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John Wayne – politics aside – has always been a man’s man. He rode hard, smoked plenty, and treated the bottle as if it was his last stand at the OK Corral. From his rise to fame with Stagecoach to the pinnacle of his star power with The Searchers and going out with a blaze of Oscar glory in True Grit, the Duke has done it all: the good, the bad, and definitely the ugly.

Title: The Conqueror: Hollywood Fallout (2023) Director: William Nunez Writer: William Nunez Studio: Blue Fox Entertainment // Stone Canyon Pictures IMDb Plot: The story of one of the great environmental disasters to befall the United States, and the terrible movie that help bring the catastrophe to light. Joe Says: Director William Nunez has created a compelling and relatable documentary that demands to be seen. This one does not end with a slow ride into a welcoming sunset, either.

In 1948, seeking to expand his empire into Hollywood, billionaire Howard Hughes purchased the financially-floundering RKO Studios. He wanted to make movies. Big movies with big stories about larger-than-life characters. So he purchased a script about Genghis Khan. Written by Oscar Millard, the to-be-made film was titled The Conqueror and depicted the great Khan’s rise to power, to love, and to, well, conquering. Dick Powell was set to direct it with up-and-coming box office legend Marlon Brando set to star.

Brando dropped out. Against Millard’s advice, Powell attached the Duke instead. The cast was filled with the likes of Susan Hayward and Lee Van Cleef and Agnes Moorehead. Not an Asian among them. John Wayne was a white man playing a Mongol chief surrounded by other white actors.

The Conqueror (1956) had a high budget and performed respectably well at the box office. However, The Conqueror quickly fell from respectability to become a critical disaster; a prime example of not only Hollywood’s convenient lack of self-awareness but one with wider, rampant xenophobia.

The story, unfortunately, does not end there. Documentarian and Jersey’s own William Nunez painfully lays out the deadly fallout to those involved in The Conqueror: Hollywood Fallout as the on-location shooting took place on the irradiated sands in southern Utah – downwind from the nuclear tests in Nevada.

Narrated by Sophie Okonedo (Janet Planet), The Conqueror: Hollywood Fallout excruciatingly points out that not only did 91 cast and crew members from The Conqueror contract and die from cancer, including the Duke, Hayward, Morehead, Powell, and Mexican star Pedro Armendariz (From Russia With Love), but so has generations of families living in St. George, Utah. Nunez’s story breaks away from the cheesy Hollywood backdrop and opens up a deep, painful exposé into blatant government irresponsibility and a massive cover up.

Nunez breaks it down even simpler. The American military detonated – on domestic US soil – 928 nuclear weapons. In the state of Nevada. A little over 60 miles outside of Las Vegas.

That number again is 928.

Radioactive particles and gasses were spread in the atmosphere before falling to earth exposing millions of American citizens who happened to live downwind to radiation fallout. And the American government tried to cover it all up.

While the incredible 2023 documentary Downwind explored the devastation of these events on downwinders and their plight, Nunez focuses more on the cover up, the misinformation, and the pay offs. While he quickly becomes too repetitive with the delivery of his thesis statement, his point is an important one.

Nunez expertly ties together the crazy decisions of Hollywood, the selfishness of billionaires, and the foolishness of the US Government into a compelling and relatable documentary that demands to be seen. This one does not end with a slow ride into a welcoming sunset, either.