Hollywood Babylon

by Kenneth Anger

Other authorsKennet Anger (Designer)

Paper Book, 1975

Status

Available

Call number

791

Publication

Straight Arrow Books (1975), Hardcover, 292 pages

Description

"Kenneth Anger has fashioned a delicious . . . box of poisoned bonbons. Picking through the slag heap of the Hollywood dream factory, [he] has put together a truly prodigious anthology of star-studded scandal."--The New York Times Kenneth Anger is a former child movie actor who grew up to become one of America's leading underground filmmakers. Hollywood Babylon was originally published in Paris, and quickly became an underground legend. Not a word has been changed. Not a story omitted. Here is the hot, luscious plum of sizzling scandal that continues to shock the world.

User reviews

LibraryThing member h3athrow

Anyone with an interest in the history of film, celebrity gossip, pop culture, or true crime should read this book. Focusing primarily on the pre-code years of tinseltown, the book looks at the silver lining of the seamy underbelly of the movie-making beast. Absolutely fascinating. A need to read.

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LibraryThing member bcstoneb

“The Legendary Underground Classic of Hollywood's Darkest and Best Kept Secrets.”
Books on the seamy side of the film industry have been around a long time, but a half century after its original publication, Hollywood Babylon seems ever more secure in its not-so-lofty status as Tinseltown's

ultimate scandal-fest. The individuals covered amount to a veritable who’s who of the film industry’s baddest and brightest : Fatty Arbuckle, Errol Flynn, Charlie Chaplin, William Randolph Hearst, Thelma Todd, Ramon Novarro, Joan Crawford, et al. The suspects are the usual and the stories are familiar, but never have they been told with more relish, nor more guaranteed to produce a plethora of schadenfreude-laced guilty pleasures in the best of us. As one Amazon reviewer aptly puts it : ‘Like heroin. Only way more addictive.’ Generously illustrated with deliciously tabloidy photos.
Of related interest : for a general survey of corruption and decay in Hollywood's Golden Age, presented in a more highbrow style, see: Otto Friedrich’s City of Nets (Harper & Row, 1986).

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LibraryThing member u4ik

I first bought this book right out of college and loved it for being so salacious and juicy. I read it for a 2nd time recently then did Wikipedia searches on lots of the silent stars: Theda Bara, Clara Bow, Olive Thomas and a few others.........only to find that most of the info in this book on

these folks is pure slaner, libel, myth, urban legend.........whatever you want to call it......pure FALSEHOODS!!! Reader, please double check at least one other source before you believe any of the tales spun in this book!

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LibraryThing member MiaCulpa

I still can't believe how much I loved this book when I first bought it. Such scandalous behaviour by actors whose names meant nothing to me then (and only slightly more now) somehow caught my attention like few other books had before or since. Weird.

Anyhoo, "Hollywood Babylon" is a couple hundred

pages of gossip on Hollywood stars of the past. For many years I took what Kenneth Anger wrote on people like Charlie Chaplin, Paul Bern and Thomas Ince here as gospel and while I was saddened to read that in many cases there was very little link between much of the contents of "Hollywood Babylon" and reality, it still hasn't reduced my enjoyment of the book.

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LibraryThing member ablueidol

Interesting, covers similar ground as like LA Confidential but over the 20-50's in a Chandler hard-boiled type tone. Would have been revealing when it was published in the 1970's but the world has moved on

LibraryThing member rossryanross

Anger writes with such lurid aplomb. Hollywood Babylon is a delightful book.

LibraryThing member kraaivrouw

Perez Hilton's precursor - early Hollywood scandal proving that the more things change the more they stay the same.

LibraryThing member carterchristian1

Having just returned from a trip to Hollywood, walking the path of the stars, taking in Hollywood Boulevard, this is a terrific reminder. Never mind the truth of the text, just take in the photographs. Black and white, so appropriate. Just wonderful for the film buff. And much of the silent film

stuff was new to me.

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LibraryThing member madcatnip72

Deliciously creepy, sordid true tales of Hollywood’s golden age. Lots of black and white photographs lend this book a noir quality. Well-written by filmmaker Kenneth Anger, no stranger to decadence himself. Definitely recommended.

LibraryThing member harrietbrown

Things I Learned: Rich and famous people are crazy, too! Maybe even more so ...

Comments: Anger's style is perplexing, but perhaps well-suit to his subject: celebrities of the silver screen, those well-known and the infamous. It's all here, and he names names. There were several volumes of this

book published through the 1970's and 80's, all dealing with the tawdry aspects of Tinseltown. One volume that gave me bad dreams I encountered at my friends Carol's house. It was the volume dealing with the Black Dahlia murder, with crime scene photos and Elizabeth Short herself that were quite frightening. It's the kind of book that makes you glad you're just a regular Jane or Joe.

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LibraryThing member harrietbrown

A sensational book that blows the lid off Old Hollywood and its Golden Age. All the news that wasn't fit to print. If you're looking for a book to keep you up late at night reading, this is it!

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