Filmed in Utah: The Flick That Got the Most “Fallout”

"The Conqueror" Released in 1956 is a historical drama of the Mongol Chief Temujin, later to be know by the name Genghis Khan. Produced by none other than Howard Hughes and RKO Radio Pictures, the film is often ranked as a top contender for the worst film ever made.  Despite doing reasonably well in the box office, "The Conqueror" has been highly criticized for several controversies over the last several decades.  From the colossal miscasting to the style of dialog there is plenty of reasons this film earned a Golden Turkey Award, awarded to movies considered to be the worst in history, in1980.

A Duke For a Mongol Chief

During the height if his career John (Duke) Wayne was cast as the lead role of Genghis Khan. Along with costar Susan Hayward as Bortai  the princess of Tatar this was, even in the 50's, seen as a highly controversial miscasting.  The Dialog of this film was also in a more Shakespearean style that just did not fit an Asian epic that this was supposed to be.  The only thing I think they got reasonably close was the film location of Snow Canyon near St. George UT. to depict the Gobi Dessert and Southern Mongolia but even that was a stretch.

The Radioactive Debate

Among other Controversies that surround the making of this film is one that has been hard to prove.  Snow Canyon Sate Park is only about 137 miles downwind from Nevada's nuclear test site, which had tested an above ground bomb just a year before filming began in 1954. To this date 91 of the 220 cast and crew of the film have developed cancer and so far 46 have died to the disease including Wayne and Hayward. And Although John Wayne was well known to smoke like a chimney many others involved with the film that lived healthier lifestyles also had cancer problem decade after filming.  In 1980 Dr. Robert Pendleton a professor of Biology at the University of Utah at that time said:

 " The connection between fallout radiation and cancer in individual cases has been practically impossible to prove conclusively. But in a group this size you'd expect only 30-some cancers to develop. With 91 cancer cases, I think the tie-in to their exposure on the set of The Conqueror would hold up in a court of law."