The Wrath of Kahn

Since it's early days, people have died trying to produce cinema. There are so many ways a production can go wrong. Technicians can be electrocuted, stunt men can be crushed and actors can be accidentally shot. Usually when a movie kills, it is only one or two people. In the case of the 1956 epic “The Conqueror” 91 were killed.

Produced by Howard Hughes and directed by Dick Powell, “The Conqueror” tells the story of Genghis Kahn…played by John Wayne. Shooting on this movie required a fair amount of desert exteriors. These were shot in St. George Utah, directly downwind from the Upshot-Knothole nuclear tests in Nevada. I think you can see where this is going.

Of the 220 people on the cast and crew 91 of them were eventually diagnosed with cancer at some point in their life and roughly half of them died as a result. One Utah based professor, Dr. Robert Pendleton, describes this as a pandemic due to the large amount of infection among such a relatively small sample size.

Was this God attempting to show us folly of our mad nuclear obsession? Was it the spirit of Genghis Kahn showing his displeasure in being portrayed by an actor in yellow face? Or maybe it was just a big ol’ pile of dumb luck. Though the first two would make for pretty awesome movies – I think it was the latter.