#hollywood babylon

[katherinehoughtoncastle47]

One hell of a PA

[oldshowbiz]

Password Plus usually taped a week's worth of episodes in one day.

The celebrities were supplied with "refreshments" backstage.

By episode five - Elaine Joyce was absolutely wasted.

[shirtlesssammy]

Dean Winchester every day -- 40/326

Supernatural 2x18//Hollywood Babylon

[arcanespillo]

“Hollywood Babylon”

Supernatural S2E18

[bitter69uk]

“Well, it would be a crowded world if we didn’t have death to re-arrange the scenery.”

/ Kenneth Anger interviewed by Purple Magazine in 2018 /

Funny how shocking it feels to type the words “His Satanic Majesty Kenneth Anger (3 February 1927 – 24 May 2023) has died”.  (Sprueth Magers Gallery announced his death earlier today via Twitter). The pioneering experimental underground filmmaker, author and occultist was, after all, 96 years old! I always assumed whatever pact Anger made with the devil invested him with immortality (or that he’d at least reach 100). Repeatedly seeing Anger’s homoerotic masterpieces like Scorpio Rising (1964) and Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965) at an impressionable age (often at the much-missed Scala Cinema in London) made a profound impact on me, and his two salacious wildly irresponsible volumes of Hollywood Babylon are like sacred religious texts! What a total original Kenneth Anger was. His art will live forever. Pictured: portrait of Anger in his youth in the 1950s by Edmund Teske.

[apdistractions]

[theimpalatales]

Hollywood Babylon being a hilarious meta masterpiece

[deanstudies101]

2x18, Hollywood Babylon

Critical theory: “Being part of a team” and a sense of purpose. Food insecurity.

Key quotes: Dean, “It's not so bad, I kinda feel like part of the team, you know?”

Discussion: Dean had the best time, he got a break from his job (by having another job), he got lots of free food, and he got laid. He felt like he was part of a team. He’s one hell of a P.A. He was good at the job, he picked it up really quickly, and he has this idea that all he’s good at is hunting, that all he can do is hunt. And he was hunting on the side.

And he was social. He was into all the gossip, he knew who to talk to for what, he just. Likes talking to people. He’s all bashful talking to actors he likes. He was raised so isolated, but he likes talking to people. We will discuss this in more detail as the show goes on—Dean craves community, and he thrives in it. A lot of the recurring characters are Dean’s friends. (us)(it’s the found family tism moment)(it’s growing up with no one who understands you, and then finding people who do)(Dean connects instantly with anyone with nerdy interests <3) 

There’s really not much depth to Sam. It’s pretty much all ~what if I turn evil. (This is quite a big thing, to be fair)

Sam doesn't know how good he had it—he judges Dean for eating all this free food, but he doesn’t seem to realise that Dean always went hungry so that he didn’t have to. Food issues can be hard to spot—and we all have them in some way—but with Dean it’s so obvious. He is used to being hungry. When he sees free/cheap/delicious food he just goes for it. He’s the same with sex—he sees someone he likes, he goes for it. He takes life’s pleasures as they come, because he doesn’t know when they’ll come round again, and he knows he could die any moment. And Sam judges him for this.

Food insecurity is more noticeable when viewing the show overall, and we will revisit this in future, as well as how Sam’s food issues from childhood manifest (ie. having no control over what he ate -> strictly controlling what he eats) 

[spn-rewatch-ventzone]

P.A.!Dean is sooooo fun in Hollywood Babylon. He likes it so much and so genuinely! Makes me go crazy to see him just having a good time

[littlegreenfag]

woaghe what's the deal with kenneth anger and lupe vélez? i really like anger's work but i don't actually know anything abt his personal life !

Well, he spread a really nasty rumor about her in Hollywood Babylon. I love Kenneth, and Hollywood Babylon is a fun read, but it does a lot of people dirty— and Lupe was one of them. She committed suicide in 1944 by overdosing on Seconal. Some people theorize that she did it because she was spurned by a lover, others believe it was because she was pregnant out of wedlock and wasn’t ready to be a mother. Either way, it’s a sad story. But there’s a particularly nasty urban legend about her death, and Kenneth Anger was the first to spread it.

In Kenneth’s retelling, Vélez planned to stage an elaborate suicide on her bed, but suddenly began to feel the effects of the “Mexi-Spice Last Supper” she had for dinner (his words, not mine). As she stumbled to the bathroom, she slipped on a tile, fell headfirst towards the toilet, and drowned with her head in the toilet bowl.

In reality, she wasn’t even in the bathroom when she died— she was on her bedroom floor. He also said that Vélez’s body was found by “Juanita”, her maid. No such woman existed— her body was found by her secretary, Beulah Kinder. That’s sort of insignificant, but still, it’s a weird and unnecessary lie.

The point is, this white man turned a woman of color’s suicide into a slapstick comedy. And now, when people remember Lupe Vélez, they don’t remember her vivacious screen presence, or her beautiful singing voice, or her phenomenal dancing. They just remember the actress who drowned in the toilet. And she doesn’t deserve to be remembered that way.

[fitsofgloom]

"My whole life has been decided by fate.": Sharon Marie Tate, January 24, 1943 – August 9, 1969. It was a real trip watching "Once Upon A Time In Hollywood," seeing her alive and well, the horror of that night passing over her. Many pointed out that Tate was less of a character proper than an incarnation of the unrealized promise and hope of the Counterculture movement. I rewound the scene where she grooves her way into the Playboy Mansion three times. The success of the "Barbie" movie makes it clear to me that she was the ideal choice to essay the character had the film been made back in the '60s, her lithe, athletic beauty in "Don't Make Waves" believed to have inspired Mattel to produce Malibu Barbie.

[oldshowbiz]

If you went to a bar with Paul Lynde, the police would be called.

[thephilosopheroftheboudoir]

RIP Kenneth Anger

[chrisgoesrock]

Hollywood Babylon, GTO´s, The Stooges 

[bitter69uk]

“I've always considered movies evil; the day that cinema was invented was a black day for mankind.” Kenneth Anger.

Born on this day: His Satanic Majesty, pioneering experimental underground filmmaker, author and occultist Kenneth Anger (Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer, 3 February 1927 – 11 May 2023). Repeatedly viewing Anger’s visionary homoerotic masterpieces Fireworks (1947), Scorpio Rising (1964) and Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965) at an impressionable age had a profound impact on me, and his two salacious wildly irresponsible volumes of Hollywood Babylon are like sacred religious texts.

[zippocreed501]

AUTHOR EXTRAORDINAIRE

Author Film-maker Extraordinaire Kenneth Anger

I have both volumes, (having a spent quite a bit of cash for two tired, dog-eared copies because they were (are?) out of print). Although some of the claims have proved to be more gossip than solid fact, I still found them quite entertaining reads. As devotee to old Hollywood and its dark history, these books are great sources of inspiration for stories.