The Conqueror

Rating:
Summary: Hollywood's best flop
Review: There is no reason to watch this very lenghly, grandiose epic about Ghengis Kahn and his love affair with Bortai, the exotic siren of Hollywood legends. Except for the seductive Sword Dance by powdered, puffed and very beautiful Susan Hayward.Also you may decide on it because it is machismotic John Wayne's most unusual Western. And you may also desire to see it because it has some of the most hilarious lines in motion picture history. It is also decried as Hollywood's most disasterous financial and critical spectaculars which placed it in the Guiness Book of World Records. It may also tempt you because everyone in it died as a result of working in a nuclear waste dump. It is only for the most discriminating of tastes.

Rating:
Summary: Made for MST3k...
Review: This film is a tragedy in more ways than one.

The Duke, God blesshim, is totally out of place in the role of Kahn. From all reports, hereally threw himself into the role because he thought he could pull itoff and wanted to do a good job. Unfortunately, all of the Duke'smighty powers were not enough to make this picture gel.

Not only isthe picture laughable, but it was shot on part of an atomic testingrange. Some of the radioactive soil was transported back to Hollywoodfor the soundstage shots, which didn't help matters. Many of the castand crew succumbed to cancer in later years, including the Dukehimself.

Many of my fellow reviewers have noted the laughable lines,but there is one that has so far gone unmentioned, which has alwaysstuck with me:

"[After her] all other women are like the secondpressing of the grape!"

...or something to that effect.

It'shard to believe this is on DVD when there are so many other, moreworthy films that could be transferred to the medium.

Rating:
Summary: my favorite bad movie
Review: This has long been a favorite of mine, and I often bring it out to torture my friends to see how long they can stick with it. The first half hour or so is hilarious, but after a while it starts to lose interest as the novelty factor wears off. Wayne is simply awful in this film. He appears to be drunk in nearly every scene,and while this approach might work very well in a Western, it fails miserably here. The rest of the cast is just as ludicrous. You haven't lived until you've seen Lee Van Cleef dance around the campfire!

To correct another reviewer here, Pedro Armendariz did indeed kill himself, but that's because he was diagnosed with brain cancer and opted for suicide. Lee Van Cleef and others probably did not spend as much time on location as Wayne, Powell, Hayward and others who had much larger parts. The Utah/cancer connection is still very plausable.

As for the casting of Wayne, it was supposedly his idea - not something dreamed up by a casting agent. Indeed, the producers initially had a hard time believing that Wayne was serious about wanting the part, but since he was the biggest star in Hollywood at the time, how could they possibly turn him down? By the way, the original intention was to have Marlon Brando play the part, but he either turned it down or was never approached once Wayne expressed interest.

Rating:
Summary: Ya' Gotta' Love it Anyway
Review: This is not the worst movie I've ever seen, but, close to it without a doubt. I wish I knew a bit more of the history behind it's making as in what sort of delirium the casting director was suffering from when he cast The Duke as Genghis Khan? I adore John Wayne and will watch anything that he's in because he's, well, The Duke! I think that's the opinion that the producers of this movie must have hoped the viewing public of 1953 would share. It didn't work, it still doesn't but it's a must see for the true John Wayne fan.

Rating:
Summary: Cheezefest deluxe; good transfer; mfg defect
Review: Three quick points:
- The movie is a hoot.
- The Goodtimes Video transfer looks and sounds pretty darned good. The 2.35:1 print is clean and colorful, and the sound is stereo surround, presumably from the 'scope mag tracks. Plenty of stuff from this era looks much worse.
- My DVD was defective. The last half would not play, maybe due to a pressing defect. I remain leery of budget labels.
Steve Pendleton

Rating:
Summary: John Wayne's worst movie!
Review: Total miscasting of John Wayne as Kahn. It's laughable with the makeup trying to make him look Asian.

Rating:
Summary: My brawn now holds me captive
Review: You've got to love any movie in which a character says, "My brawn now holds me captive."
HOWEVER, for all the unintentional hilarity, Wayne does a creditable job as the Mongol chieftan. It's not his fault that we can't stop thinking of him as a cowboy, or that the writing is hokey. Wayne's performance is tight, controlled and powerful, and if the writing had been more up to the caliber of Wayne's acting, this might have been a great film. As it is, this is a good movie.