John Wayne as Genghis Khan? Forget it. The Duke comes out more like a gunslinger than the Mongolian firebrand.An absolutely awful production and it's just too bad that so many in the cast succumbed to the effects of radiation testing nearby where the film was shot.After the best ever performance as Lillian Roth in "I'll Cry Tomorrow," Susan Hayward comes off here as totally ridiculous. Agnes Moorehead, as Wayne's mother, is not good. Her same dress throughout the film reminded me of Edith Head's design for Judith Anderson, as Memnit, in "The Ten Commandments."Treachery and more treachery abounds here and one actually could use a score card in listing those betraying others.At least, Ted De Corsia comes across fairly well as the Tartar leader, father of Hayward, who had killed Wayne's father years before.

In this infamously bad film, Hollywood took on Genghis Khan and won, the dream of many of his enemies during his lifetime. The film was effortlessly funny but, sadly, it wasn't meant to be. The title role was originally intended for Marlon Brando but he was unavailable due to contractual reasons. He had a lucky escape. Considering that it is or at least tries to be a Western set in 12th Century Mongolia, John Wayne was cast as Temujin, the future Genghis Khan. This has rightfully gone down as one of the worst casting choices in film history.Had the film been made in the year of its release rather than 1954, the obvious choice for Temujin would have been the always wonderful Yul Brynner. In what would have been an added bonus, he actually looked the part. However, he was a Broadway actor who had only made one film by 1954. While Brynner was the actor most suited to the role, almost any other A-list actor of the time such as Brando, Charlton Heston, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, etc. would have been better than Wayne. Like Marilyn Monroe, he was a great film star as opposed to a great actor. A few weeks ago, I watched "The Boys from Brazil" in which Gregory "Integrity" Peck plays Josef Mengele. He was likewise miscast but he tries his best in the role and is actually rather effective. The difference between Peck and Wayne was that only one of them was an excellent actor.The very white, red-haired Susan Hayward is every bit Wayne's equal in the acting stakes as the Tartar woman Bortai, whom Temujin kidnaps as he wants to marry her. However, she eventually falls madly in love with him. I would call it Stockholm Syndrome but she does not fall for him until after their roles are reversed. It's rather bizarre. I can't think of any reason for it other than "it says so in the script," frankly. Except for Richard Loo, none of the other credited actors look even remotely the part of Mongols, Tartars or Merkits either but most of them are at least better at acting. These include Pedro Armendáriz as Jamuga, Agnes Moorehead as Temujin's mother and Thomas Gomez as Wang Khan. However, the usually excellent John Hoyt plays the role of the Shaman as a stereotypical film Asian of the time as if this were a "Charlie Chan" film. At least none of the other actors did that! Dick Powell's direction is pedestrian but fairly competent. However, the screenplay is rather dreadful. It is full of laughable dialogue such as "I feel this Tartar woman is for me. My blood says take her," "I greet you, my mother!", "The man lies, my father!", "She is a woman, much woman. Should her perfidy be less than that of other women?" and "My hatred for him could not withstand my love!" Most of the worst dialogue is delivered in Wayne's unmistakable drawl, which makes it even funnier! Now, I don't mind it when characters in historical or biblical films speak in a more grandiose fashion than people in reality. In fact, that was part of the reason that I loved "The Ten Commandments" as much as I did just last Monday. However, that film's dialogue was marvellous. This film's dialogue, not so much.One thing about the film that is in no way funny, however, is the suggestion that it caused many of its cast and crew to suffer from cancer. It was filmed in Utah, downwind of the site of numerous nuclear tests in Nevada. By 1980, 91 of the film's 220 person cast and crew had contracted some form of cancer and many of them - including Wayne, Hayward, Moorehead, Armendáriz and Powell - had died because of it, Armendáriz having committed suicide after he learned that his diagnosis was terminal. It is far from conclusive but the University of Utah professor of biology Dr. Robert Pendleton had this to say on the matter: "With 91 cancer cases, I think the tie-in to their exposure on the set of 'The Conqueror' would hold up in a court of law."Overall, this film is a great laugh. I had seen it years ago, before I became a connoisseur of bad films, and I enjoyed it much more this time! Incidentally, given that she played Mary Kane in "Citizen Kane", Agnes Moorehead has the distinction of playing the mother of the title character in one RKO film which is considered among the best of all time and another which is considered among the worst of all time. That's worth something...isn't it?

