which would be against Ayn Rand’s nature in a work she herself developed.

• When Hedy Lamarr sits down at Paul Henreid’s table, her comment, “I suppose I owe you an explanation,” receives the response from him, “Some things are much better without explanation,” a line that undercuts reason itself. (11m)  Later in their conversation comes a worse manifestation of this absence reliance on the mind: “You’re a liar, a very poor liar.  That’s why I trust you.” (17m)
• Sydney Greenstreet’s character, in admitting that Paul Henreid has not been respectfully treated by he and his associates as Greenstreet had believed they should, remarks, “Gentlemen, we gather to praise a guest, and we wind up by praising ourselves.  A sad commentary on human nature.“  (31m)  Self-denigration is not appropriate in Objectivism.
• A note written by Lamarr and delivered to Henreid perpetuates the theme of an intentional ignorance each party instills in the other; she ends her note with “Don’t ask questions.” (34m)  (Here again, Casablanca is copied, in that in the earlier film Ilsa had conveyed to Rick that they will get along well with Rick if he doesn’t ask about her.)
• During a subsequent meeting between them, Lamarr remarks that the guitar-accompanied song they hear in the restaurant is about Fate.  Henreid seems to agree, and remarks, “I believe in Fate.” (41m)  She had already said she does.  And with these words to remind her, Lamarr occurs a tragic poem that she heard long ago, saying of it, “The words still haunt me: ‘For the love of you, I lost God.  For the love of you, I lost myself… .’” (42m)
• Henreid disagrees with her assessment of the specific meaning of the music, but doesn’t offer a more rational alternative to her interpretation when he tells her why he disagrees with her comparison of her poem to the song: “No, that’s what the words are about.  But the song if you listen to it with your heart means: ‘In the love of you, I lost myself.  And now I’m alone no more, but with God, with love, with you.’” (42m)

As commented upon in the story synopsis, Henreid’s character behaves irrationally by assuming that Lamarr turned him into the police, that she trapped him, so he sounds off against her. (55m)  Lamarr acts against her romantic happiness by her staying with Hugo for no reason other than that, as she expresses to Henreid, “Hugo is risking everything, and he has nothing left but me.”  She adds, “I just wanted you to know that’s all he means to me,” as if Henreid’s knowledge that he is not be dis-values for himself will compensate for the loss of her companionship. (79m)

Aspects of the film antithetical to Ayn Rand’s sense of life are not limited to the words spoken and actions taken by characters.  The grand ballroom has being performed within it not just a Strauss waltz, but the one Ayn Rand singled out as abhorrent to her: “The Blue Danube.”  About this piece she wrote, “I like operetta music of a certain kind, but I would take a funeral march in preference to ‘The Blue Danube Waltz’… .”  (“Art and Cognition,” in The Objectivist, April 1971 installment, reprinted The Romantic Manifesto, revised ed., pb. pg. 53.)  Is this a coincidence?  Was this scene the cause of her dislike of the tune?

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Some of Ayn Rand’s viewpoint does seem to have survived in the completed film.  Although this author does not have information as to which lines of dialogue were contributed by specific writers, the dialogue which is to be discussed in the remainder of this article does bear the stamp of Ayn Rand’s personality.  Thus, in the absence of knowledge of what Ayn Rand contributed, I submit the following descriptions of scenes and dialogue from the movie for your consideration as to whether Ayn Rand wrote the spoken words.

