I don’t see a great many documentaries, and probably half of the ones I do are about moviemaking, because that is what most interests me.  This particular British documentary combines two stories: that of a really misguided and bad 1956 adventure produced by Howard Hughes and the lethal environmental situation which that movie eventually unearthed years after its release.  Like the best documentaries (and other movies) it sets up certain expectations about its subject, only to bloom far past those expectations to uncover deeper truths and meanings.

William Nunez’s film takes aim at the 1956 adventure The Conqueror, regarded as probably the worst John Wayne movie ever made.  Produced by Howard Hughes and directed by Dick Powell, the film tells the rise to power of Mongol chief Temujin (John Wayne), who becomes better known as Genghis Khan after he takes possession of the Tartar princess Bortai (Susan Hayward) and they fall in love.  It is truly a ridiculous film, misguided from the start, with major American movie stars who should have known better than to appear as Asian characters, a conscientiously formal and often hilarious script that makes those stars seem even sillier (I love to quote the Duke’s declaration of love, “You’re beautiful in your wrath!”) and action scenes that demonstrate where Hughes spent two-and-a-half million dollars.  The documentary spends some time documenting the production and conveying the derision that the film faced way back then and now.

But the primary reason for this documentary is the aftermath.  The Conqueror was filmed in southern Utah in 1953, soon after — and during — ongoing atomic tests in the Nevada desert just 130 miles away.  Cast and crew spent months working outside in an area that proved to be a hotbed of radiant radiation, and eventually nearly one-third of the 220 people involved in the production passed away of one form or another of cancer.  It wasn’t until studies became public in the early 1980s that even the Utah residents realized that they were living in poisonous conditions, and much of this documentary is given to their concerns.  A map is shown of the test blast fallout patterns from more than 500 tests from the late 1940s through the early 1970s which genuinely alarmed me, showing just how much area of the western and plains states has been dusted with radioactivity over that time.  Radioactivity made by American tests on American soil, and which was denied to be hazardous by every governmental administration until the truth became too plain and obvious to deny any more.

Nunez and his team do a nice job interviewing Utah residents, all of whom have lost friends, relatives or neighbors to cancer.  They uncover and display accounts and documents that prove that the Atomic Energy Commission knew the fallout was poisonous but felt that the ongoing tests were too valuable to discontinue.  And people kept becoming sick and dying.  Children, pregnant women, Pedro Armendariz and John Wayne.  This is a tragic tale of American history, and it is mind-boggling to me that it only came to light when it did because so many of the movie’s cast and crew died and people began to connect the dots.  We don’t hear any of the AEC’s defense because they of course would not comment, but this is yet another example of government action causing harm to its own citizenry.  Sure, atomic tests were necessary, but 500 of them?  The facts are there; draw your own conclusions.  ☆ ☆ ☆.  16 August 2026.