Ezra's Bookshelf

Hollywood Babylon

by Kenneth Anger · 452 pages · ~8 hrs

Society & CultureMedia & Journalism

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Kenneth Anger, an experimental filmmaker associated with the underground avant-garde, compiled these stories of scandal and tragedy from Hollywood's golden age. First published in France in 1959 and expanded for American release in 1975, the book mixes documented history with gossip, rumor, and invention. Anger covers silent-era scandals—Fatty Arbuckle's trial, William Desmond Taylor's unsolved murder—as well as later tragedies including the deaths of Jean Harlow and James Dean. The book is illustrated with rare photographs, many gruesome or sensational. Anger's tone is simultaneously fascinated and moralistic, presenting Hollywood as a moral cesspool while clearly relishing the sordid details. Scholars have disputed many of his claims, and the book is better understood as a cultural document than as reliable history. It reflects mid-century attitudes toward celebrity and scandal, and influenced generations of tabloid journalism. Anger himself was a pioneering figure in gay underground cinema, and his outsider perspective shapes the book's gleeful exposure of Hollywood hypocrisy. This is not a work of careful scholarship but an artifact of a particular moment in American culture.

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