• When Calleia is putting Henreid through an immigration inquiry (4:44), he remarks, “This is not a Dutch Passport.”  “I was in France when…,” begins Henreid, on the defensive.  Calleia makes an exacting delineation: “I merely comment.  I ask for no explanation.”  Calleia will make another “I merely comment” remark later in the scene (at 5:19).
• A secret agent reports to his superior: “I tried to draw him out in conversation, but he refused.  He even insulted me.” (6m)  The agent’s boss responds: “Insulted you?  Well, Sergei, your face isn’t exactly soothing, nor your manner.” (6m)
• When the spies’ code phrase about the location of a pawnshop is passed from one agent to another, the response line is: “There are no good pawnshops, my friend.  Pawnshop is the graveyard of dead hopes.” (7m)  Doesn’t that sound like from “The Fountainhead,” when Gail Wynand realizes he has misspent his life?  The agent on the street waiting for this contact is a beggar displaying a “blind” placard, although he is not blind; the manner is which charity can be exploited by the unconscionable.
• Hedy Lamarr, after sitting down at Henreid’s table and telling him, “I suppose I owe you an explanation,” and receiving as Henreid response, “Some things are much better without explanation,” hears him tell her what she could have said on their first meeting, how he would have responded, etc. (12m)  This depicts how people can project alternate scenarios, and thus, in a minor way, free will.
• Henreid asks Lamarr what her motivation was in sitting down at his table.  She uses his premise to undercut his line of query: “Some things are better without explanation.” (13m)  One’s premises, if bad, lead to one’s undoing.
• Prior to entering the restaurant, Henreid had planned what would be his first good meal in three years.  However, once Lamarr leaves his table and the restaurant too (once the immediate threat to her espionage is no longer present), he cancels his order, and tells the maitre de that even with three years of anticipation, “I’ve changed my plans in the last three minutes” (15m)—the script in this way illustrates that the value of pursuing this woman is the higher value.
• Lamarr’s husband describes a man thusly: “Wise man.  He speaks little.  He sees much.  And he has already met Susan.” (20m)
• Henreid strongly indicates the nature of evil within the Nazis when he tells a group of citizens, “The Nazis have a way of taking everything.  That’s why we have learned to destroy all they can use and put their hands on—even things that are dearest to us.” (24m)  Henreid continues: “Germans have created a new profession in Europe: people who fight in every land—even with their bare hands.”  Vladimir Sokoloff agrees with the sentiment but not the exact meaning: “It’s not a new profession.  It’s as old as the world.”  This last line not only expresses that evil has been present through the millennia, but also comes across much like a statement in Love Letters expressed by caretaker Mac (the “gargoyle”)(played by Cecil Kellaway)(a character not in the novel by Chris Massie which Ayn Rand adapted) that war has been the product of “the peace-mongers.”
• Henreid, after delivering his plea to fight the Nazis, having described a 14-yr old student of his who had left an anti-Nazi message for the Nazis to see before this student disappeared, tells his audience: “Forgive me, I didn’t intend to make a speech.  I’ve been alone so long.”  The screenplay acknowledges that a speech is out of place in a fiction film but that this one is to be taken as having occurred as spontaneously as it would have in life.  You Came Along had fun with public speaking, as does Atlas Shrugged. (25m)
• Peter Lorre remarks at one point: “I have little to recommend me, but good manners.” (30m)
• When Lamarr and Henreid have their second meeting, she tells him that she had been in a concentration camp for four months, and that the man she went to the palace to meet, Hugo, had taken her out: “It was Hugo who got me out, it was Hugo who saved my life, I’ll do anything for him.”  Henreid’s response demonstrates a keen ability to discern a distinction unseen by others, one essential for making the right judgment: “That’s gratitude, devotion, but not love.” (44m)
• Eduardo Ciannelli, playing a police official, expresses the folly of trying to disprove a negative, stating, “If I tried to discover the motive of every foreigner in Lisbon…, I should be lost in a morass of intrigue and deception.” (53m)
• “Nothing you have told me changes the facts,” Ciannelli says to Lamarr when she argues with him for Henreid’s release from jail. (53m)  Told of Lamarr’s being with the suspect, however, Ciannelli calmly, rationally, respectfully responds, “If you wish to testify in court as a witness—.”
• Sydney Greenstreet is similarly fact-oriented in his capacity as head of the spy ring.  “Let him speak,” Greenstreet says when Henreid is suspected a traitor, preventing Lorre from stopping Henreid’s defense.  Greenstreet shares Lorre’s distrust of Henreid at this point, but he doesn’t let that overrule his reason. (72m)
• Greenstreet addresses Henreid respectfully on this subject: “I only want the truth.  I have great respect and admiration for you.  But if you’re guilty, well—”  Henreid concurs, “Of course, personally I’m not important.”  “But you are,” Greenstreet responds, continuing: “Every human being is important.  Nothing in this world is quite as important.”  Sadly, his thinking veers into a wrong course: “Every man has a right{!} to be heard.” (72m)
• Greenstreet is inclined to believe in Henreid when no one else in the group of spies but Henreid’s lady love is willing to look past the circumstantial evidence that Henreid has seriously breached their mission.  “It’s pleasant to believe that one has found a man of integrity in this age of depravity and ruin.  I am fascinated, but not deluded.” (73m)
• Greenstreet, upon deducing Henreid’s innocense, expresses the responsibility involved in judging innocense or guilt apart from personal affections: “I had no right to sacrifice the organization to my faith in you.  Thank you, Vincent,… for upholding my faith—and also for providing me with essential information.” Henreid hadn’t known he had, but he has relayed a statement that proves his innocense and discloses an information leak within the organization. (75m)
• Calleia’s arrest of Henreid, wherein the suspect is allowed to roam a limited area so that he can investigate a last lead, is much like Jalvert’s arrest of Jean Val Jean, from a novel by the favorite author of Ayn Rand.  The arrested man continues his heroic effort, the arrested man having pointed out that he cannot escape.  A civil manner exists between the two, a respect exhibited for the other’s good nature.

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Joseph Calleia, in his role of the police detective, not only fills some of the function that Claude Rains had in Casablanca, but also seems to be doing a dry-run for his role as the police detective in Gilda, which would be made two years after The Conspirators.  Gilda, starring Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford and George Macready, would again recycle the love-triangle of Casablanca, repeat many of the plot elements, and would have Joseph Calleia repeat many of the actions performed by Claude Rains’s in Casablanca… but that story requires an analysis as detailed as this one. I’ve written such an analysis, available at a click.

The film’s director, Jean Negulesco, believed the completed film the mess that Ayn Rand suspected it would be.  Negulesco stated years later:

Hal Wallis, one of Hollywood’s better producers, chose me to direct The Conspirators, a story in the vein of Casablanca.

He was then replaced by a minor producer.  The script was changed.  The film that had already been shot under the supervision of Wallis was discarded.  Location and the pace of the story were changed.  The stars took advantage of the situation, especially Hedy Lamarr.  Their demands were granted.  My job as a young director became a nightmare.  Secretly the film became known as The Constipators, with “Headache Lamarr” and “Paul Hemorroid” [Henreid].

The just valuation of the film was given by Max Steiner, called in to do the musical score.  We saw the finished produce together.  Hopefully I waited for his comment: just one word, “Ouch!”  The critics murdered the film—and me.  It seemed a good time to decide to withdraw from cinema and return to painting

This page © 1998, 2001 David P. Hayes

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