MTFCA Forum

Opening screening of new movie, entitled. "Babylon " in most theatres on December 23rd.... Has a 1920's theme and several Model T's.... Saw info on our local TV, keep a eye open for future movie house screenings in your area.

Also the movie ‘1923’ starring Harrison Ford debuts on 18 December. Check out its trailer....

The Duesenberg that Brad Pitt’s character drives in the movie
was personally selected by him from several cars provided
to him to choose from by The Volo Museum:


It was rented for the filming

My friend Greg Grams and The Volo Museum
routinely supply vehicles to movie sets.


FJ

Can't wait till next Friday, I'll have the extra large popcorn with extra butter !

Watched the trailer, dont think I could sit through two hours of that nasty Hollyweird garbage just to see a couple old cars on the big screen. Not for me, no thanks. Darryl

Don’t I’ll be interested in the Babylon movie either. There is enough of that stuff going on in the last 2 years and that’s enough for me.

I watched the trailer too. Movie misnamed. Should be Sodom and Gomorrah....no thanks...looking forward to ‘1923’ tho...

I go nuts with these programs. Recent first episode of Interview With the Vampire circa 1910 or so. Model T pick up with a Ford bed rolls by (‘26/‘27 ?) and a few obviously ( to me ) parked cars that were way ahead of the supposed time being shown. Then the T rolls by again. Any one remember Cliff Robertson as Henry Ford? Shows off his home made gas engine to Cora in their kitchen and it has a Briggs and Stratton flywheel on it. As to the cars again: I believe they are just getting hard to find and a lot of folks just don’t know any better.

I rented a car to the production of "Babylon" and feel obligated to see it, just to see the car on the screen if for no other reason. The car is still in Burbank until the Holiday Motor Excursion on Dec. 31, I'll go down with the trailer and drive the HME, then bring the car home.

I know it's a holiday time, but has anyone seen the new Babylon movie yet, ????

I saw the Babylon film
Anyone who sees it needs to recognize that the POINT of the film is the absolutely free-wheeling situation that Hollywood was in when the movie industry was getting started. It was total chaos, with procedures being made up as they went along.

There IS a lot of debauchery in the movie, but it should NOT be considered gratuitous. Rather, it was a clear reflection of how things actually happened at the time. I can say that, having done a LOT of research on early film stars, including how extravagant their lives became, and how sad and short many of their lives wound up being.

Every major scene in that movie is based on a real, documented event that actually happened. Most of the names have been changed, but the situations are easily recognizable.

Something else to keep in mind is the use of drugs and alcohol during the 1920's. Cocaine itself was NOT outlawed until 1922, and even after that it was commonly prescribed as a medicinal drug until into the 1940's. At the time of this film, there were no studio fixers yet, to save reputations and hide arrests and scandalous behavior. Those didn't come until the 1930's. when studios had to protect their stars and the studio reputations, even if they had to pay off the police and the judges. There was no "Hays Code" in place to clean up behavior, drug use, and nudity in films. That didn't happen until the 1930's, and I have seen many films from before that time that would be considered unacceptable today. (The Hays Code is the reason that in crime films, the criminals ALWAYS had to pay for their crimes. and it was illegal for a movie to ever show them as getting away with a crime.)

If they were just going for shock value, they could have included the true event where a new actress who was filming in San Antonio, in one of the public parks, was incinerated while sitting in her car in between movie shots, when a lit cigarette fell into her lap, and her Civil-War era costume ignited in a flash of flame, turning her into a fireball right in the vehicle. She died the next morning from her burns. I don't consider this movie to be excessive by any stretch of the imagination. They actually only cover events that really made the news at the time.

The scenes where they are converting from silent pictures to sound pictures is particularly grueling, and was based on things that really happened. I found the scene where the female "Gossip Columnist" (based on a real Hollywood gossip maven) gives a stern lecture to Brad Pitt about why his career is finished, is particularly touching.

I never expect antique cars to be accurate. They use cars that are available, and only a few people can even see the mistakes. The one BIG one that caught my eye was how they drove the Model T's. I was just waiting for one of them to roll over. I really don't know how they kept them all upright, being as a Model T center of gravity is so high, Anyone who has a Model T will be clenching their armrests during those scenes.

If you are easily offended, don't go see this movie. It is factually accurate, and drawn true to life for the early movie industry. A lot of it IS offensive, but no one is asking you to LIKE what happened, just like there is no laugh track in the movie "Schindler's List"

Movie stars seem to be a little more stable these days, and the fame/fortune/ madness/early death syndrome seems to afflict "Rap" and "Influencer" types more than it does movie stars.

The only thing that’s changed from way back when to the present is the cars. It’s just more sophisticated than it used to be.