The Conqueror (1956) (review)

Dick Powell’s epic costume drama The Conqueror suffers the ignominy of having arguably been the greatest disaster film in the history of US cinema. Although the narrative fails to feature the requisite crashing airline, sinking ship, or erupting volcano, the human toll of the film’s execution is often more widely known than the characteristics of the text itself. Inscribed into the salacious lore of Hollywood, the tale of Howard Hughes’ extravagant production budget, bizarre casting choices (epitomized by John Wayne’s assumption of the title role), Hughes’ ill fated decision to shoot near atomic testing sites in eastern Nevada/western Utah, and his supposed obsession with the film in his declining years all serve to focus attention away from the artifact that was, for lack of a better term, a critical “bomb.”

A lavishly produced historical epic, The Conqueror follows the exploits of Temujin (Wayne), a young Mongol chieftain battling with rival clans for control of the Gobi Desert. Assisted by his blood brother Jamuga (Pedro Armendaríz), he ruthlessly seeks to consolidate power and expand his influence in the region. Along the way he captures his rival’s daughter, Bortai (Susan Hayward), and takes her as his bride. The Tartar woman despises Temujin and her disdain for him is matched only by his sexual aggression toward her. Over time, Bortai falls in love with the Mongol and aids his escape from the clutches of his principal rival (and her father), the Tartar chieftain Kumlek. Deftly navigating both political and military labyrinths, Temujin emerges victorious over Kumlek and unites the Gobi clans under his banner as the newly named Genghis Khan. As the film comes to a close, the conqueror marches with his wife into the west to rule an empire that, Jamuga’s voiceover reminds us, his children will rule for a thousand years.

Although no one would likely ever mistake the film for an accurate representation of ancient history, The Conqueror does constitute a compelling artifact of the racial politics within its postwar 1950s milieu. The film is seemingly of two minds in this respect; one closely aligns itself with common stereotypes and paints a world of “savages” who must be segregated and controlled by Western-minded people, while the other contradicts the former’s message through the star image and performance of John Wayne. In regards to the former , Dick Powell’s direction and Oscar Milland’s script place heavy emphasis on the perpetual threat of the Mongol hordes (recalling a familiar visual trope of the “Yellow Peril”) to the existence of a racial order within the diegetic world. Ethnic groups are clearly demarcated in the film’s prologue and the marquee characters express distaste for race mixing of either a sexual or political nature.

Such a philosophy is typical of the “Classical Hollywood Style,” the name given to mark the industrial period of approximately four decades that witnessed not only the production of The Conqueror but also the institutionalization of censorship and the further entrenchment of white supremacist ideology. Wayne’s particular star image epitomizes this historical trajectory, as his emergence within the western genre and studio system in the 1930s aligns his iconic values with those of the idealized American male and communicates to the audience that the nation is defined by the efforts of the white masculine protagonist to protect white women from the sexual and cultural threats of “others.” This is, in essence, what audience members come to expect from the Duke and is what makes Wayne such a vital symbolic cog in the ideological machinations of the Hollywood industry.

The Conqueror, however, utilizes Wayne somewhat differently and seems to undermine both the star’s accrued iconic capital and the larger racial politics of Classical Hollywood era. The film foregrounds characteristic elements of the western genre, introducing viewers during the opening credits to men on horseback, “western” style geography, wagon trains, and other iconography that, along with the prominent display of Wayne’s name, surely elicits anticipation of another routine Duke star vehicle. These allusions quickly yield...