Studio 54 **** (2018, Steve Rubell, Ian Schrager) – Movie Review

Director Matt Tyrnauer’s tremendous, exhaustive, exhilarating feature documentary says what must be the last word on iconic Seventies New York City celebrity disco Studio 54. It is absolutely fabulous!

It tells the story of what must be the greatest nightclub of all time, mainly relying on the troubled testimony of Ian Schrager, the survivor of the club’s two co-owner friends from Brooklyn. Tragically, the showman of the duo, Steve Rubell, died of AIDS, though there is more than plenty of him on the archive footage, so eerily it is almost like he is still here for this documentary. They seem to do everything on a wing and a prayer. They even start off without a proper licence! Then there was the sex, the drugs, the music, the glitz and the glamour, and the taxes they were supposed to have to pay. It was none too professional, or honest, or legal, but above all it was fun, the greatest fun ever, by the look of it!

Best of all is the archive footage, summoning up an entire era of glorious hedonism. It was the dawning and defining of the age of celebrity. Everybody who was anybody in the late Seventies is captured on the thrilling vintage footage. Like the club, the film is great, incredible fun, but with an unhappy ending that sends you away sad and thoughtful. Of course, there is great disco music too, and it is hard to stop your toes tapping along.

It releases 15 June 2018. The film’s official site is: studio54doc.com

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

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