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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.

I worry that at some time in the not too distant future the extent of the evil perpetrated during the 1930s and 40s will be forgotten. Watch this film and remind yourself that unless all good people stand strong, every day and every hour, these sort of events will keep happening, over and over again.

In this shocking (certainly for 1960), depressing, heart-breaking, uplifting and surprisingly honest movie, we see that it is only through individuals taking personal responsibility for their actions that we can have any hope of building a world fit for our children.

When I see films like this, and read the positive response from reviewers on IMDb, I still have some hope for the future.

I saw it when I was 8 years old, I'm almost 40 now and I always remember this movie. Catholic nuns in France, hiding Jewish children in their convent during the occupation. Lilli Palmer, I remember her face vividly. There must be a reason, but I can't find a copy of that film, not even on video. Maybe, I should keep the memory as it is, rather than jeopardizing it by seeing again, today. I couldn't sleep after I saw it. I think I lived that film. It happened to me another time, when I was around the same age. A Spanish movie, MARCELINO PAN Y VINO. Strangely enough, both films have religious roots and take place within the walls of convents and monasteries. I wonder what that means.

My Mother took me to see this film at the Lowestoft Odeon around 1960 (I was 8) . Why I remember it is that the Cinema Manager told my Mother that the film was on its first screening in the UK even before London (dunno why) and there would be a surprise after the film. The surprise was the Actor Ronald Lewis who came on stage . Unfortunately some of the audience hissed him which put him off a little-he said 'Im one of the Good Guys' or words to that effect but then gave us an interesting talk about making the film. I didn't understand the movie at the time really but seeing it this afternoon was the first time since then. The film showed the Italian troops in a good, professional light when our Dads at the time told us that they had 'chased them all over North Africa'

Towards the end of the second world war, an order of Italian nuns makes all attempts to secure the freedom of Jewish children held captive in a local concentration camp. However when the camp comes under the direct control of German troops, the Sisters' task becomes increasingly dangerous.

Combing elements of The Von Trapp Story and Black Narcissus, Conspiracy of Hearts is a surprisingly powerful depiction of the clash between faith and might, as Palmer's Mother Superior stands firm against Lieven's uncompromising Nazi Colonel. The question of conscience and commitment to duty is repeatedly explored, from the perspective of both nun and soldier - Mitchell's Sister Gerta fears and doubts the Holy Order's actions, Sims' novitiate Sister Mitya is forced to confront her feelings towards Lewis's Major Spoletti, who in turn must choose between military duty and moral salvation. The juxtaposition between Catholicism and Judaism is also fascinatingly explored as the Sisters struggle to comprehend the facets of a different faith.

Universally well-performed by the ensemble, as usual its the supporting performances that stand out - Yvonne Mitchell was a power-house actress and at the peak of her film career (shockingly she is all but forgotten now), and her transformation from angry doubter to selfless devotee is totally believable. In addition, Ralph Thomas coaxes extraordinary performances from his juvenile cast - Rebecca Dignam and Joseph Cuby are beautifully moving without being cutesy or maudlin (Hollywood child actors take note!). At the heart, Palmer creates a depiction of quiet strength, dignity and humour even if we could have coped with a little less lipstick and mascara!

Visually, Conspiracy of Hearts adheres to the aesthetic conventions of mid-century British cinema, employing a restrained yet effective use of monochrome cinematography. The decision to forego Technicolor in favor of a more muted palette is commendable, reinforcing the film's somber tone. Director Ralph Thomas, better known for his more commercial ventures, demonstrates an ability to frame tension through tight compositions and chiaroscuro lighting, particularly in the film's more suspenseful sequences. However, the cinematography-while serviceable-lacks the striking innovation that might have elevated it beyond its time.

From a technical standpoint, the film's production design is meticulous, ensuring period authenticity without overindulgence. The convent setting, with its blend of warm interior spaces and stark exteriors, contrasts effectively with the oppressive presence of Nazi authority. The film's pacing, though consistent, occasionally dips into moments of excessive sentimentality, a common pitfall in mid-century war dramas that aim to balance realism with an overtly didactic moral message.

