Les Ambitieux

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).

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."

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 ****

When a film is based on a Harold Robbin's novel, it's pretty clear that the story isn't going to be about Amish furniture building or love among the hollyhocks. His brand of fiction is usually racy, tawdry and more than a little tasteless, yet readers lap it up, page after page, book after book and moviegoers have lapped at several films based on his work. Unfortunately, since it was 1964, not all the dirt hits the screen this time around. Peppard is the ne'er do well son of a chemical company president who, when his father drops dead in mid tongue-lashing, proceeds to boss everyone around and acquire, acquire, acquire! He doesn't just accumulate businesses and wealth, he also likes to collect women, starting with his own step-mother (Baker) a girl he dated prior to her defection to his father. He marries a sassy young flapper (Ashley), but soon enough is neglecting her, turning her into a clinging nag. He becomes involved in the aeronautics industry and the movie business as well, all the time burning out the men and women around him who do most of the dirty work. Eventually, it takes a wake up call or two to make him see what he's become, but it may be too late for him to change. Peppard gives a very one-note performance. He is great at the forceful, demanding and cold-hearted aspects of the character, but offers no warmth or buried kindness that can allow the audience to care what happens to him. (As the film progresses, he is outfitted with ridiculously made up eyebrows that give him an extra-fiendish look!) Ashley is extremely attractive in a variety of Edith Head concoctions and is the epitome of patience as she lives through Peppard's humiliations. Baker also looks smashing in a wide array of Head's silk robes and slinky evening dresses. Both women have incredibly distinct voices and deliver quite a few amusing and/or suggestive lines of dialogue in their own special way. Several solid and professional actors give decent portrayals as well. Erickson is appropriately tough and overbearing as Peppard's father, Ayres is low-key, but effective, as Peppard's put-upon attorney and Cummings is deliciously slick and sneaky as an opportunistic talent agent. Other good work comes from Ladd as a friendly father figure with a past, Balsam as a cocky studio head, Hyer as a hooker-turned-movie star and Totter as a kindly prostitute. The whole film is lavishly appointed, beautifully scored and full of eye-popping sets, costumes, cars and furnishings. What's ostensibly bad about the film (the tacky storyline, the tart, suggestive dialogue, the unbelievability of the situations) now makes it that much better for an audience that delights in flashy, showy Hollywood cheese. If it had been made only a couple of years later, it could have really been a whopping piece of sexploitation. As it stands, it's more of a tease than anything, but it holds definite rewards for those in the mood. Ladd (who clearly shows the ravages of drink and drugs in this film) would be dead of an overdose within a year. Ashley (who later married Peppard in real life) soon gave up her promising start for about 5 years and never really regained her momentum entirely.

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.