The Carpetbaggers (film)
| The Carpetbaggers | |
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U.S. poster art
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| Directed by | Edward Dmytryk |
| Produced by | Joseph E. Levine |
| Written by | John Michael Hayes Harold Robbins (novel) |
| Starring |
George Peppard Alan Ladd Carroll Baker Bob Cummings Martha Hyer |
| Music by | Elmer Bernstein |
| Cinematography | Joseph MacDonald |
| Edited by | Frank Bracht |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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150 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $3.3 million |
| Box office | $40,000,000 |
The Carpetbaggers is a 1964 American film directed by Edward Dmytryk, based upon the best-selling novel of the same name by Harold Robbins, and starring George Peppard as Jonas Cord, a character based loosely on Howard Hughes, and Alan Ladd in his last role as Nevada Smith, a former western gunslinger turned actor. Carroll Baker, Martha Hyer, Bob Cummings and Elizabeth Ashley also star.
The film is a landmark of the sexual revolution of the 1960s, venturing further than most films of the period with its heated sexual embraces, innuendo, and sadism between men and women, much like the novel, where "there is sex and/or sadism every 17 pages".
Filmed in 35mm Panavision, this was one of the first movies to be blown up to 70mm ("Panavision 70") for premiere screening. The Carpetbaggers was released in April 1964. Two years after this film, Steve McQueen played Ladd's character in a Western prequel entitled Nevada Smith.
Jonas Cord Jr. becomes one of America's richest men in the early twentieth century, inheriting an explosives company from his late father. Jonas resents his alcoholic father bitterly and is psychologically scarred from the death of an insane twin brother. Afraid that his brother's insanity is carried in the bloodline, Jonas avoids romantic commitments and doesn't want children of his own. He hates for anyone to call him "Junior" - or especially to call him "crazy" - with his reckless ways and wild money-making schemes.
Jonas buys up all the company stock including some held by Nevada Smith, a former western gunslinger. Once a wanted man named Max Sand, Nevada reformed and changed his name. In his new identity, Nevada had practically raised Jonas in the absence of his father. However, Jonas always investigates his associates and has uncovered the truth about Nevada's past. Jonas Cord Jr. also pays off his father's young widow, Rina Marlowe, a shapely blonde. She was his first girlfriend, much adored, in his naive youth. When he introduced her to his father, the elder Cord had promptly seduced and married her. Bitter and vengeful, Jonas carries on with his stepmother behind his father's back, in an ongoing love/hate relationship. He despises her for marrying his father strictly for money. Rina is portrayed as a sexually assertive gold-digger and expert manipulator of men, but she can't get the best of Jonas. Rina takes the money and moves to Paris, partying her way through the Roaring Twenties, ending up penniless but still beautiful.
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