Performance-wise, Lilli Palmer anchors the film with a poised and dignified presence, embodying the strength and conviction necessary for the role of Mother Katherine. Albert Lieven, as the antagonist, offers a restrained yet menacing turn, avoiding the caricatured villainy that many war films of the era often succumbed to. The supporting cast, particularly Sylvia Syms and Yvonne Mitchell, provide competent, if somewhat predictable, performances. The child actors, a crucial element of the film's emotional weight, manage to avoid excessive melodrama, delivering naturalistic portrayals that contribute to the story's impact.

While the film's narrative structure is solid, its thematic execution feels somewhat antiquated by modern standards. What may have once been a poignant and gripping story now reads as somewhat simplistic, particularly in its depiction of moral binaries. The script lacks the nuanced exploration of war's ethical complexities seen in more sophisticated contemporary works. The dialogue, while functional, often leans into exposition-heavy exchanges that leave little room for subtext.

In its time, Conspiracy of Hearts likely carried a more profound resonance, especially for audiences who had lived through the war. Today, however, it feels decidedly like a product of its era-earnest, well-meaning, but ultimately simplistic in its approach. While it remains a competently crafted film with strong performances and solid direction, it does not transcend its historical context to achieve true timelessness.

I saw this movie as a little girl with my mom. I was too young to understand or appreciate it. I got the opportunity to see it in my twenties and never forgot it. The last time it was shown, I taped it and have never seen it on T. V. again.

The courtyard scene at the end is what I remember most. Other memorable scenes are: the nuns hiding the children at the bottom of the farmer's wheelbarrel while a Nazi officer stabs a pitchfork into it to make sure it is really garbage underneath, the German nun who was angry at hiding the children at the beginning, later winds up saving one of them by hiding her under her habit and the beginning of the film when the nuns asked a little girl her name, and she replies "Jew Dog". She said she had been called that so many times by the Germans that she forgot her real name, and at Yom Kippur when the children read the names of their families who are all dead. This is a wonderful movie. It is a shame it is not available on video or shown on cable.

Lily Palmer as the Mother Superior is outstanding especially noting her beauty.

With Mussolini gone and the Allies pressing northwards into Italy, the Nazis are becoming more desperate to cling onto the territory that was once that of their now largely capitulated allies. It's still a dangerous place for the Jewish people, though, and it falls to "Mother Katherine" (Lilli Palmer) and her courageous sisterhood of nuns to try and use their convent to smuggle out some youngsters from the nearby internment camp to the safety of nearby Palestine. The local military under the command of "Maj. Spoletti" (Ronald Lewis) isn't exactly on the ball when it comes to policing these repatriations, so in comes "Col. Horsten" (Albert Lieven) and his ghastly henchman "Schmidt" (Peter Arne) to restore order. After the death of one of their number, the nuns become a target of the suspicions of their new overloads and things become even more precarious for the sisters. Can they keep the escape route functioning in the face of greater and more brutal scrutiny? This doesn't follow the rose-tinted road that you might expect, and both Palmer and the Lieven delver strongly as this story of inhumanity shows us that their robes offer scant protection from men in uniform who care nothing for anything but obeying their orders. The question is, might the Italian soldiers - a much more God-fearing troop - be prepared to intervene before there is bloodshed? There is one line in this film where a fleeing and terrified young girl is asked her name. She replies "Jew Dog" and that rather sums up the atrocity of their scenario and of the sensitivity of both the writing and the gently effective performances from a supporting cast that includes Sylvia Syms, Yvonne Mitchell and Megs Jenkins as characters who saw no alternative than the path they embarked upon. It's partly a story of faith, yes, but it's also a story of decency and humanity in the face of heinousness and it is certainly one of the better films about WWII.

