Return to Babylon

{{Infobox film

| name = Return to Babylon

| director = Alex Monty Canawati

| image = RETURN-TO-BABYLON-LOGO.jpg

| writer = Alex Monty Canawati
Bruce Pitzer
Stanley Sheff

| producer = María Conchita Alonso
Stanley Sheff

| starring = Jennifer Tilly
María Conchita Alonso
Debi Mazar
Ione Skye
Laura Harring
Tippi Hedren

| cinematography = Scott Dale
Cricket Peters

| editing = Stanley Sheff

| released ={{Film date|2013|08|11|United States|2019|01|16|World Internet Release|df=y}}

| runtime = 75 minutes

| country = United States

| language = English

| budget =

}}

Return to Babylon is a 2013 black-and-white silent film about the silent film era. It was directed by Alex Monty Canawati. It stars an ensemble cast of Jennifer Tilly, María Conchita Alonso, Ione Skye, Debi Mazar, Laura Harring, and Tippi Hedren.

Premise

Photographed with a hand-cranked camera and scored with music of the roaring twenties, this silent film strings together the lives of the most famous and infamous stars of the 1920s, including Rudolph Valentino, Gloria Swanson, Clara Bow, Lupe Vélez, Fatty Arbuckle, and William Desmond Taylor.

Cast

Jennifer Tilly as Clara Bow
María Conchita Alonso as Lupe Vélez
Ione Skye as Virginia Rappe
Debi Mazar as Gloria Swanson
Tippi Hedren as Mrs. Peabody
Rolonda Watts as Josephine Baker
Laura Harring as Alla Nazimova
Morganne Picard as Mabel Normand
Brett Ashy as Fatty Arbuckle
Paul Kent as Mack Sennett
Michael Goldman as Adolph Zukor
Stephen Saux as Mr. Producer
Marina Bakica as Alma Rubens
Jack Atlantis as William Desmond Taylor
Wendy Caron as Barbara La Marr
Phillip Bloch as Ramon Novarro
Robert Sherman as Erich von Stroheim
Devora Lillian as Mary Miles Minter
Maxwell DeMille as Douglas Fairbanks
Alex Monty Canawati as Rudolph Valentino
Adnan Taletovich as John Gilbert
Jennifer Seifert as Pola Negri

Background

Return to Babylon features locations in and around Hollywood, California, including the original home of Rudolph Valentino, Falcon Lair, as well as the Norma Talmadge estate, the Canfield-Moreno Estate, and the Magic Castle in the Hollywood Hills.

The feature was shot using 19 rolls of 16mm film supposedly found sitting on a sidewalk on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.

Reports of paranormal activity

The film's marketing played up the notion that the film was haunted. Media releases and interviews stated that the actors faces can be seen "morphing" into grotesque shapes in certain shots. There were reports of actors having elongated and webbed fingers, full bodied apparitions, seeing the faces of dead actors (such as Lon Chaney) manifest in shots, and shadows resembling demons or skeletons. Many of the cast and crew had confirmed many of these reports and stated they experienced odd events during production, with Jennifer Tilly in particular describing feeling "watched" and "touched" by unseen forces during filming.{{Cite web|title = Return to Babylon|url = https://returntobabylon.wordpress.com/|website = Return to Babylon|accessdate = 2015-06-01}}

Release

The film was released on 11 August 2013 in the United States.{{Cite web|title = Return to Babylon| website=IMDb |url = https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0255820/|date = 11 Aug 2013|accessdate = 2015-06-02}} It was re-released on 15 January 2019 on YouTube after years of not finding home video distribution.