DVD details for
The Conqueror (1956) More at IMDbPro »

Five new-to-DVD films starring the slow-talking American icon gathered on 2 double-sided discs in the budget-conscious line “The Franchise Collection.” These are not necessarily the best of the Duke, and certainly not his most iconic, but they are some interesting films in the batch. Wayne is quite affecting as the protective son in a moonshining family in the Ozarks in The Shepherd of the Hills (1942), a family drama with a tough undercurrent. He has sworn to murder the father who abandoned him and his mother and gets his chance when the father (played by Harry Carey) returns as a reformed man trying to redeem his past. Henry Hathaway directs and Betty Field, Beulah Bondi, Marjorie Main and Ward Bond. He stars with Randolph Scott and Marlene Dietrich in Pittsburgh (1942), playing a ruthless entrepreneur who walks over anyone standing in his way as builds a steel empire. The trio also teamed up for The Spoilers the same year (it would have been nice to pair them in this set). The pre-stardom Wayne is second billed to La Dietrich in Seven Sinners (1940), playing a naval officer stationed in the South Pacific where nightclub chanteuse Dietrich is very popular among the men. The final films in the set have taken on an element of camp since their release: Wayne is Genghis Kahn and Susan Hayward the Tartar Princess of his desires in The Conqueror (1955), and he’s a patriot escorting defecting Soviet pilot Janet Leigh in the cold-war inflected Jet Pilot (1957), directed by Josef von Sternberg. The latter 2 films are letterboxed.