During this fractured, tech-turbulent 21st Century when motion pictures are caught in a tug of war between faintly flickering theaters and ever-strengthening streaming, Babylon looks back almost 100 years to a similar fracture: The late 1920s, when America was roaring and the movies were silent but the “Talkies” were the usurper shaking up Hollywood. Sound technology forced established silent stars, execs, producers and technicians to adapt, or take the bus back to Kansas.

Caught up in the pushme/pullyou of this digital 21st Century, Malibu resident Damien Chazelle’s $78,000,000, 189-minute (!) Babylon went all in on the Big Screen and opened December 23 in theaters only. Starring Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Tobey Maguire, an elephant and a cast of thousands, Babylon opened to a disappointing $5,300,000 over the Christmas four-day weekend. (Avatar 2 was boffo at $95,500,000). As of the first week of January, Babylon had grossed just over $12,000,000 - leading some short-sighted snarkers to call it Bombylon.

Since actually seeing Babylon in a theater would require - gasp - actually leaving Malibu - and driving to the Valley - gasp gasp - and sitting quietly in a theater with strangers - gasp gasp gasp - to watch a complicated, three-hour-long movie with no pausing for bathroom breaks, no reading closed captions to catch missed lines and no rewinding to figure out what the heck is going on with all that elephant dung and such.

Well it’s too much to ask, innit?

So we’re gonna wait until Babylon comes streaming into the finer homes of Malibu. But with help from New Yorker reviewers Richard Brody and Anthony Lane - who double-damned the movie with confused praise - and writers Madeline Hiltz in thevintagenews.com and Marya E Gates from indiewire.com, here are the ways Babylon is Malibu-relevant:

DIRECTOR’S WIFE PLAYS A ROARING TWENTIES DIRECTOR

The Oscar-winning (for LaLa Land) director Damian Chaziel lives in Malibu with Olivia Hamilton, whose Babylon role as fictional Ruth Adler was explained by Gates in IndieWire.com for 12/21/22: 

Unlike many films about the silent era, Chazelle corrects the myth that women were not involved in the technical side of the early years of Hollywood filmmaking. “Babylon” is filled with homages to the women who worked as writers, producers, editors, and directors.

In a big set piece on the outdoor Kinoscope lot, one of the two filmmakers shown simultaneously directing their films is the fictional Ruth Adler, modeled mostly on studio-era pioneer Dorothy Arzner, who made twenty films between 1927 and 1943, working with actresses like Katherine Hepburn, Lucille Ball, Joan Crawford, and (of course) Clara Bow. 

BRAD PITT PLAYS AN AGING MOVIE STAR!

Brad Pitt’s Jack Conrad was described as “affable superstar” by Lane and “a breezy yet earnest leading man” by Brody. Pitt and Angelina Jolie had a house out on Encinal Beach from 2005 - 2011, but Pitt’s Malibu-relevance in Babylon is buried in the rubble of history and the Malibu Colony, which burned to the ground in October of 1929. 

According to Marya E. Gates on indiewire.com for 12-21-22:

The main inspiration behind Pitt’s aging film star is the debonair matinee idol John Gilbert — nicknamed Jack — who was one of the most popular actors in the ‘20s…. At the peak of his career, Gilbert was the highest paid actor on MGM’s payroll.

Gates finds many tragic parallels between the fictional Jack Conrad and the real John Gilbert, but according to James Cain in The Widow’s Mite for Vanity Fair in 1933 it was John Gilbert’s house that was responsible for the fire storm that took out the Malibu Colony in 1929: 

“But then Mrs. O'Leary's cow got into it. The fire started from defective wiring at No. 83, what is now John Gilbert's house, on October 26, 1929. It spread… Twentynine houses went up in flames that night…”

JONAH AND JONZE

Spike Jonze is in Babylon as German film director Otto Van Strassberger - a guy who puts the “mental” in “temperamental.” Jonze is Maliburelevant as surf bros with Colony resident Jonah Hill. When Jonze isn’t winning Best Screenplay Oscars for Her or grossing out the world as a producer of Jackass and Jonah Hill isn’t saying funny things like “What if Fyre Festival was a person and that person had power in the White House,” Jonze and Jonah can be seen trading waves and boards and jibes at Old Joes.

