John Michael Hayes had a genius of adapting racy material to the screen with just the right amount of emphasis - so many of films from his screenplays fall into the "if it had been made a bit before it would have been too much - later not enough" category. Consider: Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, Peyton Place, The Carpetbaggers. All of them pushed it to the limit just to the right amount. His adaptations of the latter two were especially strong. The Carpetbaggers certainly has its flaws - pompous narration that starts and ends the film, and to be honest you have to know this was based on a best seller to understand why it was made in the first place, but Hayes does as good a job as possible. Its full of interesting scenes and lines, apart from the then-obligatory "fire truck" or "Rosebud" psychological revelation (i.e. "I'm only mean because when I was young they took my toy fire truck away").
George Peppard is spot on as the hard-edged Jonas Cord - he was good playing a bastard, was Peppard, who is never considered a big 60s star but still featured in a lot of big hits. (I think he was kind of like Kurt Russell in that way).
Carroll Baker is also very good as his step mother Rita - she is exploited physically to the nth degree, is Baker - the first shot of her has her draped in a towel with a bare back, she has one scene where she dances on a chandelier (bare back again) - but you have to say she suits it, with that wonderfully throaty voice and experienced look (this film revived her career, turning her into a sex symbol - but she kind of was one earlier, even in her earlier films eg Baby Doll and Giant, she always looked as though she knew what she was doing).
Martha Hyer is quite sympathetic (if a bit too visually similar to Baker, which I guess is the point but makes it harder for her to have an impact) as a later love of Cord's - an ex hooker he turns into a star and betrays. (NB this film makes turning people into stars look very easy - Cord does it both with Baker and Hyer. If he'd made one flop it might have been more believable - Howard Hughes did strike gold with Jane Russell and Jean Harlow but don't forget Faith Domerge.)
Alan Ladd makes his final appearance, the first time (apart from cameos) he didn't play the lead ever since This Gun for Hire. He looks awful, bloated and tired, like the aging alcoholic he was - which is OK towards the end of the film when his character is supposed to be an aging alcoholic, but not at the beginning. When Baker takes off his shirt rubs his chest seductively and asks "how old are you, Nevada" and he says 43 and Baker says "you look 30" - he looks as though he's lying (he looks in his fifties) and so is she. I know cowboy actors like William Boyd made it later on in life but they didn't have that tired, washed out look that Ladd has, so you don't believe he's a star either. But as I said later on in the film he is better when he's down on his luck and has been through a bit of a battle - indeed, his scenes with Peppard towards the end are quite touching. (Ladd looked such a wreck towards the end of his life it's a shame he never got the chance to play a role that really exploited it - the way, say, Errol Flynn got to with his drunk parts in the late 50s).
Far better is Bob Cummings as a slimy Hollywood agent - there was always something inherently a little slimy about Cummings (the way there was about another "nice guy" actor, Fred MacMurray), and its exploited here effectively: he's slightly effeminate, aging, with a wicked glint in his eye. It's a terrific performance.
Martin Balsam is also good as a ruthless Hollywood type (though legal point - if he sold the studio to Peppard without telling Peppard that Baker has died, then Peppard would probably be able to have the contract ruled invalid ).
Lew Ayres is sturdy in one of those "essentially decent person" roles he was often found in. Elisabeth Ashley has the other key role, as Peppard's wife - she has voice and personality, Ashley, but she looks a little funny - bug eyes or something, not that attractive (maybe it's the hair she wears in this film), and you can understand from this why she never became the big star people were predicting of her despite clearly having ability and a warm personality - despite those things, she doesn't have Baker's on-screen va-va-voom.
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