Les Ambitieux

Based on the best seller by Harold Robbins, this tale of ruthless tycoon Jonas Cord Jr. is no doubt the apparent life story of Howard Hughes. Though the raunchy sexual escapades in the novel have been all but dropped, this was considered very adult and daring at the time of its initial release in 1964. George Peppard plays Jonas Cord Jr. In the first opening scenes, we're treated to a young carefree Jonas with little on his mind except sex and thrills. This soon changes when his father dies of a sudden heart attack and leaves Jr. his vast holdings. Jonas takes dad's ample assets and sets his sights on multiplying everything in as quickly and as calculatingly a manner as possible. He also thinks nothing of toying with his late father's sexy young widow, Rina played by Carroll Baker. He buys her out and sends her packing. Alan Ladd is longtime mentor & friend Nevada who watches these shenanigans from the sidelines and cleans up the mess. Elizabeth Ashley is wonderful as Monica, whom Jonas marries, only to neglect when he tires of her desire to become a mother. Robert Cummings is very effective as a slimy agent, and the always outstanding Martin Balsam is equally as good as a Harry Cohn like studio head. Martha Hyer, who usually plays cool well bred blondes, is surprisingly convincing as call girl Jennie Denton. Small parts are very well played by Leif Erickson, Audrey Totter, and Lew Ayres. Great musical score by Elmer Bernstein, and terrific photography by Joseph MacDonald. This movie is like having a television mini series rolled into a 2& half hour movie.

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."

Like Charles Foster Kane, Jonas Cord is far more dashing and virile than the fellow this film carefully avoids claiming he was actually based on.

Harold Robbins' trashy 1961 bestseller cashing in on the late fifties fascination with the Roaring Twenties erupted into this Technicolor nonsense with a once in a lifetime cast (it was the debut of Elizabeth Ashley and the posthumous swansong of Alan Ladd). George Peppard is a much more rugged adventurer than the man it's not based on (who's actual story just continued to get weirder and weirder for another ten years after this version abruptly ends).

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 ****