Badmovies.org Forum

Who is the last person you would expect to play the part of Genghis Khan?  If John Wayne was the first name that came to mind, you get a cookie.  Enjoy that cookie.

You did it!!! You took on the Duke at his most embarassing.   Great job on one of the biggest "huh?"'s in movie hstory.  Its only a blessing they didn't make it a musical.
-Ed

Filmed near the site of contemporaneous nuclear testing grounds, the set was contaminated by nuclear fallout. After location shooting, much dirt from the location was transported back to Hollywood in order to match interior shooting done there. Scores of cast and crew members developed forms of cancer over the next two decades, many more than the normal percentage of a random group of this size. Quite a few died from cancer or cancer-related problems, including John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Pedro Armendáriz (who shot himself to death soon after learning he had terminal cancer), Agnes Moorehead, 'Thomas Gomez', John Hoyt and director Dick Powell. People magazine researched the subsequent health of the cast and crew, which it published in November 1980. By the time of the article's publication, 91 of the 220 members of the film's cast and crew had contracted cancer, and half of these had died from the disease. The figures did not include several hundred local American Indians who served as extras on the set. Nor did it include relatives who had visited cast and crew members on the set, such as the Duke's son Michael Wayne. The People article quoted the reaction of a scientist from the Pentagon's Defense Nuclear Agency to the news: "Please, God, don't let us have killed John Wayne".

Well, that's quite the little buzzkill.   :thumbdown:

I love the clip.  I don't know which would have been funnier: if he had tried to do an accent or the fact that he still talked like John Wayne.  I kept waiting for him to call someone "Partner"  or "Pilgram".

This is the film that taught me the word "Perifdy"...

Oh my god! This movie gave people cancer!

So... This film killed John Wayne?

(In a far more literal way than when people say Street Fighter killed Raul Julia)



Damn.

Man, what a sad, sad mess.
Proof that even the best of us can cram a turkey into a resume.
Some actors, make a turducken on that concept...

It's hard not to laugh at the insanity that cast John Wayne as Genghis Khan (apparently he chose the part of all things), but the evidence that the making of this film caused so much misery definitely brings you down.  It is a film that deserves to be notorious for more than one reason.

"[Billionaire producer] Howard Hughes was said to have felt 'guilty as hell' about the whole affair, although as far as I can tell it never occurred to anyone to sue him. For various reasons he withdrew The Conqueror from circulation, and for years thereafter the only person who saw it was Hughes himself, who screened it night after night during his paranoid last years."

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/374/did-john-wayne-die-of-cancer-caused-by-a-radioactive-movie-set

Ya know, Yul Brenner could have pulled this off...his confident smerk would have added to the fun.

Your review suggests you're a tad peeved at women in general. If it's that bad, there are alternatives, sailor. :cheers:

I'm usually a tad peeved at something, but when I am really annoyed I avoid trying to write.  In this case it was just fun to work on the relationship angle of John Wayne and Susan Hayward's interaction.

Besides, by this point I think we can safely assume that while I might find some parts of women frustrating, I also find parts of them fun.  The "sailor" bit amuses me, because I tend to hear it said online to me - but never in person.  Odd, that.

 :smile: Thanks for the review, Andrew.  :thumbup:

My Dad used to tell me about this film a lot when I was young and it horrified me to learn that so many of the cast and crew had developed and died from cancer. He always said that the film wasn't so bad, it was what happened afterwards that was bad.

The other Howard Hughes film that my Dad talked about was The Outlaw ~ all he would say about it was "Great gazongas!"  :teddyr:

 :teddyr: :teddyr: That's more material for Dr Menard to work on.  :wink:

At our film lab the other day, a guy told me "Sit down, girlfriend, I'll see where Jenny is."

Girlfriend?  :smile:

Great job, Andrew, as always. I've always wanted to review this movie. Is it known whether or not Howard Hughes actually knew the affects of the radiation would be that bad? Perhaps back then there wasn't as much information about it.

On another note, responding to Reply #5: I first learned the meaning of the word "perfidy" by reviewing I Was a Teenage Frankenstein. "Perfidy, thy name is woman!"

Actually, the only motivation in the film I halfway understood was the female lead. The reason she had the change of heart after watching Ghengis Khan get beaten was because it was her first time seeing him as a vulnerable human being rather than a horrible, loud brute trying to rape and beat her every few seconds.

But as you say, yes. It's a wonderfully bad film in every way.

A tad peeved at women? Whoever wrote this obviously hates women. My word the things he said. And for the record, not all men think like you do. Very few in fact.  :thumbdown:

True enough.  Only the ones with a sense of humor think like that.

Was this the part that annoyed you?


My reviews tend towards free association essays that are influenced by the movies.  If you have not seen the movie, you really should.  Genghis Khan (John Wayne) spends the entire movie slapping the bejeezus out of Bortai (Susan Hayward), while saying the rudest, sexist things.  Suddenly, she falls in love with him.