Killing John Wayne

The Making of the Conqueror

By: Ryan Uytdewilligen

Narrated by: Peter Berkrot

Behold the history of a film so scandalous, so outrageous, so explosive it disappeared from print for more than a quarter century! A film so dangerous half its cast and crew met their demise bringing it, eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes’ final cinematic vision, to life! Starring all-American legend John Wayne in full Fu Manchu makeup as Mongol madman Genghis Khan and sultry seductress Susan Hayward as his lover, The Conqueror is possibly the worst movie ever made.

Filmed during the dark underbelly of the 1950s - the Cold War - when nuclear testing in desolate Southwestern landscapes was a must for survival, the very same landscapes were where exotic stories set in faraway lands could be made. Just 153 miles from the St. George, Utah, set, nuclear bombs were detonated regularly at Yucca Flat and Frenchman Flat in Nevada, providing a bizarre and possibly deadly background to an already surreal moment in cinema history. This book tells the full story of the making of The Conqueror, its ignominious aftermath, and the radiation-induced cancer that may have killed John Wayne and many others.

©2021 Ryan Uytdewilligen (P)2021 Dreamscape Media, LLC

wished for more on the movie's production itself

Wish the section on movie's production was longer. Still, fascinating well-told story, solid narration.

Obscure history given new life.

This book takes a story whose elements are shrouded in obscurity and fable and drags it into the light. You've probably seen a 10 minute youtube video stating John Wayne stared in a Genghis Khan movie which may have even included the detail that this film was shot near nuclear testing grounds. This book dives deep into the story and fleshes it out fully with vivid details including Howard Hughes' sex life and the unbelievable working conditions of the production crew. Its history, its celebrity intrigue, its a tragic chronicling of one of the worst nuclear disaster to occur in the western hemisphere. In short, it was a s***t show.

Not enough John Wayne

To much fluff. Only about half the book is about John Wayne. There was to much about Howard Hughes and others.

Poorly Written & Researched

I was already somewhat familiar with the story of The Conqueror film and interested to see what new details this book advertised. Instead what I got was an overblown book report-level story of old time Hollywood and early nuclear testing where only about 1/3 of the book was dedicated to the making of the film and its consequences. Instead, most of the book was a surface level biography of John Wayne and Howard Hughes with frequent detours into gossipy stories of the studio system, government testing, and stars of the day that were- at best- tangential to the actual advertised story. I get the value of context and creating an atmosphere but it read more like an attempt to add words/pages to the book,

The author is also not a very good writer. Even in books I don't like, I almost never think that it's because of bad writing so when the author's word choices, poor descriptions, and even worse research stuck out, it was something I could not "unhear". Seriously, the author attributes a movie to Alfred Hitchcock that he did not direct (how do you write about classic Hollywood and not know what Hitchcock did nor did not do??). Towards the end of the book, the author dares to speculate that, upon getting cancer, John Wayne "must have looked into why...[his director and costar]...died of cancer so suddenly". Wow, there's some real conclusive research. In other words, the author has no idea what [if any] connections were made at the time in Wayne's mind to making the film but he's going to assume/speculate anyway because the book needs it. That's not good writing or research.

It's too bad because there are good stories in this book that a better author/editor could tell. When the actual story is allowed to be told, such as the relationships between the stars and the people of the town they stayed in during filmmaking, it can be quite good. Most of the time, the author spent as much time describing Wayne's connection to RKO and his making other RKO pictures as he does discussing The Conqueror.

The narration also does the book no favors. The narrator is not bad but he frequently puts a lot of sarcasm into the performance (that matches the implications from the word choices) which only makes the book sound more gossipy and, frankly, modern day uppity and judgmental toward the people and times of the past.

It doesn't help that once the book is done discussing the filming/release/reaction to The Conqueror there is still 2.5 hours left. At that point the author actually describes how the film industry was an unavoidable sinking ship in the face of television after The Conqueror. Only to detail nearly every major movie event (mentioning the record breaking "The Sound of Music" and "Lawrence of Arabia" with no awareness that these money-makers and future block busters are proof that the film industry did just fine in its evolution and that TV actors actually desperately wanted to transition into film roles but never succeeded until Steve McQueen in the early 60s). By the time the author gets to the famed auteur take over of the late 60s-early 70s he mentions literally dozens of names (Spielberg, DePalma et. al.) which was enough to convince me he was padding the book. Naturally, you may ask what any of this has to do with the subject of the book.

Honestly, if you want to know more about The filming of The Conqueror, old Hollywood, or Wayne/Hughes, just go to Wikipedia. That's pretty much all this book provides.