The Carpetbaggers 1964

This is about as close to swingin' as 'The Carpetbaggers' gets!

Harold Robbins’ The Carpetbaggers was a “bad” book that was made into “dirty” movie. Like Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls’ and its movie version, I always wondered as a kid how much of the “good parts” got cut when they were shown on TV.

Today, I can say there aren’t any truly “good parts” to either movie! The Carpetbaggers is all 1964 T & A tease, there’s no bad language, and the one “nude” scene filmed with Carroll Baker never made to the screen.

One of the few times George Peppard cracks a smile as ruthless tycoon Jonas Cord.

The Carpetbaggers is just a soft core cartoon of the life of Howard Hughes, the rich kid who ran with the ball—making airplanes, movies, and business deals. Hughes was famous for the women in his life, though what actually went on behind doors has been questioned over the last few decades. In real life, even the young Hughes was shy and eccentric, which made women want to mother him. However, in The Carpetbaggers, Jonas Cord is a cool, cruel stud who is catnip to the ladies and a ballsy business man and innovator. He works hard, plays hard, and drinks hard. In short, Jonas Cord is a cartoon daydream of what every man dreamed to live like back in the early 1960s. Except that this movie takes place during the ‘20s & ‘30s.

The Carpetbaggers’ plot and dialogue are cartoonish. The women always seem to be in negligees or nude under furs, the men are hard-drinking and dirty-dealing, and it all feels more like Hugh Hefner than Howard Hughes. John Michael Hayes, who started off screenwriting for Hitchcock, later became the go-to guy to “clean up” all those “dirty” books like BUtterfield 8 and that other Robbins epic, Where Love Has Gone.

Nevada Smith and Rina Marlowe goin' Hollywood in 'The Carpetbaggers.'

The Carpetbaggers abounds with amusing moments, such as the pompous opening narration that sounds more suited to a biblical epic, which aptly describes Jonas Cord, Jr. as “fabulous and fictional!”

Or the early scene that establishes Jonas’ source of pain, where he enters the room of his long-lost twin brother, who apparently went insane. His father had the other brother banished to an institution. When Jonas opens the long-sealed off room, a cloud of dust emanates that resembles a small atomic bomb going off.

To give you an idea how phony this movie is, there’s the scene where Jonas Cord reacts to the death of stepmother/sex bomb Rina Marlowe by going on a bender. He wakes up in a whorehouse a week later, worse for wear. Peppard hilariously sports shiny grey greasepaint that’s supposed to be unshaven stubble—he looks like a weary clown.

George Peppard, as Jonas, with then real-life wife Elizabeth Ashley, as long-suffering Mrs. Cord.

 Adding to the artificiality of all this is that except for the opening aerial scene, the entire movie seems to have been filmed on Paramount’s sets or back lot, and looks it.

Edith Head's hybrid creations—the costumes have just barely enough period detail to depict the ‘20s and ‘30s era, but veer toward ‘60s style—add to the unreality. This isn’t Head’s fault: Edith once spoke about getting berated by producer Hal Wallis, for trying to sneak period details into her costumes for 1965’s The Sons of Katie Elder. Authenticity was not the order of the day for ‘60s period movies.

The one true highlight of The Carpetbaggers is the swaggering Elmer Bernstein score, especially over the opening credits. Bernstein rocks, as always.

George Peppard gives a committed if one-dimensional performance as Jonas Cord, Jr. The blonde actor with the piercing blue eyes was a bit like Paul Newman, but without his sculpted face and abs, much less his empathic qualities. While Peppard played similar cynical roles as Paul, George’s sneering cads were closer to Laurence Harvey than Paul Newman. Peppard, a heavy drinker, already looks soft here. And the scenes of 35-year-old George as a college-age daredevil are a bit much.

'The Carpetbaggers' was Alan Ladd's last film, who died at 50, a decade after his greatest role as 'Shane.'

Alan Ladd, in his last performance as Nevada Smith, is a bit like watching Clark Gable in The Misfits, a welcome yet sad sight. Like other older icons playing guest starring roles in the ‘60s, Ladd is the most interesting and authentic thing about The Carpetbaggers. Laconic and weary, Ladd is the observer of the action, and is fascinating to watch. After the climactic brawl between Jonas and his mentor, Cord asks Nevada what he can do to make amends. Before walking out, Ladd, in a nod to Gable’s Rhett Butler, replies, “Junior, I haven’t the faintest idea.”  Sadly, Alan Ladd died shortly after making the film, from a mix of alcohol and sleeping pills.

