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Summary: Rumor, exaggeration, half lies and boring truths. Yawn.
Review: This is a very overrated book. Kenneth Anger (a resentful egotist who made some of the most tedious and uninteresting movies of the 20th century) preserved all the idle gossip and quasi-true stories of early hollywood and its stars. The stuff that is true (if you can figure out which is which) is either dull, common knowledge or unbelieveably depressing. To be taken with several grains of salt.
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Summary: HOLLYWOOD-ALL THE NEWS THAT AIN'T FIT TO PRINT
Review: Let face it, the stars all fascinate us. growing up in the late 50's and 60's I got to see all the old movies and we never learned much about the stars. Well this book and it's companion have it all, between Babylon I & II they fill in the gaps and the truth(or most of it) comes out). I just love these books and I would recomend them to anybody. Broderick Crawford in DRAG?? Ya gotta see it to beleive it. I have grown up in an era in which, people want the truth, Well In Jack Nicholson's words, Can you Handle the Truth?? If not don't buy this book, but if can,then buy it immediately. I've lost volume II twice to friends. Good luck and good reading!! Hollywood in 1920.. Marvelous!
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Summary: You'll be captivated!
Review: This is a superb book that will hold your attention the whole time it's in your hand. Kenneth Anger does a super job of bringing some of old Hollywood's darkest scandals to light. Included are the circumstances surrounding scandals involving Fatty Arbuckle, Charlie Chaplin, Errol Flynn, Marion Davies, William Randolph Hearst, Frances Farmer, Rudolph Valentino, Mary Astor and many, many more. Includes tons of photographs, a lot of them graphic, as well as refreshing insight into these interesting and titillating scandals. If you like juicy gossip from the heyday of the "Dream Factory", this book is for you. Purchase your copy today!
Rating: 
Summary: More good then bad
Review: When I was younger, I loved this book. I read it from cover to cover many, many times.However, with the advent of the Internet and my own advanced readings, I've found Anger's narrative to be "sensationalist." I've done my own research, and read many other books that show his take to be akin to the "National Enquirer." All in all, the book is a fun read. I just caution the reader to take his accounts with a grain of salt, and delve deeper into the subjects at hand.
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Summary: Good work child actor turned golden age Hollywood muckracker
Review: This is a fine work which deserves 5 stars solely for the brilliance of Anger's description of the the burgeoning Hollywood of the 1910s and 1920s. Anger manages to create a picture of a Gatsby-ish yearning and nostalgia for something which did not fit traditional social values (the behaviour and morals of those making lots of money very quickly). There is too little writing in the book but there are great pictures which goes a long way to making up for this. All in all a fine fine book.
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Summary: Macabre, campy fun for your inner-child
Review: This book is wonderful -- I hadn't had this much fun since reading the roughie "Tales From the Crypt" comics of my childhood. Kenneth Anger was truly so far ahead of his time, not only inventing the independent film (MTV rips him off all of the time), and being a really angry child star, but also exploiting the mass-culture of fandom with high-end blood-and-guts effect. Anger takes the proletarian sensibility most people have about Hollywood and uses it not only to construct a cathartic masterpiece of dark humor, letting you in on all the sexual deviancy and glitter-fueled glamour-junkies, but also expressing a very obvious (and very humorous) resentment. If you can't enjoy the fun of reading about Golden Age Hollywood stars behaving badly (and who can't?), you can indulge in Anger's bitterness, and if not that, there are plenty of photos to scan in and print out and tack to the wall as conversation pieces. And if you can't enjoy any of that, I imagine you're probably the sort of person who also says such obviously absurd and mutually-contradictory statements as "I don't need drugs or alcohol to have a good party!" Get the book if you have a creepy death fascination that makes you the life of the party but completely irritated your parents when you were younger. F'ing Brilliant!
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Summary: KNOCK-OUT! You'll Be Seeing Stars
Review: This book is a phonomenon! I couldn't pry the thing out of my hands and must have torn through it in an hour or two. Keep in mind that this reviewer lives and works in Hollywood, and generally turns her nose up in distate at celebrity-worship. This book, however, is no People magazine. Written by a former child star, Hollywood Babylon upsets nearly every myth about the Golden Age of Hollywood we celebrate. The stories are sensationalist, lurid and totally defamatory- and thats why I loved them. Don't get too caught up on the over-the-top delivery, Mr. Anger is a little heavy handed in the metaphor department, but his stories are worth it. I couldn't get the images out of mind and retold half the chapters to my friends ghost-story style. Most fabulous of all are the photos. Alongside the glossy glamour P.R. shots are candid snapshots of the stars at their worst, or most private. How he got his hands on what must surely have been feverishly guarded secrets is a mystery. The book's only downfall is that Mr. Anger rushed much too quickly through the 1940's and 50's. Those two decades deserve a volume of their own. The best way to read this book is to draw yourself a starlet-worthy bubblebath and expect to come out a prune- you won't be able to put Hollywood Babylon down.
Rating:
Summary: A great piece of fluff!
Review: This book would have horrified the entire United States had it been published in, say, the 50's. I recall looking at it when it was published and turning up my nose. As far as literature, I'd rank this book as a really fattening and delicious chocolate truffle, not one bit edifying but a wonderfully fun romp through Hollywood scandals of yore, some of which I was not at all familiar with. I read it in a night, and recommend it with your evening tea or cocoa.
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Summary: It's Like Reading a Bundle of "Confidential" Magazines
Review: Anybody who is considering buying this book (and its sequel, if one can find it) should know that it has absolutely no pretensions of being fair or accurate. Despite the wild inaccuracies of now-deceased stars' exploits, the book is still like seeing a car wreck: you know it's awful, but you can't resist looking at it. It's a fun book in spite of itself. The photos are often tasteless, the prose is often tacky and sleazy, the research is put together with two nails and a hammer, and overall the book reminds one of the old "Confidential" magazines (the magazine is actually profiled in one of the book's chapters). Yet sleaze and tackiness are what Hollywood was all about, so the book seems fitting. If you want accuracy in a book, go elsewhere. If you like gossip in the most vicious and slimy way possible, then this is your book.
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Summary: Full on, hardcore, no holds barred...so pansies beware!
Review: This book is full of very interesting truths, and if you can't handle it, then you'd better keep reading the tabloids or just good old Jane Austin. This book is good, but it has some teases, meaning it will show you a picture but not always explain the circumstances and it almost never gives addresses (to those of you who like to scout out the place). The 2nd book is MUCH better! I would actually reccommend that one first and if you loved THAT then get this one. Hollywood Babylon 2!
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