The scathing reviews received by "The Conqueror" are now legend, and doubtless the casting of John Wayne as Genghis and clunky dialogue were the main reasons, but it has some good points regardless. The Direction, Costuming, Cinematography and Choreography are quite good, and although she gets to deliver some purple prose style lines (" Before that day dawns, Mongol, the vultures will feed upon your heart")Susan is supremely lovely in this and indeed radiant in her wrath.

Sad footnote - as if it was not dangerous enough to have filmed on location on radioactive earth, after it's location filming, Howard Hughes trucked 60 tons of "hot soil" back to Hollywood, so that further scenes and retakes would look identical.

Kerry

Kerry.. This film is a klunker but it has redeeming qualities.. such as Susan Hayward! Also, I love the soundtrack music.

I had never heard (or at least didn't remember) the story of Howard Hughes taking the "hot soil" back to Hollywood...that's pretty depressing info.

From my understanding is that it has never been actually confirmed that the radiation caused the cancer problems with many of the actors and crew on this film, but more than likely it did. I guess most of them ...Susan, John Wayne, Agnes Moorehead , etc. were all smokers too, so this is another common denominator...could be a mix of both...the radiation and smoking...whatever the cause...it's a sad and the tragedy is probably for what this film will be most remembered.