Babylon. . . um, then or now?

 An original epic set in 1920s Los Angeles led by Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and Diego Calva, with an ensemble cast including Jovan Adepo, Li Jun Li and Jean Smart. A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, it traces the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood.

Description of the movie Babylon.

Seriously?

Well, in keeping with the ostensible focus of this site, let us first acknowledge that early Hollywood was a complete moral sewer.  I haven't seen, obviously, Babylon (nobody in the general public has yet) and I'm not going to, but it would frankly be difficult to inaccurately depict the moral depravity of early Hollywood by going too low. . . which is what makes it the perfect topic for Hollywood today, doesn't it?

Before the Hayes Production Code came in, in 1934, movies were unrestrained by any standards other than community and local ones, and they plumbed the depth as far as they could.  As we earlier noted:

The Hays Production Code of 1934 had been a voluntary code that the movie industry had imposed upon itself to prevent further regulation due to outcry of the moral content of early films, some of which were outright pornographic even when aimed at a general audience and even when camouflaged with supposedly religious themes with even such moviemakers as Cecil B. DeMille taking that approach.  The code had imposed eleven items that were outright prohibited in films, including nudity and associated sexual portrayals, but also banned such items as profanity, disrespect to the clergy, childbirth and willful offense to any religion or race.  It also included twenty five items that film makers were required to be careful about in their depictions.

Indeed, illustrating the above, Cecil B. DeMille, whom we associate with Biblical epics like The Ten Commandments, released a "Biblically" themed silent movie which still receives viewer warnings today due to such scenes depicting female "saints", in Roman times, writhing in agony, nude, chained to columns.  People went to see that in order to see nude women on the screen and have some excuse for it.  It was pornography then, and it remains pornography now.

And not just that, although that's a spectacular example.  Fairly routinely moviemakers slipped in nude scenes of women to see how far they could go.  One famous example involving a well known actress then and post code had a brief snipped of the actress emerging from a bathtub.  It's apparently really brief, but the point was she was nude.  Filming nude swimming actresses was pretty common, barely obscuring them.  You get the point.

And not just that. The moral tone of movies itself was often amazingly low.  Indeed, many popular films of the pre code era were refilmed shortly after the code was put in place, in part because they could still be viewed.  1940's beloved Waterloo Bridge was a remake, for example, of the 1931 variant by the same name.  IMDB provides the plot line for the 1931 version as this:

In World War I London, Myra is an out-of-work American chorus girl making ends meet by picking up men (i.e, by being a prostitute) on Waterloo Bridge. During a Zeppelin air raid she meets Roy, a naive young American who enlisted in the Canadian army. They fall for each other, and he tricks her into visiting his family, who live in a country estate outside London, where his stepfather is a retired British Major. However, Myra is reluctant to continue the relationship with Roy because she has not told him about her past.

The 1940's variant? Well:

On the eve of World War II, a British officer revisits Waterloo Bridge and recalls the young man he was at the beginning of World War I and the young ballerina he met just before he left for the front. Myra stayed with him past curfew and is thrown out of the corps de ballet. She survives on the streets of London, falling even lower after she hears that her true love has been killed in action. But he wasn't killed. That those terrible years were nothing more than a bad dream is Myra's hope after Roy finds her and takes her to his family's country estate.

A little different. . . ^{1  2}

As far ago as a century back, it was widely known that actors and actress in Hollywood were a libertine set, which they remain.  Scandals surfaced early on, with marriages breaking up and affairs sufficiently rife in order to hit print from time to time.  While social standards generally remained fairly high in American society itself.  People basically turned a blind eye to it, as long as it didn't surface.

Of course, it did surface spectacularly with the death of Virginia Rappe, an actress now remembered only for her death.  We had an item back on that in 2021, which we will repeat here in its entirety, as it is realevant to this entry:

Labor Day, September 5, 1921. The Wages Of Sin

On this day in 1921 one of the most infamous, most misreported, and one of the most still most mysterious deaths in Hollywood history occurred.  And one that features all the things that still cause Hollywood to fascinate and repel.

The death of young actress Virginia Rappe.

Even though the critical events in the death of Rappe, then age 26, occurred at a party, where lot of people were around, what really occurred leading to her untimely death remains a mystery.  From what seems to be clear, we can tell the following.

Rappe was a guest at a party hosted by Fred Fischbach, a friend of celebrated silent movie comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.  The party was partially in celebration of a hit Arbuckle movie, Crazy To Marry.  The five reel movie was a recent release and doing well, although it is now obscure and may be in the category of lost film (I'm not sure of that).  At the time, Arbuckle was making $1,000,000 a year from films, a gigantic sum not only now, for most people, but particularly then, given the respective value of a dollar compared to now.  Arbuckle, we'd note, was married, with his spouse at the time being Minta Durfee, although the couple had recently separated.  In spite of that, it should be further noted, Durfee would call Arbuckle in later years the most generous man she'd ever met, and that in spite of their 1925 divorce, if given the choice, she'd do it all again.

Minta Durfee.

Fischback rented three hotel rooms, and, in the spirit of the times, supplied them with large quantifies of bootleg booze.  Rappe was an invited guest, and arrived with  Bambina Maude.  At the party Rappe drank a lot of alcohol.  At some point in the party it seems that he and Rappe went into room 1219 of the hotel alone, and shortly thereafter some sort of commotion occurred, Arbuckle emerged and Rappe was desperately sick.  She was taken to the hospital and died four days later from a ruptured bladder and peritonitis.

One of the hotel rooms after the party.

Arbuckle was arrested and accused of rape and manslaughter, with an essential element of the accusation being that forced sex had caused Rappe's death.

Seems, at first blush, clear enough, but it gets very confused from there.

