The Carpetbaggers (1964)

After his father (Leif Erickson) dies and he inherits the bulk of his father's estate, his son (George Peppard) becomes one of the richest men in America as he dedicates himself to business and becomes even wealthier as an aviation pioneer before moving into the movie business. Based on the novel by Harold Robbins and directed by Edward Dmytryk (THE YOUNG LIONS). Robbins' sprawling, sleazy best selling roman a clef about Howard Hughes was turned by producer Joseph E. Levine and director Dmytryk into a juicy, trashy potboiler with a purple prose screenplay by John Michael Hayes (REAR WINDOW). Hayes miraculously turned Grace Metalious' lurid best seller PEYTON PLACE from a sow's ear into a silk purse. Alas, no such miracle here. But you can't take your eyes off the screen. As the Howard Hughes stand in, George Peppard is excellent at playing cruel and unlikable but he's not charismatic enough. Surely there must have been something about a man like Hughes that attracted people to him besides money. As the Jean Harlow equivalent (a role she would play the following year), Carroll Baker is perfect and Alan Ladd in his final film (he died before the movie opened) plays the aging cowpoke Nevada Smith. The novel contained so much background on the character that Steve McQueen made a whole movie of it 2 years later. The eye catching costumes are by Edith Head and the energetic score is by Elmer Bernstein. The large cast includes Robert Cummings (ideal as  a slimy agent), Martha Hyer (in the film's best performance), Elizabeth Ashley, Lew Ayres, Martin Balsam, Audrey Totter, Tom Tully, Arthur Franz, Ralph Taeger and Archie Moore.