‘The Conqueror’: the movie that almost made John Wayne swear off westerns
He might not have been a traditional ‘actor’, but John Wayne was the movie star to end all movie stars. Charismatic, handsome, larger-than-life, Wayne could hold the screen like nobody else. That doesn’t mean he never made mistakes, though.
One of the absolute worst entries in Wayne’s filmography is Dick Powell’s 1956 movie The Conqueror. The star appears in the lead role of legendary Mongol warlord Genghis Khan (different times, eh?) in a story chronicling his journey from barbarian to all-powerful commander. With a cast also including Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead, and Lee Van Cleef, and major studio backing behind it, the film should have been a success. But oh boy was it anything but.
The Conqueror is widely regarded as one of the worst goddamn movies ever made. Critics wasted no time absolutely shitting on every detail, from the casting to the performances to the story itself. Wayne was lambasted for failing to bring the necessary gravitas to such a major role, coming across more like a pantomime villain than one of the greatest killing machines in human history. Contemporary reviewers also baulked at the lack of Asian representation among the cast, as all of the major players were white actors made up to look less so. There’s also the theory that it may have killed almost a quarter of its crew, but that’s a story for another time.
However, in yet another case for why democracy should be abolished, The Conqueror still found an audience. Not a massive one, only a $9million gross from a $6m budget, but that was enough to make the 11th highest-grossing movie of the year. Wayne, who was all too aware of his work’s flaws, found this to be particularly disheartening.
“The Conqueror is one of the worst films I ever made, and it was a massive success,” said ‘The Duke’. “I think it was only because epic films were in vogue at the time, and although I thought the film was a sort of Mongolian western, it was a historical epic, and I guess people liked those films. I began to wonder if they’d like westerns anymore.”
This was far from the first time that Wayne had shed his trademark Stetson. He’d appeared in numerous films that had nothing to do with cowboys, ranging from World War II epics to frivolous musical comedies. But the western was where he became John fucking Wayne and was what most audiences still associated him with. What he managed to achieve with masterpieces like The Searchers, a movie that still regularly tops ‘greatest westerns ever made‘ lists, can never be forgotten. If audiences were moving away from that style of film, then what place was there for its greatest champion?
Luckily for Wayne (and his bank account), the western still had a few more years left in it. Three years later, he appeared in Rio Bravo, heading in the right direction once again. The year after that, he also presented his directorial debut to the world in the form of The Alamo, in which he also played the iconic Davy Crockett. The Conqueror turned out to be just another bump in the road for Wayne’s career, even if it was, by all accounts, one of the worst things to ever happen to humanity.
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