The Conqueror

A notoriously awful John Wayne effort, THE CONQUEROR has been written about and discussed continually since its premiere. It is a disaster for a variety of reasons, including its remarkably atrocious dialogue, ridiculous casting, producer Howard Hughes' bizarre obsession with the film in his later years, and, most importantly, the fact that the film was shot in Utah, only 136 miles from a huge atomic test site. Of the 220 people who worked on the film, more than 90 later contracted cancer, and half of those died from the disease. The deaths included director Dick Powell and stars John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Pedro Armendariz, and Agnes Moorehead. This terrible sacrif...