The Best of the Hollywood Babylon Films

John Goodman burns it up in Barton Fink (1991). Image courtesy of the IMDb.

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Just because I felt like it, I've drawn up a list below of the best examples of a film genre I've dubbed the "Hollywood Babylon" movie.

To qualify as a Hollywood Babylon film, the plot must combine an expose of "the dark side of Hollywood" with madness, murder, and often, a neo-Gothic sensibility. The name of the genre comes from Kenneth Anger's famous book (still in print) exposing many of the seamier secrets of the 20th Century film industry.

Hollywood Babylon films usually trod on the same themes, chief amongst them the pain of fading fame or of fame that was expected to arrive but never did. The pursuit of power, fame and money or the loss thereof drive these films' protagonists to do grotesque things, including violence and breathtaking cruelty.

Some of the films on this list are dark comedies; others are deadly serious and haunting. Many of these films are also based on real-life characters and events experienced by their writers, producers and directors in Tinseltown, which makes them that much more entertaining.

Here are nine of the top films in the genre, ranked:

9- Swimming with Sharks (1994), written and directed by George Huang; starring Kevin Spacey, Michelle Forbes, Frank Whaley and Benecio Del Toro. This dark comedy stars Whaley as a naive film school grad named Guy, who takes a job as a personal assistant to one Buddy Ackerman (Spacey), a big time Hollywood producer with a reputation as an extremely abusive creep.

This is a low-budget, indie film that features Spacey before his big break-out roles in Se7en (1995) and The Usual Suspects (1995), and he turns in an amazing performance that dominates the whole film. The abusive Buddy treats Guy so badly that the young plebe kidnaps his boss and brutally tortures him. The kidnap plot ends up in murder, but it’s not Buddy who goes to the morgue in a bizarre "twist" to the plot. Benecio Del Toro has a hilarious cameo as Buddy’s former assistant Rex, offering Guy advice on how to handle his beastly boss.

The director and writer, George Huang, worked as a Hollywood PA himself and reportedly based the characters on real people. (A glance at Huang’s filmography shows he hasn’t gotten much work in Hollywood since he made Swimming With Sharks). This film is smart, funny and dark, although the ending has that rushed feel that, in indie films, usually means the budget was running out. On disc.

8- S.O.B. (1981), written and directed by Blake Edwards; starring Julie Andrews, William Holden, Richard Mulligan, Robert Preston, Shelly Winters, and tons of famous television stars from the 60s and 70s. This film will always be remembered for one thing: it’s the movie in which Mary Poppins shows the world her boobs. Otherwise, it’s a savage satire of the film industry in all of its cruelties, grotesqueries, follies, and foibles.

It starts with a running gag about an older, has-been actor who dies of a heart attack while jogging on the beach in Malibu; no one notices, because he’s no longer famous enough to warrant attention from the self-absorbed glitteratti milling on the fabled shore. His body just lies there throughout the film, moldering away, while bikini’d blondes and hairy-chested, middle-aged producers in Speedos pass by, oblivious.

Mulligan stars as Felix Farmer, an A-list producer whose latest film, a sappy musical comedy, is a total dog and he knows it. In a town where you’re only as good as your last picture, he’s desperate to avoid the humiliation of a flop. To make matters worse, his wife leaves him; this is Sally Miles, a famous musical comedy star beloved the world over for her saccharine, good girl roles (i.e., it’s Julie Andrews, playing herself--and also, Blake Edwards's real life wife.) Depressed and despairing, Mulligan attempts suicide several times, but botches each try in a comical way. After a party at his Malibu beachouse degenerates into an orgy, he finally hits on a plan to save his film. He’ll recut it as a softcore porno, featuring nude footage of goody-two shoes Sally. (A scene from the film-within-a-film is the one where Dame Julie does, indeed, appear topless.)

As Felix fights the studio for control of his film, the story ends up in a farcical sequence of manslaughter, body switching, and a bizarre viking funeral at sea. This film was the last one made by the great William Holden before he died later in the year; he plays an alcoholic studio boss--a haunting role, as he died in real life from an accident that occurred during a boozy binge. Much of this film is autobiographical, and is based on the experiences that Edwards and Andrews endured while making a flop musical called Darling Lili in 1970. On disc and streaming.

7- The Day of The Locust (1975), directed by John Schlesinger; starring Donald Sutherland, William Atherton, Karen Black, and Burgess Meredith. This film is a flawed but intriguing adaptation of Nathanael West’s 1939 dark, satirical novel of the same title. It features a misfit collection of Hollywood hopefuls and hangers-on living in a cheap bungalow complex that reeks of decay and despair. They include a retired accountant named Homer Simpson (played by Sutherland--not kidding here about the name); an aspiring actress and her elderly ex-vaudevillian father (Black and Meredith as Faye and Harry Greener); a nasty little child actor named Adore (Jackie Earle Haley) and his pushy stage mom; and a starving artist named Tod Hackett (Atherton), who pays the rent by doing free-lance set sketches for producers.

