Like many movie fans of my approximate age, I first learned of the existence of the 1956 film The Conqueror through its inclusion in The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (and how they got that way), the 1978 best-seller from Harry Medved, Randy Dreyfus and an uncredited Michael Medved that purported to catalogue the most abysmal films ever produced. Although some of their choices were somewhat dubious (including such genuine classics as Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Last Year at Marienbad and Zabriskie Point), few could legitimately argue against the inclusion of an expensive, archly written period epic about Genghis Khan in which the central role of the fearsome warrior was embodied by none other than John Wayne, in what remains one of the goofiest bits of casting in film history, that had subsequently all but vanished from view when its producer, Howard Hughes, reportedly spent a then-shocking $12 million to buy back both it and another Warner dud, Jet Pilot, supposedly watched it repeatedly during his years of self-imposed seclusion from the world.
A couple of years after the publication of the book, the film would become infinitely more (in)famous because a tragic story whose horrifying dimensions were only barely beginning to be discovered. The film, directed by former actor Dick Powell, was shot in the Utah desert near the town of St George, mostly because the topography supposedly resembled that of the area where the story was set. Alas, this was a mere 137 miles from Yucca Flats, Nevada, where the U.S. government had recently test-fired eleven atomic devices, including one reportedly four times the strength of the one that hit Hiroshima. Although the government put out plenty of propaganda assuring the citizens that everything was completely safe—so much so that locals would come out to have picnics and watch the explosions—this proved to be not entirely accurate and the immense amount of fallout contaminated the area (and far beyond). To make matters worse, when the production moved back to Hollywood soundstages, more than 60 tons of irradiated sand and dirt was trucked back as well so that the shots would match. As a result, of the 220 people who worked on the film, over 90 of them—including Wayne, Powell and co-stars Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorhead and Pedro Armendarez—were stricken with some form of cancer, as did roughly half the population of St. George, an unfathomable tragedy whose effects are still being felt today.
William Nunez’s documentary, The Conqueror: Hollywood Fallout, is an attempt to capture the full spectrum of the story of the film and its inadvertently devastating consequences. The early parts focus mostly on the bizarre evolution of the film, the terrible screenplay, the ludicrous presence of Wayne (who really threw himself into the role, which just made things worse) and the offensive (even by 1956 standards) of casting Asian characters entirely with non-Asian actors (leading to the odd spectacle here of Michael Medved, who would go on to be a conservative commentator, critiquing the film’s cultural appropriation), while also painting a look at what life was like back then in St George. As it goes on, and the reality of the situation began cut through the pro-nuclear propaganda of the day (thanks in no small part to the efforts of one local who began chronicling the high levels of cancer diagnoses among locals), the film shifts its focus to the ultimately devastating consequences as well as examining the myriad ways in the victims were let down by institutions that clearly knew of the potential dangers and then did everything they could to try to cover up their culpability as those affected try to receive some kind of justice for themselves and for their descendants.
Although Nunez’s film is amusing in the early going as it examines The Conqueror itself, one of the most perverse examples of the star system gone off the rails in Hollywood history via a number of too-brief clips and comments from cultural observers, all of whom still seem stunned that such a thing could possibly exist. As the story shifts from the film itself to the tragedy surrounding it, it becomes alternately terrifying, heartbreaking and enraging as we begin to get a full grasp on what happened to so many people beyond the big stars affected and the ways in which the U.S. government tried to skirt responsibility for things they clearly knew about long before they became public. The story is told in a clean and efficient manner (with narration by Sophie Okenodo) and even those who go into it with some working knowledge of the overall story will find new details that they didn’t know about beforehand. The only real flaw of the film is that even though it clocks in at about two hours and is pretty much jam-packed with information throughout, there is so much to the story of The Conqueror and its political, environmental and cultural legacy that it could have gone a little longer to provide more details here and there.
Of course, if you have never seen the original The Conqueror before, you will almost certainly want to check it out after watching this, if only out of a sense of extremely morbid curiosity. Although perhaps not readily available, it has been issued on DVD and is out there for those willing to make the effort to find it. As one who has seen it in the past, I can assure you that it probably isn’t worth the effort. Sure, there is some initial undeniable amusement in seeing Wayne trying to navigate the odd dialogue while looking extremely uncomfortable in his ersatz-Mongol drag but the logy pacing—typical of lower-tier epics from the mid-50s trying to pry eyes away from television—will leave you struggling to stay awake after a while. More significantly, whatever unintentional hilarity there is to be derived from this is unfortunately undercut by the knowledge of the unimaginable loss that came as a result of its production. If you do want to make a night of it, perhaps you can follow up with a viewing of Oppenheimer instead.