Les Ambitieux

On one of the Star Trek feature films Spock refers to Jacqueline Susann and Harold Robbins from his vantage point in the future as the 'old masters' of 20th century earth literature. Is that a frightening prospect or what?

One of the earliest of master Robbins works to get to the silver screen was The Carpetbaggers. It's a novel about a young industrialist whose like a tornado in his business and personal life, destroying everything in the path of Jonas Cord, Jr.

George Peppard is the younger Cord, based on Howard Hughes as you will know within the first 15 minutes of the film. Peppard is singlemindedly determined to outdo his father, Leif Erickson in every way conceivable. Erickson dies at the beginning of the film leaving an industrial empire to Peppard who rules it 24/7.

There's also a young wife Erickson left, Rina Marlowe played by Carroll Baker. Think of Baby Doll grown up a bit and you have Carroll as Rina.

The novel was an immense bestseller in its day and had a pre-existing audience so there was no way it was going to flop commercially. Knowing that is what attracted a very good cast of players to support Peppard and Baker who give some really good performances. My favorite is Robert Cummings as the sly actor's agent who doublebangs Peppard in a business deal and then attempts some blackmail. He is truly a slimeball.

Of course you can't talk about The Carpetbaggers without talking about Alan Ladd. He plays Peppard's friend and confidante Nevada Smith, a cowboy who Erickson takes on to mentor young Peppard. And he does very well in the part.

Alan Ladd's wife Sue Carol was his agent and managed his career. Or mismanaged it in one sense. She never let him gracefully transition into good character parts like Nevada Smith as so many of his contemporaries did. She insisted that he had to be the leading man as he was in his big box office days at Paramount. It's too bad Ladd didn't live to see the good reviews he got even from critics who trashed The Carpetbaggers.

How good was it? Well if it was bad, I doubt a Nevada Smith movie would have ever been made.

Ironically Ladd was also in a cast with Robert Cummings and Lew Ayres both of whom transitioned into character roles and got work the rest of their lives.

The Carpetbaggers is trashy, no doubt about it. But it gets a good production from a good cast, a mixture of old and new Hollywood of the period.

I'd heard of this movie, but had never gotten around to watching it... I was impressed by the quality of the script in some scenes and then let down in others... Interesting characters, though stereotypical. The pretty blonds, the cowboy, the drunks, the agents but one character stands out, and that is the wife of power hungry industrialist, Monica Wintrop. You think she'll flake but she keeps on going and in the end well... I won't spoil it for you! I think she has the best line in the movie. Here it goes: When her husband asks if she's pregnant: "It happens, you know, look at all the people in China!... Besides, accidents happen mostly in the home."

If you don't know who Alan Ladd is, then disregard the rest of this review.

Without Ladd, this is a fun, early 60s splashy scandalous colorful morality tale with pricey production values.

With Ladd, it's a study of old hollywood historical roman a clefs surrounding Howard Hughes and the early days of moving pictures. Ladd, a hollywood legend who the fans loved, but who critics usually dismissed, and whose star had faded to a dim glow by now, plays a role he's too old for, but works it beyond his historical acting abilities, and gives this big hit of its time the only soul it has.

This movie is doubly good if you love movies and know a bit about hollywood history.

Adaptation of Harold Robbins' bestseller, about an egomaniacal Howard Hughes-like tycoon into airplanes, making movies and womanizing, comes to the screen without too much timidity; however, this "adult entertainment" is full of grown-ups acting like spoiled children (it isn't so much a Tinsel Town wallow as it is a bubbling cauldron of reckless immaturity), resulting in a camp melodrama that you can't tear yourself away from. George Peppard is the stony-faced tyrant who runs (and sometimes ruins) the lives of everyone in his path, and his plastic-formula panic is nearly funny; Elizabeth Ashley is the good girl he marries; Alan Ladd (in his final bow) is a faded cowboy star; Carroll Baker and Martha Hyer are lookalike starlets; Robert Cummings is a smarmy agent; Martin Balsam is a studio mogul on his way out. The whole tatty enterprise smacks of artificiality, with ugly sets and ridiculous character brawls, and yet one watches nearly hypnotized by the scandal sheet-styled, B-movie glamor. **1/2 from ****

Howard Hughes? Not really. George Peppard sketches a character without ever inhabit him. It's all effect. Carroll Baker, the brilliant Baby Doll, surrenders to the marketing demands and she revisits her aggressively sexual creature with more sparkle but less depth. Alan Ladd is the one that touches personal buttons and he is wonderful. Edward Dmytryck doesn't find a real center to Harold Robbins melodrama. Elizabeth Ashley's character exemplifies what I'm trying to say. Her journey is quite simply, absurd. She loves him and she hates him in a surprisingly unpredictable pattern. Absurd to such point that's not even entertaining but irritating. - As a side note, I had the experience to watch this movie on TCM with 5 twentysomethings - They laughed and laughed as if it was a hysterical comedy - I asked them what was so funny and their replay was, everything.