Legendary Disaster
The Conqueror (1956)
Inducted 2018
Whereas last year’s inductee severely weakened its studio to the point where it had to be sold off to MGM, this year’s film contributed to the utter collapse of its studio. Once one of the major studios, RKO essentially disappeared not long after it made The Conquerer, whose production had been directly overseen by its studio head- Howard Hughes. The film’s failure would sadly not be the worst thing that resulted from its production.
The Conquerer would begin production with several strikes against it. The first strike was that it was going to be personally overseen by RKO’s studio head at the time- Howard Hughes. Mr. Hughes’ infamous obsessive compulsive tendencies were already in effect at this time, which made what would be a hard desert shoot even harder. The film, which sought to bring the life of Genghis Khan to the screen made another terrible mistake in casting John Wayne as the titular ‘Conquerer’. Aside from being racist, the casting choice proved to be a ridiculous one. John Wayne was completely out of his element in this film and was a horrible choice regardless of race.
The film was a terrifying bore and it struggled to make back a fraction of its budget. Rumor had it that Howard Hughes personally bought the film’s rights to prevent it from airing on television, but not because it was an embarrassment. He had a sadder reason. The film’s production in the Nevada desert took place during the United States military tests of the atom bomb. Before scientists tied radioactive fallout with cancer, the tests were a festive affair with the Las Vegas casinos promoting viewing parties and encouraging tourists to head out to the testing sites. RKO hosted similar parties during The Conquerer’s production. The cast and crew were encouraged to soldier on and keep filming even after the tests had scattered radioactive fallout over the sets. Even worse, when reshoots took place in Hollywood, RKO had sand from the desert sets trucked in at Mr. Hughes’ request to make the soundstage sets look more authentic. This caused many of the cast and crew to get cancer, with the film’s cancer rate proving to be much higher than that of the general public. Hughes reportedly kept the film off the airwaves while he was still alive to assuage his guilt over causing so much misery. While he had intended to make an epic film that would be long remembered as one of the greatest films ever made, he ended up making a film that would have been mostly forgotten were it not for its tragic death toll.
