John Wayne is undoubtedly the emblematic name of an entire film genre, the Western, the undisputed symbol of cowboy movies that had their golden moment in the 50s of the last century and from time to time return with a work of art and remain in homes with the replays on television on Saturday afternoons. But it wasn't a cowboy who killed the tough man played by John Wayne, it seems like it was a movie and not even a western.
John Wayne really worked on all kinds of movies, from classics like "The Quiet Man" (1952) and "Desert Centaurs" (The Searchers, 1956), to historical tapes like the one that seems to have ended up taking him and almost his entire cast.
Although there is no scientific confirmation, there is a black legend about the film "The Conqueror of Mongolia" (The Conqueror, 1956), a film biography about the Mongolian emperor Genghis Khan, directed by Dick Powell and starring the aforementioned Wayne in the role. of Temujin (later Genghis Khan), by Susan Hayward and the Mexican actor Pedro Armendariz. The film was a failure in every sense, some critics tore it to pieces, especially for the dialogues and performances, but it has gone down in history for another reason, something macabre if you will.
"The Conqueror" has been called "a radioactive film", since it was filmed in the desert of Saint George, Utah, relatively close to the Yucca Flat nuclear test site in Nevada and it is believed that the soil and environment had strong radioactivity at the time of filming. The real issue is that after "The Conqueror" was filmed, over the years, several of the members of the artistic and technical team developed cancer.
According to an investigation by "People" Magazine, about 220 members of the filming crew suffered from the disease and 46 died from the disease, including the three protagonists mentioned (in the case of Armendariz, he committed suicide before entering the phase terminal), and Director Dick Powell. Not to mention that many residents and residents of those places were also victims of cancer.
The truth is that by 1950, although nuclear weapons had been perfected and despite the devastating effects in Japan at the end of World War II, there was not enough public awareness or information about the consequences of radioactivity. Still today in episodes such as the former Soviet Union, India, and more recently Japan, there is much speculation about exposure to nuclear energy.
In Nevada, the United States military carried out at least 11 nuclear explosions, just a couple of years before the filming of the tape. The cast of the film and the technical staff were exposed to that environment for 4 months in the area and even the producer Howard Hughes ordered several tons of that soil to be brought to Hollywood studios for the indoor scenes. Apart from the research in the aforementioned journal, no scientific study has ever been carried out and at the time, the explanation was that, statistically, cancer had been growing exponentially in the United States in general and it was difficult to determine if in this case it was due to a specific reason.
In any case, they say that Howard Hughes felt guilty about what happened to this film and that in his moments of paranoia alone, he projected it in his mansion, night after night. He was the only tormented spectator of him.
It wasn't the fastest gun in the West that took the legendary John Wayne, it could have been one of his movies, rather mediocre. The cinema recreates and reflects life and sometimes it can alter the plot and add a dramatic ending.
