- Directed by Dick Powell
- January 1956 (Premieres Worldwide) / February 2, 1956 (London) / February 22, 1956 (LA)
The Mongol chief Temujin fights Tartar armies for the Tartar princess Bortai.
I once again approach The Conqueror as an unabashed fan of John Wayne. I’ve enjoyed more of his work than I have disliked. The Conqueror is an imperfect film and perhaps one of the most prime examples of miscasting since the dawn of the motion picture industry. Not just John Wayne but every actor in here trying to play a Mongol or Tartar was miscast. Not because they’re not of the appropriate lineage. Well certainly that, but also because they were incapable of delivering the flowery dialogue used liberally throughout the script. To use a modern comparison this movie tries for Game of Thrones language but comes off more like dialogue from pretentious Western. No surprise since Wayne was known largely for his Westerns.
John Wayne as Temujin/Genghis Khan is the miscasting that gets focused on the most since he is the biggest star in the film, but the NYC born John Hoyt plays an Asian shaman complete with makeup to give him rather racist features when applied to a white dude. Hoyt and others have avoided decades of smack because Wayne still looms large in the public mind. Don’t try to make everyone look Asian when they clearly are not! No matter the era you’re really pushing your limits when you do that. Wayne’s children taking minor parts as people in a region not known for their blue eyes and sporting those blue eyes stands out.
John Wayne could play tough guys in Westerns. Historical fiction like this was not for him. The dialogue is a bit stuck on itself. It tries to be lofty and grandiose and if you’ve ever watched The Greatest Story Ever Told where he was briefly a Roman centurion you know, he just could not deliver that kind of dialogue. The script needed to be tailored more to his skills and be less intellectual in how it approached the words said by the characters. The grandiose elocution not just by Wayne but by the even more season performers was too much.
I’ve said this numerous times this movie would be much better regarded if they had changed the names as well as the references to locations to make is a complete work of fiction. A historical fantasy so to speak. Plus skip the attempts to make whitey not look like a honky. You could even think somebody at the time realized that this was going to have problems because of the opening text that the film is a work of fiction. It’s like they were trying to salvage it in some way. If anything this feels akin to a Conan the Barbarian knock off from the early 80s. It’s heavy on the swords and there’s plenty of horseback riding and the costuming is absolutely fantastic.
I have no idea if Bortai (Susan Hayward) is supposed to be a young woman or her father Kumlek (Ted de Corsia) is supposed to be an older gentleman because truthfully they look about the same age. A quick look on the Interwebs said there was a fourteen year age gap between the two. I could have more easily believed they are married, but I have trouble swallowing anything other than that. They even talk like a married couple with her daddy being a bit more of a sexist husband. Bortai uses the insult ‘jackal’ a lot in this. Ridiculously so making for a bit of unintended comedy.
The production values convey epic in just about every way you can. The costuming is quite good and more detailed than one would expect for the era. Howard Hughes spared no expense to transport the audience to a different time. He should have ponied up a few more bucks to transport the viewer to another world.
The battle scenes are big, bold, frenetic, and adrenaline pumping. They take their queue from the cavalry Westerns. Or maybe it’s just the presence of Wayne and those who participated with him in other Westerns or did Westerns in general. Even Lee Van Cleef pops up here along with a slightly slimmer William Conrad. Slightly.
Wayne-as-Temujin is the manliest man on the screen and eventually wins the heart of the hostile Bortai after numerous attacks on her people and a few kidnappings in what feels a touch like Stockholm Syndrome. Who can really compete with John Wayne anyway? It’s a bit of a laughable cliché, but it happened all the time in his movies. Strangely enjoyable yet silly at the same time.
It tries to be complex with twists and turns but between it all steps into campy. Pedro Armendáriz as Temujin’s friend Jamuga tries to keep it understated but most of the other actors really go a bit over the top in delivery or reactions to anything. Wang Khan (Thomas Gomez) is a leader that is more in line with comic relief.
If only the names of the characters had been changed and they dumped the attempt at making people Asian I think The Conqueror would be better regarded. I don’t think it would have ever become a grand classic, but it also wouldn’t have been an example of epic miscasting. If you can get into the mindset of thinking of this as an adventure film and not something historical then you can probably get past Wayne as Genghis Khan but probably not John Hoyt as an Asian shaman. Proceed with caution but worth watching if for no other reason than curiosity.
Warren Watched A Movie 