The events of the film are seen through the eyes of Tod, who lusts after Faye and makes her a central figure in his magnum opus, an enormous, apocalyptic painting entitled The Burning of Los Angeles. Homer, a depressed sad sack who is possibly autistic, is also obsessed with Faye, and she exploits his interest in cruel and greedy ways.

Meredith got an Oscar nomination and Black got a Golden Globe nod for their performances. The main weak link in the film is Atherton as Tod; he’s just not a strong enough actor to carry a two-and-half hour film. (It should have been Sutherland as Tod, and somebody else as Homer.) However, the performances of the other players make up for Atherton's weak turn. The ending of this film depicts The Burning of Los Angeles come to life, and is just as horrifying as the ending of any random horror movie. On disc and streaming.

6- Barton Fink (1991), written and directed by the Cohen Brothers; starring John Turturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis, John Mahoney, Tony Shalhoub, and Steve Buscemi. Confession: this is my favorite CoBros film of all time.

Turturro stars as a pretentious Marxist playwright from New York named Barton Fink, who receives an offer from a Hollywood studio to write a screenplay for a “Wallace Beery wrestling picture.” The studio puts him up at a dilapidated residential hotel with peeling wallpaper and clanking pipes. He has no clue how to write the screenplay and nobody wants to help him learn, least of all the film’s cynical, kinetic producer, Ben Geisler (Shalhoub). On the studio lot, he tries to get help from an alcoholic “famous novelist” who never does any work but is kept around by the studio for prestige value. (Played by John Mahoney, the novelist is based on either William Faulkner or F. Scott Fitzgerald, both of whom were drunks who worked on screenplays in Hollywood in the 40s.)

Meanwhile, there’s a serial killer criss-crossing the country beheading women, and Fink begins to suspect the killer is the affable traveling salesman who lives in his hotel (played by Goodman.) Michael Lerner received an Oscar nomination for his hilarious turn as Jack Lipnick, a meglomanical studio boss who could be based on either Louis B Mayer, Jack Warner or Harry Cohn — or on all three put together. All of the performances are great, but it’s worth watching for Lerner’s portrayal alone; he and Shalhoub get all the best lines. On disc and streaming.

5- The Player (1992), directed by Robert Altman; starring Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Peter Gallagher, Whoopie Goldberg, Lyle Lovett and literally a cast of dozens of well-known actors and celebrities in cameo parts. Altman’s brilliantly dark Hollywood satire appears to have been somewhat forgotten today, which is a crying shame. It stars Tim Robbins as Griffin Mill, a hard-charging studio executive who accidentally kills a screenwriter he thinks is stalking him with threatening notes and letters. However, the threatening notes from the stalker continue to arrive after the screenwriter dies, and Mill realizes that he's killed the wrong man. Oops.

The police (Lovett and Goldberg) are now on Mill's tail and meanwhile, a young, ruthless producer named Larry Levy (Gallagher) is gunning for his job. To complicate things, Mill is falling in love with the girlfriend of the man he killed. Look for dozens of famous faces popping up in restaurant and party scenes, and a lot of jabs at then-current topics like late 80s action films (Bruce Willis and Julia Roberts make a memorable cameo in a Die Hard-like film.) The ending is perfect. On disc and streaming.

4- Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), directed by Robert Aldrich; starring Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono, and Maidie Norman. The two greatest female stars of Hollywood’s golden age (who hated each other in real life) face off in a story of jealousy, deceit, faded fame, and murder.

Crawford and Davis play two showbiz sisters in their fifties who live together, named Blanche and Jane Hudson. Blanche is a former top movie star from the 30s whose career ended when she was paralyzed in a car accident. Jane is a former child star named “Baby Jane” who was very famous in the vaudeville era, but whose fame didn’t survive the death of vaudeville.

Jane is very cruel to Blanche who, as a paraplegic, is wholly dependent on her sister for her care. Jane is already way out there in her mental processes, but when she finds out that Blanche is selling their palatial old mansion, she decides to starve Blanche slowly to death. Only the sisters' house cleaner, Elvira (excellently played by Maidie Norman), stands in the way, but Jane has ways of dealing with Elvira.

With Elvira out of the way, the deluded Jane plans a big comeback on the stage, hiring a pianist named Edwin Flagg (Victor Buono) to write new arrangements for her old vaudeville songs. This story has a lot in common with Sunset Boulevard (see below) and the two films have very similar endings. Shadowy b&w camerawork and Davis’s expertise in portraying kooky-old-lady madness give this legendary film a neo-Gothic look and feel. On disc and streaming; avoid the colorized version.

3- A Star is Born (1954), directed by George Cukor; starring Judy Garland, James Mason, Charles Bickford, and Jack Carson. The darkest and best version of this oft-told tale stars Garland as Esther Blodgett, a young big band singer on her way up. With the help of established film star, Norman Maine (James Mason), she becomes Vicki Lester, a sensation in big screen musicals. They fall in love and get married, but Mason can't deal with the metoric rise of his wife to the top of the Hollywood pole, while his own star is fading.

