BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

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

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Maddyclassicfilms Directed by Ralph Thomas,Conspiracy Of Hearts focuses on the rescue of several Jewish children from a concentration camp in Italy 1943.You may think this sort of story has been done so many times before.Well yes it has,however the heroes here are different,they are nuns who hide the children in their convent until arrangements can be made to get them to safety.A couple of scenes showing the sisters courage against Nazi soldiers is enough to bring you to tears,as their courage is the only weapon they have and they use it to full effect.Rev Mother Katherine(Lilli Palmer)arranges for a group of small Jewish children to be rescued from a nearby camp and sent to safety.She knows they are doing right but is deeply conflicted about if she should continue the rescue,as it is putting her sisters lives at risk.The horrors these children have seen soon become all to apparent to the sisters.Young Novice Sister Mitya(Sylvia Syms)takes shy young Anna(Rebecca Dignam)under her wing and tries to help her overcome her grief and fear.Things become dangerous when friendly Italian camp commander Major Vittorio Spoletti(Ronald Lewis)is replaced by Nazi Colonel,Erich Horsten(Albert Lieven).He cracks down on the number of escapes happening in the camp and closes in on the sisters desperate to learn the names of the resistance men arranging the escapes.Lilli and Sylvia give deeply moving performances and are ably assisted by Michael Goodliffe as Father Desmaines who is involved in the escape plans.A tale of good versus evil where the two sides could not be more clear to us.Moving and inspirational this is worth a look.

Oct Ralph Thomas and Betty Box belong so firmly to the tale of the British cinema's protracted postwar decline, and their output runs so much to cheerful mediocrity and worse, that it would be churlish not to salute this exception.A film about a mixed European bag of nuns in sunny Italy, sheltering Jewish children from nasty German occupiers, could have easily wound up as sticky or preachy as a Hollywood movie of the week or after-school special "endorsed by the National Education Association". This production does quite a bit better.To begin with, the couple took the commercially bold decision to shoot in dramatically suitable monochrome (Rank was very into Technicolor) despite the temptation of those gorgeous locations near Florence. Next, Rank's addiction to polyglot casts proves acceptable, since the nunnery and the Cahtholic church are multinational, as is the war situation: the convention of Colonel Albert Lieven talking in Teutonically accented English and others in Italianate English does not distract.Thirdly, the cast is well chosen. Sylvia Syms, a rising English rose, was the novice. Michael Goodliffe was a familiar officer/vicar type, decent and tense as the nuns' protective priest. Lilli Palmer, that quintessentially cosmopolitan star, is apt (if a little too soigne) as Mother Superior. Ronald Lewis as the Italian major torn between allegiance to the Axis and revulsion at its persecutions, patronised by Lieven and a worm about to turn, is his customary sombre self. (Both Lewis and Goodliffe were suicides).Fourthly, the mise-en-scene is ideal for moral conflicts: sunny exteriors and open hillsides against the shadowy cloister and catacombs where the hunt for hidden escapees from a concentration camp culminates. Thomas is no Bresson or da Sica, but he makes good use of his lighting cameraman, and in his workmanlike way keeps the tension boiling. The religious angle (with its dilemmas of obedience, confession and incompatible loyalties) is deftly threaded through the chase to raise the tone.For a 'U'-certificated production there is an unholy amount of screen time leading up to, and about, killings and executions: it's about younger children but not for them.As always, Box and Thomas are craftsmanlike, most to be praised for the mistakes and ineptitudes they avoid.This is not "The Sound of Music" sans music. The storyline is not muffled by subplots, the enemy are not caricatured (Lieven convincingly depicts a non-Nazi career officer, forced into exemplary cruelty by his force's isolation amid partisans) and the slither into sentimentality is avoided nearly all the time. This is the price the script willingly pays for not characterising the children much; on the other hand, the issue of whether nuns gladly harboured Jews and made concessions to Judaism under a Christian roof is not shirked.Adrian Scott, a member of the Hollywood Ten, outlined a plot based on real incidents which was worked up by Marsha Hunt's longtime husband, Robert Presnell Jr. It was unusual for the Pinewood team to work with Americans, who may have helped keep the film's political aspects uppermost-- and, as it were, salted it with some asperity, so that it plays pretty smartly and kitsch-free today.Barney Balaban of Paramount saw its premiere while in London and paid Rank handsomely for the rights on impulse. The film fared well in an America not yet used to stories of Nazi anti-Jewish actions: the Auschwitz trial and Eichmann's capture would soon make them too familiar. In Britain, "Conspiracy of Hearts" was one of 1960's top grossers alongside Ralph's and Betty's latest "Doctor" film. Sadly, the latter would be much more typical of them thereafter.

bob the moo A local chapter of nuns in Italy do their bit for good by giving refuge to Jewish children who they smuggle out of an Italian internment camp. Their actions are noted by the camp commander but he and his men turn a blind eye to it. However when Mussolini is disposed the Germans take over the area and the camp. When one of the nuns is shot dead outside the camp, it is evident that the stakes have been raised but yet Mother Katherine is determined to preserve.(Edit: another user correctly spotted that I had mistaken the work of this Thomas with that of his brother Gerald, but since it was a mistake I made, I have left it in all its glory). With "Carry On" and "Doctor" series director Ralph Thomas at the helm I wasn't exactly hoping for much from a film that otherwise looked like it could be an engaging drama about the fate of children during the war. As it is though the film is played very straight and has nothing in common with the type of films that Thomas is more famous for. Of course this is not to say that it is brilliant because, in being so straight, it is surprisingly bland. Everything is painted in black and white (no nun pun intended) and the emotions are very basic and broad. The situation itself may make it interesting for some but to me I got tired of the very obvious struggles and relationships within the story and must admit that none of it really captured my imagination or my heart.Thomas delivers it with a constant air of sincere seriousness throughout but yet this is part of the problem as he seems afraid to do anything too complex or interesting with it. The script doesn't help him as it is full of flat lines and cloying sentiment. Maybe I'm being unfair to expect more but these two things prevent it from being anything better than a basic family drama. The cast generally aren't able to step up beyond this. The officers are generally quite colourful characters but the nuns are mostly dull and lacking character. Palmer is the stern one and there are pretty ones, older ones, disapproving ones c; none of them have much to work with and the performances match the basic level of the performance. The children are the poshest and most English "Italian Jews" that I have ever seen and they simply don't convince and show a real laziness in the casting side of things.Overall then a sincere and serious drama that plays it all very straight and offers nothing complex, challenging or interesting to work with. The cast plod along with this approach and aren't able to do much to counter the safe material served up. Undemanding families will maybe enjoy it as a matinée.

bobmorgslu I first saw this movie in 1960 when I was 10 and was taken to see it with my mother on our weekly Monday night visit to the Cinema. I didn't go out of choice, It was just for me and my mother to get out of my Fathers way so he could get on with jobs about the house. I can't remember many films that I saw at that time but this was one of the few that stuck in my mind. I suppose it was that I could identify with the Children as they were about my age and that it was about the war. Those of us born in the 40's and 50's grew up with stories about the war. It was certainly a topic for discussion I'm our household as my Father had been a radio operator in the RAF from 1939 onwards.I can remember being deeply moved and disturbed by it even at that young age especially at the climatic ending. Since then I have seen it on TV as it occasionally pops up on UK TV often in the afternoons. The last time it appeared about 18 months ago I took the opportunity to record it on Video. I watch it when I need to renew my faith in mankind as it proves that even in the darkest times, there are people who will risk all for others and their beliefs and that goodness eventually triumphs over evil.