The Conqueror (1956)

Director: Dick Powell

Entertainment grade: D–

History grade: D+

Genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire in the 12th century.

Casting

The Conqueror was written for Marlon Brando, but he dodged it thanks to his contract with another studio. Meanwhile, John Wayne was at the peak of his career – he made The Searchers soon afterwards – and producer Howard Hughes was inclined to give him whatever he wanted. What he wanted, apparently, was to be a 12th-century Mongolian warlord. Well, who doesn't? This is how one of the worst casting decisions of all time was made, and John Wayne became Genghis Khan.

Dialogue

The Conqueror, Susan Hayward. Photograph: Moviestore Collection/Rex Features

The film opens with Temujin, as Genghis was originally known, intercepting a wedding procession of Merkits. No, not meerkats. The Merkit lord has a Tartar bride, Bortai (Jane Hayward) – but not for long. "I feel this Tartar woman is for me," intones Temujin. "My blood says, take her." Few actors could make lines like that sound good, and John Wayne wasn't one of them. Writer Oscar Millard wanted to give the screenplay an "archaic" flourish. "Mindful of the fact that my story was nothing more than a tarted-up western, I thought this would give it a certain cachet and I left no lily unpainted," he said in 1981. "It was a mistake I have never repeated." Poor old Wayne has to prance about saying things such as "I greet you, my mother!" where normal people would say "Hello, mum!" This may be why he looks so miserable in every scene. "You gotta do something about these lines," he told Millard during filming. "I can't read 'em." It was too late.

Romance

SUSAN HAYWARD AND JOHN WAYNE IN 'THE CONQUEROR' - 1956 Photograph: Everett Collection/Rex Features

Temujin abducts Bortai, but she loathes him. He carries her off to his yurt for an involuntary ravishing. "Know this, woman," he grunts. "I take you for wife." Hard to decide which is worse: the dialogue or the sexual politics. According to the classic contemporary source, The Secret History of the Mongols, Temujin did not abduct Bortai. They were betrothed when he was nine and she was 10. In the film, he takes her to visit his ally, Wang Khan, and watch his dancing girls. Among them is a beauty, dressed in a red striped bodystocking, with a pointy sequinned hat and fluffy feathers on her fingertips. Goodness knows what they would have made of this getup in 12th-century Mongolia. She looks like she has escaped from a Dr Seuss book: the monstrous offspring of the Yink that likes to drink pink ink and Clark who was found in the park after dark, styled by the Cat in the Hat. "A woman of Samarkand!" exclaims Temujin, helpfully. "I recognise her by the, er …" The line trails off, as if he can't be bothered. As does the film.

Love

The real Bortai was abducted by the Merkits, and saved by Temujin. The movie Bortai runs away to her Tartar father, Kumlek. Inexplicably, she decides she is actually in love with Temujin after all. "To reach his arms, I cast Kumlek to his fate and betray my people into Mongol bondage," she confides breathily to Temujin's right-hand man, Jamuga (Pedro Armendáriz). Delayed-onset Stockholm syndrome? Who knows. By this point, the film has pretty much pulped The Secret History of the Mongols, though it claws back a few history points by getting some of its tribes in approximately the right order, and by depicting Jamuga's fate with reasonable accuracy.

Controversy

The Conqueror, John Wayne. Photograph: Moviestore Collection/Rex Features

The Conqueror was filmed in the Utah's Escalante valley in 1954, just downwind of a lake bed where the Atomic Energy Commission had tested 11 nuclear weapons the year before. During shooting, levels of radiation were high. By 1980, 91 of the 220 cast and crew had been diagnosed with cancer. Forty-six had then died of it, including John Wayne and director Dick Powell. Though journalists have often linked the radiation exposure and the disease, a 41% diagnosis rate and 20% death rate from cancer is about the same as in the general US population – though more cases may have occurred since 1980. Either way, The Conqueror will probably never live down its reputation for being not only terrible, but perhaps literally toxic as well.

Verdict

Proves beyond doubt that Genghis Khan, cowboys and atom bombs do not mix.