This week marks 72 years since “The Conqueror” hit US cinemas. John Wayne, who later starred in a D-Day film, reteamed with fellow director John Ford for the Oscar-winning classic.
The film was considered by the director to be his most erotic film. The plot revolves around Sean Thornton, Duke’s former boxer, making a pilgrimage to his home village in Ireland in the 1920s to take possession of his family’s property.
In Ireland, Wayne’s character found his equal partner in Mary Kate Danaher (Maureen O’Hara) and her difficult brother Red, played by Victor McLaglen.
The film was shot in counties Mayo and Galway and the lead actress had a difficult time on set after filming the scene where Sean (Duke) kisses her for the first time.
At that moment, her character hits him in the face, but the western star’s defense proved so strong that he accidentally broke her hand.
The Victor was shot in chronological order, so the poor actress had to deal with the pain for the rest of the shoot without a cast to put the bone back in place. And as if that wasn’t enough, O’Hara had to endure Ford’s notorious rudeness and provocation towards his actors. He had deliberately made McLaglen angry for the final fight scene in The Victor, but she wasn’t going to put up with that.
While filming the scene where Wayne’s Sean finds his Mary Kate in his cottage, it was so windy that her hair kept falling in her face and she had to blink. Ford yelled at his leading lady to open her eyes, to which she immediately shot back, “What does a bald son of a bitch know about hair whipping across his eyeballs?!”
When it came to filming the final scene of The Victor, Wayne was completely baffled by O’Hara’s improvised line that Ford insisted on. In the scene in question, the pair waved goodbye before Mary Kate whispered something to Sean that really left the Western legend gasping. At first she refused to utter the mysterious words, writing years later in her memoir, “I couldn’t possibly say that to Duke!” However, Ford insisted she did it in order to get a genuinely shocked reaction from her co-star, which absolutely worked.
Only these three knew the saying and took it with them to the grave. Since the director considered “The Winner” to be his hottest film, it was probably considered daring in the early 1950s.
