Sick Product of a Sick System

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

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

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 almost always sit through a movie immediately before making any comments on it because I think the impressions ought to be fresh in one's memory.But it's really necessary -- if I'm ever to follow a categorical imperative -- to leave a few notes here to prevent others from enduring the agony I went through years ago. I don't even enjoy THINKING about the movie but I'm compelled by a sense of public duty.To be perfectly honest, I really believe there are two groups of people who would enjoy seeing this abortion. One group consists of people who have never seen a movie before. The second group consists of people who are stoned out of their gourds on weed.There are those who claim that the movie, like some others, is so bad that it's funny, but I wonder if they have actually sat through one of these monstrosities from beginning to end and were still able to laugh as the end credits rolled. More likely they'd be in a state of shock.There's no need to go through it. John Wayne is Temujin, later to become Genghis Kahn. Pedro Armendáriz is his sidekick, Jamuga. John Wayne looks like a rich American. Armendáriz looks like a Mexican cowboy star. Susan Hayward, as Bortai, looks like a glamorous Hollywood red-head. Oscar Millard is guilty of the script."Truly, she is much woman.""Yew're beauty-full in yew're wrath." (Ie., you're cute when you're mad.)It's impossible to go on. This is beginning to set off a long-forgotten merry-go-round inside my head, to the tune of "Ah, Mustafa" played on a calliope. I seem to be sitting astride a hippocampus. Wait. It's speeding up. Now, it's really fast and I'm afraid that something will --

I'm probably not part of the majority here, but I think this is a good movie. A lot of people are probably knocking it before they've even seen it because John Wayne plays Temujin.As the story goes, John Wayne wanted the role and he was very serious about it. He found the script in Dick Powell's office. I'm sure Powell had his reasons for wanting to throw the script out, but it can't be that it was that horrible of a script. The script is actually pretty decent. I can't complain about the make-up either because I think that was very well done too. John Wayne, between the make-up and his hair, really looks Asian in this.People that criticize this movie keep pointing out the nationalities of everyone involved. If you are going to do that then you are just nitpicking. Yes, John Wayne is a white man playing a Mongol. But you couldn't have expected them to cast a real Mongol in the role. Whites played Orientals and Native Americans all the time back then. Anthony Quinn, who is of Mexican and Irish descent, played Attila the Hun once. Omar Sharif, once played Genghis Khan. Stephen Boyd played Kahn's blood brother Jamuga. That Sharif and Boyd movie was horrible, by the way. The Conqueror is way better than that. The Conqueror is more accurate too. You're probably going to wonder, "Why John Wayne?" I said the same exact thing and I thought the movie was silly at first. But I actually sat down and watched it and I thought it was good.The Conqueror's opening is great. It opens with Temujin riding through the dessert with his Mongol army. The scenes of the army riding are great. They are shot so well. The action scenes of the Mongols fighting enemy armies were great too. If you want action, this has plenty of it. Another nice touch was the love story between Temujin and Bortai. Bortai is played by Susan Hayward. She was pretty decent in her role. I enjoyed her scenes with John Wayne. I also enjoyed Pedro Armendariz in his scenes with John Wayne. Armendariz was also decent in his role as Jamuga, Temujin's blood brother. A previous reviewer said that John Wayne and Pedro Armendariz are not believable as brothers. Keep in mind, the movie never says they are brothers, but they keep stressing blood brothers.Overall, I think The Conqueror was a pretty good movie. It pushed all of the right buttons for me. I enjoyed it very much. The Conqueror is a well made movie, with good performances, great directing, great cinematography, decent writing, great costumes and great make-up. I thought the score by Victor Young was great too. I especially loved the Romantic theme that Young uses throughout the movie. That was very memorable.If you ever get a chance, see this movie. If you are interested in the subject matter, check it out. If you are a fan of the old time classics or those Hollywood epics, check it out. If you are a fan of John Wayne and you want to see him in a different role for a change, check it out. John Wayne won't disappoint you. The Conqueror and John Wayne are not bad at all. Don't knock this movie until you've seen it. People were way too harsh when they placed their votes on IMDb. I'll bet that some people gave this movie a 1 without even seeing it. All they saw was John Wayne's name in the credits.

John Wayne is at his worst here but it is not as obvious why he made this movie as you think. This film was the brain child of Howard Hughes. This film is cinema "Spruce Goose" & it is possible it didn't even fly that far.A large part of the cast & crew of this film died from Cancer including Wayne. It was shot on the New Mexico desert near the a-bomb test areas which is speculated as the cause. This is an RKO production 1 year before the studio was sold to Desi & Lucy. Maybe this is why the studio was sold. I mean, the once proud studio of King Kong putting out a movie that could be named Ding Dong?Sadly, a talented cast goes down too. This film might be why Hughes was a recluse in his later years. The joke goes that this film set is where Howard Hughes hid his will. Maybe while someone was out in the desert looking for that document they found the first trace of the real genius who wanted this movie made - Irwin R Shyster?