Harold Robbins' door-stopper of a novel "The Carpetbaggers" was a piece of trash and there was no way director Edward Dmytryk was going to make a silk purse out of that sow's ear while John Michael Hayes' screenplay certainly 'honored' Robbins' intentions. The central character of Jonas Cord was said to be based on Howard Hughes and given the material he had to work with, George Peppard is actually not at all bad. Of course, the movie itself is terrible, (how could it not be), but it's still ridiculously entertaining and it has a great cast; Alan Ladd, in what was to be his last role, Carroll Baker, Robert Cummings, Elizabeth Ashley, (both excellent), Martha Hyer, Lew Ayres and Martin Balsam. It may not be quite a laugh a minute but it comes close.
Review of The Carpetbaggers