Arbuckle maintained his innocence throughout.  He was tried three times, resulting in two mistrials, and then an acquittal.  Bambina Maude was a witness in the story, filling in lurid details, but she was later revealed to be a procurer who used that role to blackmail recipients of the favors she'd arranged to supply, although there was no evidence that she was acting as a procurer at the time of the attendance at the party.  Indeed, while there are multiple stories as to what occured, one of the versions that exists is that the room that Rappe went into was the only one with a bathroom and she went into it to throw up, going through the bedroom where Maude was having sex with a movie director. In that version, which isn't the only one, Arbuckle went in the room to carry the collapsed Rappe out. ^[1]. 

The final jury apologized to Arbuckle for what he'd been through. And, indeed, it seems fairly clear that whatever occurred between Arbuckle and Rappe, it wasn't that which resulted in her death, but rather a chronic medical condition that was exacerbated by alcohol.  It's likely her drinking at the party, which killed her.

Rappe, who was at one time regarded as the "best dressed girl in films".

Even that, however, doesn't flesh the entire tragic story out.  Rappe was only 26, but by that age was already a photographic veteran, having worked as an orphan raised by her grandmother as a model since age 14.  She had some trouble holding alcohol and was inclined to strip when drunk.  She'd been the live in with Henry Lehamn only fairly recently, to whom she'd been engaged.  According to at least some sources, which may be doubted given that they are a century old, she was freer with her affections than the norms of the time would have endorsed.

What occurred between Arbuckle and Rappe is not known and never well be and now too much time has passed to sort it out.  About as much as we can tell is that it seems that Arbuckle might have made some sort of advance on Rappe and that at first Rappe might have welcomed it.  That she was desperately ill is clear.  Her illness killed her.

This, in turn, provides an interesting look at public morals and standards, then and now.  At least some of the conduct Rappe and Arbuckle were engaging in was immoral by Christian standards, and Christian standards were clearly the public standards of the day.  Be that as it may, it's clear that in his trials, the fact that Arbuckle was doing something with a drunk woman doesn't seem to have been held against him, or at least it ultimately wasn't.  Of course, maybe the jurors didnt' feel he was doing anything with her, or even aiding her, or at least some must have thought that in all three trials.  If Arbuckle was advancing on her, it most definitely would be regarded as improper today.  Having said that, it wasn't all that long ago that "get her drunk" was sort of a joke which implied that inebriation to the point of being unable to consent was consent.

Arbuckle's career would never recover from the evening.  Perhaps, in some ways, it shouldn't have.  He wasn't a killer, but what occurred was unconscionable for other reasons. .  reasons we seemingly have managed to forget, however, over the years.  Even after his acquittal he was more or less blackballed in the industry for a time, and then when that was lifted his star power was gone.  He changed his name and made a much smaller living behind the scenes before starting to stage a minor comeback in the 1930s.  He died in 1933 in a hotel room from a heart attack.  He was 46.

Arbuckle movie poster from 1932.

It's interesting to see how this event compares to contemporary ones.  We have a person in attendance at the party who associated with the rich and famous whose role seems to have been supplying female favors (Maude), much like Jeffrey Epstein and his hangers on have been accused of.  We have a Hollywood set who lived personal lives that departed greatly from public standards, something that's still the case, although less so now as standards have declined so much, and we might have some sort of sexual contact between a male Hollywood figure and a very drunk actress (or not), something that in our contemporary culture would be a career ending event irrespective of the accusations of rape.  Indeed, accusations of rape in Hollywood, not all of which are substantiated, have become very common in recent years.

In the end it was a terrible tragedy.  People thought they were going to a party  Rappe probably knew she was drinking too much.  Arbuckle surely knew he shouldn't make advances on her.  Death came like a "thief in the night", which nobody anticipated.

On the same day, elsewhere, the League of Nations convened for the second time and admitted Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Finland and Luxembourg.

Footnotes:

1  Yet another version, upon which a book was written asserts that Rappe had received  botched abortion that had nicked her bladder, and it ruptured when she tickled Arbuckle and he accidentally kneed her.  

Others criticize that assertion, which would by definition be based on a large element of speculation.  It seems based on Rappe having reported received something like five prior abortions in an era when they were all fully illegal.

Rappe's death remains a tragedy, but the wider details of how the overall situation came about, sex, abortions, alcohol and the like, are pretty beyond the pale even now.

Or are they?

Nothing since Rappe's death in 1921 has improved, morally, in Hollywood.  Indeed, the irony of Babylon is that moral depravity that was recognized as such in 21 is celebrated now, in no small part because Hollywood always recognized that going below a moral standard generated income.  The problem always was that once you erode a standard, you need to go still lower still.

Which in one way brings us back around to Babylon.  Apparently it contains an orgy scene.  Is that something unreasonable to depict as to Hollywood in 21?  No, not really.

Could such a scene have been included in a movie in 21?  Frankly, probably. Which is why the Code came about.

Reports hold that the actresses who were filmed in the orgy scene were worried it would be cut out of the movie.  It was, of course, not.

Why would it have been.  Post code, the moral standard today are much lower than they were in a century ago.  The movie might not even be a success, moral depravity and all. And part of the reason for that is depicting the shocking violation of a moral standard, which in our heart of hearts we know remains one, might not be all that interesting when we already figure this is pretty much how Hollywood is today.

Harvey Weinstein. . .Jeffrey Epstein. . .your cue to appear on screen has been lit.

Footnotes:

1. The plot of the first version is remarkably similar to one of the vignettes in Rosellini's Paisan.

2.  Humphrey Bogart version of The Maltese Falcon is also a remake.  For one thing, the first version had veiled references to homosexuality in it.  Reportedly the second version is almost word for word the same as the first, but for things offending the code removed.