Cloak Without Dagger

In places this resembles a sixties rather than a fifties spy movie, with it's sinister Chinese femme fatale and plot involving nuclear weapons, and boasts the promotion of the rather stern-looking Mary Mackenzie (who usually played unglamorous character parts and actually declares at one point that "I could never be described as lush!") to the sharp-witted, sharp-featured and sharp-suited heroine who does most of the sleuthing.

A fairly run of the mill early fifties British spy thriller with some familiar faces along the way. Leslie Dwyer does his usual good job as a private investigator but the film is really enlivened by Mary Mackenzie as the female lead. She isn't an actress I'm familiar with and it seems hers was a career confined to small parts before she died in a car crash aged only 44. She's not obvious leading lady material but she's very good in this and comes over well. The best description I can come up with to describe her is that she has a passing resemblance to Flora Robson but with sex appeal. Nothing groundbreaking about the film itself but I enjoyed it nevertheless.

Mary Mackenzie is a fashion reporter who stumbles across a murder. This makes her think abut her old boyfriend, Phillip Friend, who was in British intelligence, and his work dealing with professional spies -- the ones who are in it purely for the money. as she searches for answers, she enlists the help of detective Leslie Dwyer.

What do you have when you have skilled, even excellent actors, and the people behind the screen -- the writers, the directors, he cinematographers -- do their bits in the cheapest, laziest way? Director Joseph Sterling doesn't even bother with decent editing; conversation is carried on in pretty much medium long take to avoid the time and expense of new set-ups. The performers offer some life, but the movie, as a whole, is dull and lifeless. Too many plot points are talked out instead of being shown.

"Operation Conspiracy" is a clumsily written spy story. It begins in London during a fashion show. A runway model faints and soon after dies. A reporter who used to be a military spy during WWII catches the girl as she falls and she's the main character in this film.

Later, the reporter lady meets one of the staff at the hotel and he happens to be a long lost love. However, now he's a waiter and says he has no interest in this old past life.

What follows is a clumsy flashback sequence where she spots a wanted man without much information about him and only seconds after she hears about him. She just KNOWS it's him. In other words, she had knowledge NO ONE could have had unless they were reading a script.

After the flashback, the woman finds a dead man in the hotel. When she tells her old friend, he minimizes it...like she's some hysterical woman even though he knows she used to be a military police operative. It's obvious that either this is really badly written, he's working under cover OR he's a part of whatever nonsense is happening. She doesn't seem to think much of this and just goes to bed instead of to the police.

What follows is a spy yarn which OFTEN has plot holes and is very poorly written in places...such as when she passes out for no apparent reason. People do NOT do this...it only happens in films. She also hires a guy to work as a private detective for her even though she has no proof of who he is! And, by this point I was bored because of the indifferent writing...and I assume you'll likely feel the same.

Feisty female reporter meets an old flame, but is he mixed up in the riddle of the body in the bathroom? And what is the hotel detective doing at the weapons testing facility? Rest assured, these and other intriguing questions are eventually answered.

The absence of hi-tech spy gizmos of the James Bond variety is made up for by plenty of opportunities for sofa-based detectives to test their skill in unraveling a good mystery.