HotToastyRag Susan Hayward is my favorite classic actress. I've seen every movie of hers I could get my hands on, and no matter how terrible it was or how small her part was, I've watched every film through to its entirety. The Conqueror is the exception. It's the only Susan Hayward movie I've ever turned off.John Wayne plays Genghis Khan. Take a minute to wrap your head around that ludicrous casting decision. He kidnaps Susan Hayward because he thinks she's beautiful, and because he's The Conqueror so he thinks he can conquer her, too. She hates him at first, but after she realizes she's no match for his macho strength and prowess, she falls in love with him. Not only is this movie so horrifically cheesy, cheap, badly acted, poorly written, and absurd, but there's a very sad backstory attached to this film. It was shot on location in Utah, near where nuclear weapons were tested three years prior. The government assured everyone there was no danger of nuclear fallout, but the director, many of the leads, and about half the crew got cancer in the ensuing decades. Director Dick Powell died of cancer after seven years, Pedro Armendariz got cancer in four years, John Wayne and Agnes Moorehead died of cancer in the 1970s, and Susan Hayward died of a brain tumor, tragically after starring in the remake of Dark Victory.

donschutt I always thought that casting John Wayne as Genghis Khan was ridiculous, and I still do but not because he is a tall white dude.Apparently the real Genghis Khan was a tall redheaded guy with green eyes. His grandsons had light hair and gray eyes. His grandson who was the first Khan of the Golden Horde in southern Russia had freckles. Up until the 3rd Century AD it was redheaded warriors, Caucasions, who dominated the Barbarians north of the Great Wall. Even today there are redheaded folks living in West China. Genghis was descended from them.Maybe if he had worn a long beard like the real Genghis, and lost the Cowboy drawl this movie would have made B status? As it is, D minus is he highest I can give.

utgard14 Yeah, it's that bad. Oh, Duke, what were you thinking? Look, I'm a big John Wayne fan. He was one of the all-time greats and made many wonderful classic films. But this is a complete misfire from start to finish. The script is terrible with lots of corny lines delivered in a stilted manner by actors who I know are capable of better. John Wayne gets a lot of flak from certain circles about his acting ability, but anyone who's seen him in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon or The Searchers knows how good he could be. Here he's just awful. This is easily the worst performance I've ever seen from him. Granted the script is bad but his delivery is so wooden and lacking in range I doubt even better dialogue would have sounded good coming from him here. He's not the only one stinking up the joint, either. Agnes Moorehead, Susan Hayward, and Pedro Armendariz have all shown in other movies that they are capable of good performances. Here they couldn't be any worse if they were intentionally trying to be. Of course, the yellowface makeup everyone is sporting doesn't help matters.Directed by Dick Powell (yes, that Dick Powell) and produced by Howard Hughes, the movie is more remembered today for its controversial backstory than simply being the forgettable historical "epic" that it is. As likely everyone reading this knows, the movie is notorious for possibly contributing to the cancer-related deaths of many of the cast and crew. It was filmed downwind of a nuclear testing site, as well as filming scenes in Hollywood on the irradiated soil that Hughes had shipped back for the sake of making studio re-shoots match the original film site's terrain. If not for this tragic bit of history, this movie would probably be far less known today. Yes, it's a dud starring one of the biggest movie stars ever, but every star has at least one movie that's embarrassing to look back on. It is probably the worst movie of John Wayne's career. I can't really think of another one that's worse but I haven't seen many of his early cheapies yet. Something every Wayne completist needs to see but be prepared -- it really deserves its bad reputation.

Alex John I first saw part of it on TV and saw it mention on a documentary, so of course I got to see the movie eventually, it doesn't contain any sort of historic realism but for me it's a decent, even good, watchable movie.The movie starts with "This story, though fiction, is based on fact." the only facts is based upon is that Genghis Khan did unite the Mongols and eventually defeated the tartars(which happens during the movie), but don't expect anything else, the actors don't look, dress or talk like real Mongols but I don't have anything with this as I consider it 99.99% fiction and don't expect realism. It does however have that romanticism of the age and from an action-adventure perspective, watching this movie wasn't a waste of time at all, in fact it was quite interesting.I've seen a lot of other movies who are worse(and still claim to be realistic), this movie doesn't claim to be real ,it's just vaguely inspired from real life and I for one did enjoy it as a classic action-adventure movie(with a touch of comedy here and there, intentionally or not), my vote for the movie overall would be 6/10 towards 7/10(because the story itself was quite fun to watch unfold). It's low rating is surprising to me, considering it doesn't claim itself to be historic but is fun to watch.