Racist casting.
A terrible script.
Filmed near a nuclear test site.
Produced by Howard Hughes.
What could possibly go wrong?
Everything.
Dick Powell wanted to direct an epic in the worst possible way. His wish was granted much to his regret. I wrote about The Conqueror: Hollywood Fallout yesterday so I’ll skip the nuke talk. Let’s get to this truly abominable movie.
I’d never seen The Conqueror before this week. I knew a fair amount about this stinker, but it was out of circulation for many years because that’s how Howard Hughes wanted it. For some reason, he thought this fakakta film was his cinematic masterpiece. The billionaire malakatude, it burns.
The Conqueror tells the origin story of Genghis Khan known to his friends, family, and captive wives as Temujin. Khan was his title after he kicked ass on his fellow Mongols. The movie is essentially a Western set in 13th Century Mongolia, that’s why John Wayne was cast as Genghis Khan and Susan Hayward as a saucy Tartar princess kidnapped by the Duke.
The rule of the two biggest stars in a movie kicks in and Hayward eventually falls in love with Wayne. It’s a faux Asian version of the Stockholm Syndrome.
Hayward tries to kill Wayne several times. I’ve seen the clips, so I’ve been quoting one of the film’s cheesiest lines for decades: “You’re beautiful in your wrath.”
I didn’t know that Wayne said it after Hayward tried decapitating him with a scimitar. I am not making this up.
That’s just one example of the stilted dialogue written by Oscar Millard. He wrote some good movies; this was not one of them. It’s suspected that Hughes had a hand in the script in between lying to Congress and sexually harassing starlets.
The movie has a fine cast including Pedro Armendariz as Wayne’s frenemy Jamuga who I called Jamocha while riffing on this MST3K level rotten movie:
Other cast members include Agnes Moorehead, Thomas Gomez, John Hoyt, and William Conrad.
The Conqueror gives us the rare pleasure of seeing Thomas Gomez and William Conrad shirtless. Don’t believe me? Here’s the man who will be Cannon:
Thomas Gomez plays a rival Khan and John Hoyt is his shaman, complete with a pointed hat right out of The Wizard Of Id:
The costumes are nearly as preposterous as the script. The movie, however, is competently filmed but the script and the casting of white people as Asians sinks the Bad Ship Conqueror.
There’s a lively argument about whether The Conqueror is the worst movie ever made. It’s certainly among the worst big budget films. There were a boatload of bad historical epics in the 1950’s as the studios attempted to compete with baby brother TV. Hence the Cinemascope and the $6 million budget. That’s approximately $71 million in 2025 dollars. That’s a lotta dough.
Grading Time: The Conqueror is one of the few color movies I’ve written about in this space. It’s also the worst. I give it 1 star and an Adrastos Grade of F. If you’re a glutton for punishment, it can be found at TCM.com.
We begin our poster survey with a Conqueror triptych with the German and Mexican posters surrounding the American one.
The tagline on the quad uses proto-manoverse language:
Oy, just oy.
I need something to ease the pain. Let’s all go to the lobby of a theatre that serves booze.
That old fashioned hit the spot. I needed it before sharing some lobby cards with y’all.
Imagine having Agnes Moorehead as your mother-in-law. This was a warm up for her role as Endora on Bewitched:
Yoke rhymes with joke, which is what this movie is.
Dismount from your horse and load it on the trailer:
I’ll spare TCM hosts the mortification of tying their names to this stinker, so the last word goes to Procol Harum: