THE CONQUEROR (1956) Wrong casting, wrong place, wrong time

THE CONQUEROR conquered mostly bad reviews - I'm not recommending you run out and rent it. But it's worth mentioning for two reasons: First, it has John Wayne playing - ready for this? - Genghis Khan, with Susan Hayward, Pedro Armendáriz, Agnes Morehead and William Conrad also playing Orientals. The decision to cast the Duke - who spouts lines like I feel this Tartar woman is for me, and my blood says, take her, and I am bereft of spit - is, to say the least, bizarre. Second, it was filmed over 13 weeks in Utah, only 100 miles from the nuclear testing site in Nevada. The set was contaminated by nuclear fallout from 11 blasts in 1953. Plus, 60 tons of the dirty dirt was shipped back to Hollywood for further shooting. Of the 220 persons who worked on the movie on location in Utah in 1955, 91 had contracted cancer by the early ‘80s and 46 died of it, including stars John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead and director Dick Powell. No one has proved conclusively that the actors' cancer was caused by shooting in the desert, but statistically, only 30 people out of a group of that size should have gotten cancer.