Studio 54

Although it only lasted for 33 months, Manhattan’s infamous nightclub Studio 54 remains a cultural icon from the late ‘70s post-Watergate, post-Vietnam period—a time when everyone wanted to have fun, or (as one interviewee astutely observes) "a window of opportunity between the invention of the pill and the advent of AIDS." Filmmaker Matt Tyrnauer’s Studio 54 is a sex, drugs, and disco rise and fall saga centering on friends and founders Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager. Transforming an old CBS studio into the "Mount Olympus of the disco world," Rubell and Schrager created a hotspot that featured nightly spectacle and attracted dozens of big name celebrities, including Halston, Andy Warhol, Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, Truman Capote, and Michael Jackson. Rubell, who was gay, served as the ebullient front man, while the more reserved Schrager—who is the key interviewee here—remained behind-the-scenes. As is often the case in these kinds of stories, success bred excess with a dash of greed and stupidity. Drugs and cash were stashed all over the place, and the IRS eventually charged the owners (and a third partner) for skimming money and tax evasion, which—despite legal representation by the notorious Roy Cohn (and 36 other lawyers)—ultimately stuck, especially after the disastrous decision to publicly accuse President Jimmy Carter’s Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan of being a cocaine-snorting patron of Studio 54 (eventually, the Department of Justice got involved). Rubell and Schrager would both do time in prison—serving sentences that were cut short when they agreed to sing about similar wrongdoing at other big-name clubs in NYC. In 1989, Rubell died of AIDS complications (described in the papers as hepatitis and septic shock), while Schrager (who was officially pardoned by President Obama in 2017) went on to become a major force in the boutique hotel industry. Featuring oodles of archival footage and stills, coupled with interviews of former employees, patrons, and officials, Studio 54 presents an often fascinating and consistently entertaining time capsule look at the real story behind a short-lived cultural phenomenon that quickly became legend. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (R. Pitman)