I always thought that casting John Wayne as Genghis Khan was ridiculous, and I still do but not because he is a tall white dude.Apparently the real Genghis Khan was a tall redheaded guy with green eyes. His grandsons had light hair and gray eyes. His grandson who was the first Khan of the Golden Horde in southern Russia had freckles. Up until the 3rd Century AD it was redheaded warriors, Caucasions, who dominated the Barbarians north of the Great Wall. Even today there are redheaded folks living in West China. Genghis was descended from them.Maybe if he had worn a long beard like the real Genghis, and lost the Cowboy drawl this movie would have made B status? As it is, D minus is he highest I can give.

Yeah, it's that bad. Oh, Duke, what were you thinking? Look, I'm a big John Wayne fan. He was one of the all-time greats and made many wonderful classic films. But this is a complete misfire from start to finish. The script is terrible with lots of corny lines delivered in a stilted manner by actors who I know are capable of better. John Wayne gets a lot of flak from certain circles about his acting ability, but anyone who's seen him in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon or The Searchers knows how good he could be. Here he's just awful. This is easily the worst performance I've ever seen from him. Granted the script is bad but his delivery is so wooden and lacking in range I doubt even better dialogue would have sounded good coming from him here. He's not the only one stinking up the joint, either. Agnes Moorehead, Susan Hayward, and Pedro Armendariz have all shown in other movies that they are capable of good performances. Here they couldn't be any worse if they were intentionally trying to be. Of course, the yellowface makeup everyone is sporting doesn't help matters.Directed by Dick Powell (yes, that Dick Powell) and produced by Howard Hughes, the movie is more remembered today for its controversial backstory than simply being the forgettable historical "epic" that it is. As likely everyone reading this knows, the movie is notorious for possibly contributing to the cancer-related deaths of many of the cast and crew. It was filmed downwind of a nuclear testing site, as well as filming scenes in Hollywood on the irradiated soil that Hughes had shipped back for the sake of making studio re-shoots match the original film site's terrain. If not for this tragic bit of history, this movie would probably be far less known today. Yes, it's a dud starring one of the biggest movie stars ever, but every star has at least one movie that's embarrassing to look back on. It is probably the worst movie of John Wayne's career. I can't really think of another one that's worse but I haven't seen many of his early cheapies yet. Something every Wayne completist needs to see but be prepared -- it really deserves its bad reputation.

John Wayne as Genghis Khan? Forget it. The Duke comes out more like a gunslinger than the Mongolian firebrand.An absolutely awful production and it's just too bad that so many in the cast succumbed to the effects of radiation testing nearby where the film was shot.After the best ever performance as Lillian Roth in "I'll Cry Tomorrow," Susan Hayward comes off here as totally ridiculous. Agnes Moorehead, as Wayne's mother, is not good. Her same dress throughout the film reminded me of Edith Head's design for Judith Anderson, as Memnit, in "The Ten Commandments."Treachery and more treachery abounds here and one actually could use a score card in listing those betraying others.At least, Ted De Corsia comes across fairly well as the Tartar leader, father of Hayward, who had killed Wayne's father years before.

John Wayne is improbably cast (to say the least!) as Mongol chief Temujin, later Genghis Khan, leading his Mongolian army in a battle against the Tartars, falling for the enemy leader's fiery, beautiful daughter. With three cinematographers credited, the picture certainly looks good, but director Dick Powell can't seem to pick up the pace, and it quickly becomes a leaden affair punctuated by inane dialogue. Princess Susan Hayward and the supporting players are all ridiculously miscast, but none more so than the Duke, whose performance might have passed muster had he been encouraged to play it strictly for laughs. Produced for RKO by Howard Hughes, who reportedly was obsessed with this movie and later bought sole rights to it, effectively keeping it out of circulations for years. Filmed partly on-location in Utah near an atomic weapons test site, with many in the cast and crew later succumbing to cancer-related deaths. *1/2 from ****