The Conqueror (1956, John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Pedro Armendáriz, Agnes Moorehead, Thomas Gomez) – Classic Movie Review 11,604

John Wayne stars as the Mongolian chieftain Genghis Khan in The Conqueror (1956), fondly regarded as one of the worst movies of all time.

Director Dick Powell’s hysterically awful 1956 historical adventure epic film The Conqueror stars John Wayne as the moustached Mongolian chieftain Genghis Khan. Khan he do it? No! He just can’t!

Wayne at the height of his career bizarrely lobbied for the role after reading the script and is of course grossly miscast. He was posthumously named a Golden Turkey Award winner for his performance.

The Conqueror is usually regarded as one of the worst films of the 1950s and also even as one of the worst movies of all time, and is listed in Michael Medved’s 1978 book The Fifty Worst Films of All Time.

However, Pedro Armendáriz’s portrayal of Genghis Khan’s blood brother Jamuga and Victor Young’s stirring score are the main assets of a pretty terrible movie. And Susan Hayward keeps her dignity as Bortai, a Tartar royal princess whom Genghis abducts while battling the Tartar forces. But The Conqueror is a misbegotten, bad film, with a terrible, trashy script (by Oscar Millard) and good talent way off their rightful turf.

Now for the really bad bit. The movie was filmed near St George, Utah, downwind from a nuclear testing range in Nevada, and is often blamed for the cancer deaths of many of the cast and crew, including Wayne, Hayward, Agnes Moorehead, Pedro Armendáriz, and Dick Powell. Truckloads of the suspect red sands were transported back to the studio to film the interiors. Of the 220 crew, 91 developed cancer while 46 died from it. Michael Wayne developed skin cancer and his brother Patrick had a benign tumor removed from his chest.

The script was written for Marlon Brando, who escaped, having wisely backed out from the role, leaving Wayne stranded as one of the all-time worst pieces of casting as Khan.

The CinemaScope epic biopic is produced by aviator, entrepreneur and RKO studio boss Howard Hughes, who bought all prints of the film for $12 million and kept it out of circulation until Universal Pictures bought it from his estate in 1979. Hughes is said to watched The Conqueror and Ice Station Zebra endlessly during his last years.

The film is kind of Wayne’s world: John, Michael and Patrick appear.

Astonishingly it performed respectably at the box office, taking $9 million on a budget of $6 million. Production company and distributors RKO Radio Pictures must have breathed a sigh of relief.

The cast are John Wayne as Temujin, later Genghis Khan, Susan Hayward as Bortai, Agnes Moorehead as Hunlun, Pedro Armendáriz as Jamuga, Thomas Gomez as Wang Khan, John Hoyt as Shaman, William Conrad as Kasar, Ted de Corsia as Kumlek, Leslie Bradley as Targutai, Lee Van Cleef as Chepei, Peter Mamakos as Bogurchi, Leo Gordon as Tartar Captain, Richard Loo as Captain of Wang’s guard, Ray Spiker, Torben Meyer, Pat Lawler, Michael Wayne (uncredited) as Mongol guard, and Patrick Wayne (uncredited).

Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,604

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