The Conqueror (1956)

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

. . . are descended from a single Mongol male who lived 900 years ago, Genghis Khan. John Wayne sports a Fu Manchu and goes all Charles Bronson playing Genghis in THE CONQUEROR. (And, given Today's ratings for Fox News and Trump, it's clear that AT LEAST 1 in 12 Americans are biological descendants of John Wayne, so Wilt-the-Stilt and his picayune 20,000 lovers can eat their hearts out!) A few years back I remember going to the movies to see a couple of tediously long remakes of THE CONQUEROR, mounted by state-subsidized Russian and Chinese outfits, if I'm not mistaken. Neither of these added much to the story. Lacking an iconic international thespian such as Mr. Wayne in the lead role, these more recent flicks necessarily were pale imitations of Genghis 101, that is, THE CONQUEROR. I do not recall that either of them featured a dance-off scene, in which Susan Hayward gets to strut her stuff in the John Wayne film. Of course, the Russians and the Chinese did not have anyone available to not only produce their flicks, but also to custom-design cantilevered brassieres suitable for harem dance-offs, such as RKO genius Howard Hughes.

The Conqueror is one of Hollywood's most legendary movies. The Dukes most inept screen portrayal. The only part he wore a mustache for.The role that was to eventually take his life, as well as many of the other cast members and production crew, including Susan Hayward and Dick Powell. I have heard that Oscar Millard wrote the screenplay thinking Marlon Brando would be reciting the lines. Brando wisely deferred from taking the role.To say the Wayne was miscast just isn't enough. Just about everyone in the cast was "Miscast", The redheaded Susan Hayward as a Tartar princess? Come on now!Someone asked actor Leo Gorden, who was in the cast why he never developed cancer. Gordon answered" I was not on the Utah location shoot. When I worked on the RKO sound stage there was none of that radioactive dirt around.'John Hoyt and Lee Van Cleef said pretty much the same thing.Folks, The Conqueror isn't not as terrible as you may have heard. It's entertaining in a laughably bad way. What's really sad is that so many talented people gave their lives to make it.

I caught this film entirely by accident as you do. i'm usually working so I tend to more listen than watch.At first I thought it was another John Wayne cowboy movie. It sounded John Wayne, it sounded sort of cowboy, but something was wrong.I started watching to see him in some kind of fake Mongol costume with other obviously fake mongol\Chinese actors (white Americans). This wasn't so bad except that John Wayne was totally unfit for the position.He does absolutely NOTHING at all to be or move or sound even a tiny bit like a vicious Mongol warrior. It's like watching a cowboy film without guns set in Mongolia. You just can't divorce Wayne from it and so the movie literally collapses the moment he opens his mouth. Seriously, it does. It's a facepalm moment.On top of that, the script is awful, something a small child would do for his first class story. Wayne delivers it like he's alseep, all the way through the movie.Like others have said, it's so bad you just have to laugh. People in the 1950s surely must have seen this as rubbish once out. Even they could not possibly have liked this.This probably helped future historical film makers know what NOT to do as well as make them laugh out loud. It's worth watching for that.2 stars for the unintentional humour.

John Wayne is improbably cast (to say the least!) as Mongol chief Temujin, later Genghis Khan, leading his Mongolian army in a battle against the Tartars, falling for the enemy leader's fiery, beautiful daughter. With three cinematographers credited, the picture certainly looks good, but director Dick Powell can't seem to pick up the pace, and it quickly becomes a leaden affair punctuated by inane dialogue. Princess Susan Hayward and the supporting players are all ridiculously miscast, but none more so than the Duke, whose performance might have passed muster had he been encouraged to play it strictly for laughs. Produced for RKO by Howard Hughes, who reportedly was obsessed with this movie and later bought sole rights to it, effectively keeping it out of circulations for years. Filmed partly on-location in Utah near an atomic weapons test site, with many in the cast and crew later succumbing to cancer-related deaths. *1/2 from ****