I first saw this film at the Mile End Odeon in East London when I was a kid. I was with a couple of friends and we thought that this film would be just another British war film. However, Mile End in those days still had a reasonably large Jewish population and older people all around us kids were openly weeping throughout the showing of the film. Later, in the foyer a woman told us that her family had been killed during the Hollocaust. A saw this film again quite recently on television and it really is quite a remarkable film. The characters have real depth and the the story about nuns sheltering Jewish children from the Nazis in Italy during World War II is not sentimentalised. The sub-plot concerning an unrequited love story between an Italian officer and a novice nun is is really well presented and does not intrude on the main story concerning Nazi ruthlessness and brutality towards the Jewish children and the nuns.

Please can this beautiful film regarding Christian suffering and the understanding of standing for principles of truth be re-released on DVD. Even though I am not a Catholic Christian, but of another part of the family of Christ, I attended a Catholic school and I just feel this a really beautiful film.May God Bless all those Christians that risked their lives to save Jews and the weak in Nazi Occupied Europe. I feel these kind of films must be shown to an ignorant generation of people that have forgotten the horrors of World War 2. The wish of those that gave their lives in World War 2 for freedom and peace is that "We don't forget".Even if we look at the World now there is still genocide still taking place against vulnerable people just because they are different or speak different.

I saw this movie when it first came out..as a ten year old it grabbed me because of my deep abiding respect for the Nuns . I went to a Catholic school in 1961 with a much better view of what the Sisters stood for...this is a great movie and yes it is too bad it's not on VHS or DVD ..and I don't know why no-one in the movie business is not pushing the issue to put this movie on tape for public distribution...the same goes with "Something is Out There" another great made for TV movie..and a few other made for TV movies...come on Movie industry wake up and fly right the "BUYING" public is out here waiting!!! Can ya hear the Thunder??

Vastly under-rated and unknown film but definitely worth watching even if, like me, you have a tendency towards the cynical. Italian nuns smuggle Jewish children out out of German run concentration camps from Italy in World War II. The nuns' work causes conflict within their local church and their community and at first not even all of their own agree that what they are doing is for the best. I saw this film as a child myself and was struck and moved by it but wasn't sure why, only as an adult did I realise that it represented all that was best (and worst) in human nature. Channel Four In the UK shows it regularly so if you can can catch it please do. Otherwise rent or buy!

An appropriately solemn and always very compelling Holocaust era film, it is quite competently acted, especially by the child actors and actresses, who give off realistic and believable performances. In particular, Rebecca Dignam stands out as a child who the nuns take a special liking to. The plot line sounds rather ordinary but it works well, providing a fine and interesting tale. The film is, however, a bit too melodramatic, and on top of that it ends unrealistically. But for what it is, it is very good. Based on a story by Adrian Scott, it went credited to Dale Pitt due to blacklisting, but either way Robert Presnell Jr.'s screenplay is generally fine.

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.

This is a very moving film about the war and the life of nuns during the period. The story line is completely believable and real. Lilli Palmer always gives an excellent performance and Yvonne Mitchell is very interesting to watch, as she learns to appreciate the value of saving the children. The climax at the end of the movie with the anticipated shooting is very moving to witness. This movie was a rare one for me to become teary!! That is a sign to me that it is very good.

This is one of those films that are impossible to overrate. Everything is overwhelmingly good about it - the story, the acting, the music, the photography, the direction, the suspense and the universal message - it's simply 100% all the way and heart-rending at that - it almost becomes unbearable at certain moments when the children have their say.

It's interesting to observe, that Lilli Palmer and Albert Lieven met once before in leading roles in the screening of Stefan Zweig's "Beware of Pity" 13 years earlier. In that film Albert Lieven was an Austrian officer at the mercy of Lilli Palmer as an invalid terrorizing her environment, and somehow Lilli Palmerr repeats her feat of getting the upper hand of the officer also here but in a very different manner - here she is the survivor.

This is also one of those films that always should be reminded of, as its message couldn't be more sincerely and timelessly vital, how human concerns always must be the main priority in life however hard and pressing the circumstances, and that it's only the heart that can lead you right.

What a great underrated movie. The climatic ending will send shivers down your spine. Excellent British actors. If you have never seen this before catch it on you tube before it disappears.

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.