Carroll Baker as Rina isn't guessing Ladd's Nevada Smith's weight, but his age! And guesses wrong.

However, the love scene that brings Nevada Smith and Rina Marlowe together—Alan Ladd and Carroll Baker—is cringe-worthy. When Rina asks how old Nevada is, Smith says 43. Ladd was only 50, but after years of cigarettes, booze, and pills, he frankly looks closer to 60. Even more eye-rolling is when Baker replies that he looks 30, as Ladd tries to button up his shirt, her pawing his chest, with a clear side view of his jowls.

Capping this ludicrous scene is when Nevada asks Rina how old she is. Baker purrs that she’s 20—and Ladd replies that she looks 30! Baker had been kicking around Hollywood nearly a decade when it was decided to give her a Marilyn Monroe-type sex symbol build up at age 33.

After a decade as a "serious" method actor, Carroll Baker got the sex symbol build up at 33.

This came courtesy of Carroll’s studio, Paramount, and producer Joseph E. Levine. Other actresses claimed they were offered the role of Rina Marlowe aka Jean Harlow, including Joan Collins and Angie Dickinson. No knock on Baker, but after starting off in Hollywood as an imported Actors Studio “serious” actress—a decade later she was getting groomed as a sex goddess? This seems a bit ass backward—which is how it came to pass, as Baker bumbled through later sexy roles Sylvia and most notoriously, Harlow. I recall acerbic critic Judith Crist saying that The Carpetbaggers’ Carroll Baker had “all the sex appeal of a whole wheat muffin.”

Carroll was no cat on a hot tin roof: "Junior! Junior! Junior!"

In this type of role, Carroll Baker’s style always came across like Elizabeth Taylor-Lite. After a failed attempt at seducing Jonas Cord, Jr., following the death of his father, Baker shrieks after him, “Junior! Junior! Junior!” Carroll sounds puny and petulant, lacking the verve in which Taylor put over the equally junky BUtterfield 8.

40-year-old Martha Hyer's Jennie Denton as the young successor to Baker's late Rina Marlowe.

The studio star system was pretty much over at this point and Hollywood had many sexy young starlets all dolled up and nowhere to go. So, why was 40-ish Martha Hyer cast as a Jane Russell kind of starlet with a Joan Crawford kind of past? Russell was tapped by Hughes at 19 as his next sex symbol. Hyer benefited as the fiancée, later wife, of super producer Hal Wallis, whose films were released through Paramount. One of the most synthetic of Hollywood's ‘50s blondes, Hyer was neither sexy enough to suggest Monroe, nor classy enough to suggest Grace Kelly. Except for Martha's plusher curves, Baker and Hyer are interchangeable, bleached blonde ‘60s Playboy bunnies, playing dress up as ‘30s starlets. Baker became more interesting later, as a character actress; Hyer didn't, and eventually retired.

Elizabeth Ashley has always grated on my nerves, especially as she grew older and hammier, in the Kathleen Turner self-aggrandizing mode. But here, Ashley is young and gamely appealing, and about the only person resembling a human being among the younger cast.

Robert Cummings oozes more camp than sleaze as the agent negotiating with Martha Hyer.

Robert Cummings is laughable as sleazy, wolfish agent Daniel Pierce. I don’t know what Bob’s deal was off-camera, but on-camera, he comes across as such a flamer that the only pants that he would be believable trying to get into are Jonas Cord’s!

There’s a great supporting cast, but they’re stuck in stock roles: Lew Ayres as the long-suffering family lawyer; ‘40s femme fatale Audrey Totter has one scene as the hooker with a heart of gold; Leif Ericson appears in the opening, as the overbearing Jonas Cord, Sr.; and Martin Balsam as the crass studio head.

The colorful cast of The Carpetbaggers.

Like Valley of the Dolls, The Carpetbaggers got terrible reviews but made a fortune, from the public flocking to see if the film version was as dirty as the book. Today, The Carpetbaggers is just a mildly entertaining cartoon of a movie that milks every cliché about Hollywood. Enjoy!

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