He binges on booze and begins a spectacular meltdown, which includes an embarassing disruption of the Academy Awards, all excellently portrayed by Mason in one of his finest roles. Norman ultimately ends up committing suicide by walking into the Pacific Ocean and never looking back. This film features several of Garland's most famous musical numbers, including Born in a Trunk and the blistering torch song, The Man That Got Away. On disc and streaming.

2- Mulholland Drive (2001), directed by David Lynch, starring Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux, Robert Forster, and Ann Miller. Lynch’s enigmatic masterpiece made Naomi Watts a superstar and has influenced numerous films since then. The moody, dark, and nightmarish atmosphere established by Lynch is A+.

It starts with a noirish mystery involving a midnight car accident on LA’s most famous thoroughfare and the movements of “Rita” (Harring), the mysterious amnesiac woman who survives the accident. It eventually splits into two narratives about two different realities experienced by a bit-part actress named Betty/Diane and her relationship with a woman named Rita/Camilla. The first narrative is Watts’s character as she fantasizes herself to be—a popular and successful upcoming actress named “Betty.” The second is Watts as she really is—a suicidal, substance-abusing, failed actress barely scraping by in a dingy low-rent apartment. The two stories intersect in a mad and sometimes horrific landscape of Hollywood film-making, murder and suicide.

Watts was robbed of her Best Actress Oscar that year, for her portrayal of Betty/Diane surely ranks as one of the greatest lead female performances of all time. This film is multi-layered and requires several viewings to “get it,” but it’s worth the effort. One for the ages. On disc and streaming.

1- Sunset Boulevard (1950), directed by Billy Wilder; starring William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Nancy Olson,and Erich Von Stroheim. This is undoubtedly the greatest Hollywood Babylon of all time. (It’s also David Lynch’s favorite movie; the title of Mulholland Drive is a play on Sunset Boulevard.) This b&w film opens with a dead body floating in a swimming pool, accompanied by a sardonic voiceover from William Holden.

He plays an aspiring young screenwriter named Joe Gillis, who’s not getting anywhere and is desperate for money. Gillis meets Norma Desmond, a fiftyish grande dame who was once a very great star in the silent screen era, but whose career died with the advent of sound (i.e., Gloria Swanson playing herself). Norma decides to hire the handsome Gillis to work on a screenplay for her big comeback, a silent film based on the biblical story of Salome.

Gillis knows the screenplay is unsalable, but takes the job anyway. Before long, Gillis is living in Norma’s gigantic, shadowy Sunset Boulevard mansion as a kept man. The more he tries to extricate himself from Norma’s clutches, the deeper he falls into her web of lies, manipulation, and deceit. Things come to a head when Joe meets a pretty script reader, Laura (Olson), who believes in his talent and makes him realize that he must leave Norma for good.

When the unhinged Norma finds out about Laura, eventually we, the audience, find out whose body is floating in Norma’s pool. Gloria Swanson in her greatest role, Holden’s wisecracking voiceover, brilliant camerawork and direction, and a cast of silent screen greats like Erich Von Stroheim, Buster Keaton, and Anna Q Nilsson, all make this film a unique and essential viewing experience. On disc and streaming.

Honorable Mention

The Last Tycoon (1976), directed by Elia Kazan; starring Robert De Niro, Ingrid Boulting, Tony Curtis, Robert Mitchum, Jack Nicholson, and Theresa Russell. The last film directed by the legendary helmer of On the Waterfront stars a young and handsome De Niro in an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's last, unfinished novel. set in the Hollywood of the late 30s. DeNiro gives an outstanding performance as Monroe Stahr, a top producer based on Irving Thalberg, the "boy wonder" filmmaker of the 30s who was married to leading lady Norma Shearer. Stahr is seriously ill with some mysterious disease and is also nursing heartbreak since the untimely death of his beautiful actress wife, Minna Davis. By accident, he meets a bit-player named Kathleen (Boulting), who looks a great deal like Minna and begins to pursue her. Meanwhile, there's trouble brewing at the studio in the person of a labor organizer, played by Nicholson, who is trying to organize an industry-wide writers' strike.

There are unfortunately two major flaws in this film; had they been resolved, it would have resulted in an unqualified masterpiece. One is the horrible performance of Boulting as Kathleen; she was a famous fashion model in the 70s, not an experienced actress, and it shows. Second, the film just ends pretty much around where the Fitzgerald novel ends, giving it an unfinished air that's very frustrating.

It didn't need to end that way, because Fitzgerald left detailed notes on how he wanted to finish the novel. In the notes, Stahr hires a hitman to kill the labor organizer, changes his mind, and then he and Kathleen are killed in a private plane crash. Kazan should have had the balls to just finish the film according to Fitzgerald's notes and then it would have been a fantastic film. Worth watching for De Niro as a romantic leading man, the type of role he almost never plays; he's very, very good at it. On disc and streaming.