FLEA THAT JAZZ

Before Colony resident Flea was the bassist for Red Hot Chili Peppers, he was Michael Balzary - a jazz guy, a trumpeter. He was all about all that jazz. Rock and roll didn’t enter into it. So for Babylon Flea felt right at home portraying Bob Levine, a Jazz Era studio executive with a hot temper who helps to inflame all the emotions running rampant in Babylon.

ROBBIE’S LEROY IS BOW

The deepest Malibucentricity goes back, back in time, as Margot Robbie’s Nellie LeRoy character is based on one of the first Malibu Colony residents: Clara Bow. Also known as The It Girl, Clara Bow was the Madonna of the 1920s, an actress equally comfortable portraying sexy flappers and tomboy boxers. At her peak - around the same time as Babylon is set - Bow was making $4000 a week - the equivalent of 2022$67,911.11.

Righteous bucks!

BIZZY COBEN AS CLARA BOW

In a photoshoot for a Malibu history book called Chumash to Hard Cash, Isabella “Bizzy” Coben did her own costume and hair to re-create these portraits of Clara Bow looking kinda punk in 1927.

Clara Bow Roared with the Twenties and made the transition to talkies: The Wild Party was the first of three movies with sound Bow made in 1929, but she wasn’t comfortable with the tech: "I hate talkies ... they're stiff and limiting. You lose a lot of your cuteness,” Bow said to Elisabeth Goldbeck in The Real Clara Bow in Motion Picture Classic for September 1930. “because there's no chance for action, and action is the most important thing to me.”

WHEN CAN I SEE BABYLON IN THE COMFORT OF MY HOME AND NOT HAVE TO DRIVE TO THE FRICKING VALLEY?

We know what you’re thinking. You are intrigued by this column and want to see Flea and Olivia Hamilton and Spike Jonze and Margot and Brad, but you don’t want to drive all the way to the valley and sit with strangers for thre , so when will Babylon be available at the beach?

Decider.com answered the question circling your Gulliver:

While a Paramount+ release date for Babylon has not yet been announced, we can make an estimate based on a previous Paramount Pictures movie. The Lost City, which was released in theaters on March 25, came to the streaming platform on May 10 — about 45 days after its debut. If Babylon follows the same trajectory, we could be watching it from the comfort of our homes by early February.

MARIE PREVOST AND PHYLLIS HAVER

Two Flapper girls on Colony Beach, circa 1929. The Flappers of the 1920s were like the Rapper girls of the 21st Century: Wild, sexy, daring and pushing the limits of social mores. This undated publicity photo of two flappers showing a lot of leg on the beach at Malibu Colony is captioned: “Waiting for a bite! Marie Prevost [the brunette] and Phyllis Haver [the blonde] seem patient enough, but then again, it looks like they are beginning to tire while awaiting the decision of a finny beauty to attack the bait. Miss Prevost and Miss Haver spend many an enjoyable week-end between their work in Pathe-DeMille pictures at Miss Prevost’s beach cottage.” 

Miss Haver might not have caught any corbina, but she hooked a millionaire, marrying New Yorker William Seeman in 1929. Miss Haver had enough Flapper girl moxy to tell Cecil B. DeMille she was ending her contract with him under the ‘Act of God’ clause, arguing: ‘If marrying a millionaire isn't an Act of God, I don't know what is!’ Mr. DeMille let her go, and good on him. 

Miss Prevost didn’t make the transition from silent to talkies and also had weight problems. According to Hollywood legend, Prevost died of alcoholism and depression and was eaten by her dog. Nick Lowe recorded a song about her, and got her name wrong in Marie Provost. Photo: Marc Wanamaker/Bison Archives.