The Conqueror (1956)

(On Cable TV, August 2021) Some films have become infamous for all the wrong reasons, and if you polled various cinephiles for their examples of worst miscasting, The Conqueror’s inexplicable decision to hire none other than John Wayne to play Genghis Khan would still be ranked near the top of the list even more than half a century later. It’s not just whiter-than-white Wayne playing a Mongol warrior, it’s everything else in the film seemingly bowing to Wayne’s refusal to adapt anything of his habits to the requirements of the role. Simply put, Wayne shows up here like he’s in a western (something facilitated by much of the film being horseback riding and fighting barbarian tribes) and doesn’t change a single thing about his approach. The film feels stuck with him with no way out — florid dialogue is pronounced with a pronounced American accent and the same nasal intonation that Wayne uses in other cowboy roles. Even the film feels afraid to truly show what it’s about: far too many sequences seem taken straight from a western, almost entirely negating the attempt at Mongolian drama. But Wayne remains the weakest link in The Conqueror — playing a grander-than-life historical figure not with theatrical grandeur but with aw-shucks cowboy stoicism, woefully ill-equipped for the requirements of the role. As someone who can’t stand Wayne (and that’s putting it mildly), I’m surprisingly gleeful at seeing him stray outside the limits of his acting talent, and being derided for it: it’s not because you’re a star that you’re a good actor and there comes a point where talent and wit are about recognizing your own limits. Otherwise, it plays world-wide on screens big enough for generations to see.