Should you see it? Yes.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds."
Saturday, April 5, 2014
The Conqueror (1956)
How bad is it? It's badly miscast and poorly constructed.
Should you see it? Yes.
Howard Hughes had enough money to make movies he wanted to see and to micromanage their filming; unfortunately, he had questionable taste. "The Outlaw" was strange and interesting. "Jet Pilot" was strange and uninvolving. "The Conqueror" is strange and ludicrous. Six foot four blue-eyed John Wayne makes for an unlikely Mongol. Until you see Susan Hayward. And Agnes Moorhead. This was filmed in the desert southwest (reportedly a nuclear test site) and used local natives as extras; they, to most American eyes in the 1960's, look a bit more like Mongols, but that just makes Wayne look more ridiculous. Even without the casting problem, the plot neither follows historical fact nor legend and the stilted dialogue is often laugh-out-loud ridiculous. John Wayne was always as good as his material (he was the star of my favorite film), but he's awful here.
Should you see it? Yes.
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