Media Mongol, Howard Hughes meet his match. It wasn't the Great Wall of China that stop him, but this movie! Indeed, Howard Hughes felt guilty about his decisions regarding the film's production, and how the movie bomb at the box office, that he stop making movies, sold his production company RKO to General Tire and conquer all, by buying every print of the film for $12 million and kept it out of circulation for many years until Universal Pictures purchased the film from his estate in 1979. It was indeed that bad! The Conqueror got the better of the cast & crew that made the film, due to the fact, that most of the film was filmed near a nuclear test site. It's not like they didn't know that. They opening joke about it, and choice to ignore the warnings because they thought they were in a safe area from the nuclear test site. Since, the set was contaminated by nuclear fallout, most of the crew and cast end up dying from later stages of cancer. Some people believe that nuclear fallout was the leading cause of John Wayne's death. Indeed the movie was curse. Many had died to terminal cancer, including John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Pedro Armendáriz (who shot himself soon after learning he had terminal cancer), Agnes Moorehead, John Hoyt and director Dick Powell. What a shame. I really don't think this was a movie, 1950's America was going to watch, anyways. The film deals with Mongols, Merkits, and Tartars struggling for survival in a harsh and arid land that most Americans have no clue nor care about. Most Americans at the time, were into European Medieval Epics, Sci-Fiction or Westerns. Honestly, in a deep conservative time in America, a movie about rape and plunder wouldn't get to pack the movie houses. The movie is about Mongol chief Temujin AKA Genghis Khan (John Wayne) who kidnapped, start war and 'rapes' Bortai (Susan Hayward) of the Tartar clan. Yes, that's the hero, everybody. Enjoy that. I hate the tagline for this movie: 'They conquered each other and then the world'. Yeah, that sounds like an epic romantic love story with Bortai trying to decapitate him behind Temujin's back! That's what 1959's Ben Hur was missing. Rape love subplot! Yeah, that would bring people into seeing your film. Forced romance. While the romantic music by Victor Young is beautiful, it seem to not match what is happening on screen with the Stockholm syndrome love affair. The music also repeated way too much. The dialogue is so awful pseudo-Old English wordy and dodgy. Some sentences don't even make any sense. Everybody sounds stiff. Honestly, I give some credit to John Wayne. He took his role very seriously, and even diet to get fit, but gees. He's so miscast. Seriously, Hollywood, if you going to make a movie about an Asian person. You might as well, cast an Asian actor or at less support your character with some oriental actors as supporting characters. There were no notable oriental actor in this film, at all. John Wayne looks and sounds the same as if he was delivery a Western. Instead of a Western movie set, he went to Chinatown, trade in his cowboy hat and gun, for a Fu Manchu moustache and sword. Then he walk into this film. He looks plain silly. At less, the movie wasn't too offended with the Asian stereotypes. John Wayne sounds like he's reading off cue cards at a high school play with a Western twang. I don't think the movie, original choice, Marlon Brando could do this movie any better. Susan Hayward was indeed sexy, but she's clearly not Asian enough. I don't think, I know a lot of ancient Orientals having red hair during that time. Her acting was just as bad as John Wayne. Why the hell is she always looking off-screen with a blank stare? Is she reading cue cards? Is she bored? Is that all she can do to keep herself from laughing at Wayne's horrible acting? I don't know. The supporting cast was such a bored as well. Look for a Lee Van Cleef in a cameo in this film. While the movie is indeed fiction, it did had some historical inaccuracies regarding the people, places, and tribes involved. I don't think the movie needed to have opening text, mentioning it fiction. It kinda ruin the whole epic history feel. The costuming, direction, cinematography and choreography are all quite well done. I do like the battle scenes. I do hate the day for night, editing. The audio track sounds a little bit off, as if some of the actors were speaking on a loud speaker. This indeed is a real Manchurian Candidate for one of the worst movies ever made. Legend has it that in Howard Hughes's last days, he watched this film over and over, when his Obsessive–compulsive disorder was at its worst. Overall: In my opinion, it's not the worst movie. I watch this movie just because of my interest of Genghis Khan and how much I love the Duke's movies. Still, I find it, watchable, but pretty bad. Genghis Khan (2004 TV series) is far greater a film. I think I'll eat Mongolian BBQ now, just to fill my upset stomach after watching this film.

It's a Howard Hughes production, which in itself makes this worth watching. Of even more interest, this stars John Wayne as Temudjin - Genghis Khan - as it shows that title character rising to power as Khan of the Mongols and ultimately a good part of the world. Wayne is a curious choice for the role. I've never found him to be the most versatile of actors. He plays cowboys extremely well and he plays soldiers reasonably well. As Khan, he gets to spend a lot of time on a horse and he leads a lot of Mongols into battle. Combining the two types of characters he plays so well, you'd think this movie was tailor made for him. The problem is that he neither looks nor sounds like a typical Mongol! Frankly, Wayne's presence here is unfortunately somewhat distracting. The story here isn't all that bad, and for the type of historic epic that was often made in this era, it's fairly close to the historical facts in many ways, but there's also a lot that distracts from the history. The romance, for example, between Temudjin and Bortai (Susan Hayward.) The romance was too forced and simply seemed unnatural for the context. There's also an extended scene in a rival Khan's court which features a series of dancing girls who seem to have come out of a Las Vegas show. That also took away from the credibility of the movie. The sets were all right but unspectacular and the dialogue came across at times as somewhat stilted (I'm not even really sure that that means but the word seems to fit!)Let's be honest. This is not by any definition a great movie - or even a particularly good one. It is, however, definitely a curiosity worth watching if you're a movie buff, primarily for the combination of Wayne and Hughes.