The Carpetbaggers is a 1964 American drama film directed by Edward Dmytryk, based on the best-selling 1961 novel The Carpetbaggers 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.

The supporting cast features Carroll Baker as a character extremely loosely based on Jean Harlow as well as Martha Hyer, Bob Cummings, Elizabeth Ashley, Lew Ayres, Ralph Taeger, Leif Erickson, Archie Moore and Tom Tully.

He destroys a business rival named Winthrop, then seduces and marries the man's daughter Monica, only to abandon her when she wants to settle down and have a home and children.

Meanwhile, former Cord company stockholder Nevada Smith finds work in western films, becoming a popular cowboy hero.

This gives Cord an interest in the second-rate studio that produces Nevada's films, plus creative control over the resulting movie.

Rina dies in a drunken car crash and Cord's studio is sold out from under him by Dan Pierce, a renegade employee loyal to the old management.

Producer Joseph E. Levine initially claimed he would disregard the Production Code in making his adaptation of Robbins' book.

[9] Joan Collins, in her autobiography, Past Imperfect (1978), says she had a firm offer to play Rina Marlowe but had to decline because of pregnancy.

[19] Kino Lorber subsequently released a Blu-ray edition in the United States on November 23, 2023, featuring a 4K restoration from the original film elements.

[22] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times panned the film as "a sickly sour distillation of Harold Robbins's big-selling novel", with the protagonist "a thoroughly mechanical movie puppet, controlled by a script-writer's strings", and Peppard's performance "expressionless, murky and dull.

"[23] Variety wrote, "Psychological facets of the story are fuzzy, and vital motivational information is withheld to the point where it no longer really seems to matter why he is the miserable critter he is.

One sits there squirming in the captive presence of its unremitting boldness and bad taste for two-and-a-half hours (it ends again and again and starts up again and again), waiting only for its central figure, Jonas Cord Jr., to be cornered and stomped on like the rat he is.

"[25] Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post described the film as "wild, fruity nonsense" and observed, "At all events, Robbins and Hayes have it beautifully tied up psychologically and all I can say is that I'm glad I never had an insane twin.

Crowther cited the film, along with Kiss Me, Stupid, for giving American movies the reputation of "deliberate and degenerate corruptors of public taste and morals".

Dmytryk does a very clean, efficient job of direction, interweaving the various strands of his complicated story with exemplary clarity, but somehow there is an element missing: the film is big, bold, sprawlingly epic and all that, but it never manages to carry off its outrageous silliness with any of the flourish of the good old days.

"[30] Filmink magazine wrote Cummings played "a magnificently slimy agent – slightly effeminate, aging, with a wicked glint in his eye: it’s a terrific performance.

"[31] For her role as Monica, Elizabeth Ashley received BAFTA and Golden Globe awards nominations for Best Supporting Actress.

This version was used to accompany the titles and credits for the UK BBC 2 The Money Programme, a finance and current affairs television magazine program.