Hollywood Babylon on AllMovie

Few films have disgusted and outraged the Hollywood community from top to bottom as thoroughly as this one. Though it purports to be a documentary/docudrama based on filmmaker Kenneth Anger's book Hollywood Babylon, it uses the book's theme -- scandals in the early Hollywood era -- as a takeoff point for making a softcore porn film. That in itself would not be cause for particular disgust. What arouses professional scorn is that it rehashes nearly every salacious rumor ever heard in Hollywood from the 1920s to the '70s. Even that, perhaps, might not have so deeply offended the movie world, if it were not so clear that the makers of this film had money-grubbing rather than honest muckraking in mind. As it stands, the movie violates just about every ethical standard going, without actually breaking the law. Abounding in simulated sex with unknown actors standing in for their famous counterparts, it has a certain stomach-churning fascination.