Some friends of mine recently discovered a forgotten 1956 John Wayne film entitled The Conqueror. Since we all have great respect for that classic Western actor, we decided to watch that movie and see why it’s been lost for all these years. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even though I found the plot incomprehensible, the characters dim-witted, the action silly, and some parts rather racist and misogynistic. The film comes across as a textbook example of unintentional comedy.
This movie was filmed in southern Utah, just like pretty much every other John Wayne movie, and all the action sequences feel like typical Cowboy-and-Indian fights. So there’s nothing in those areas that makes this movie better or worse than any other John Wayne movie. The biggest difference is who he is portraying. In The Conqueror, true-blue, all-American John Wayne is playing Genghis Khan. I’m dead serious. Depending on your point of view, this could either be extremely offensive or unbelievably hilarious. I’m in the latter camp, so I had a ball watching John Wayne play himself, not even trying to change his mannerisms or speech pattern to sound remotely like a Mongolian warlord.
This movie has to be seen to be believed. In fact, here’s a link to watch The Conqueror on YouTube. Do yourself a favor and watch it right after you finish reading this review. Or watch it first if you care about spoilers because I’m about to describe all the similarities between The Conqueror and a truly great film: 1995’s Braveheart. These movies aren’t exactly the same, like some other films I’ve compared, but they have a lot of interesting things in common that are worth noting.
So let’s unsheathe our swords and give a battle cry as we charge into this Movie Matchup of The Conqueror and Braveheart! Continue reading
Deja Reviewer 