This documentary almost feels like it should have an exclamation mark at the end of the title. As West Hollywood councillor John Duran stands on stage, he bellows the words to his audience of former revellers and the attendant unseen angels. More on that later.
There is no exclamation mark but the entertaining film revisits a lost gay club popular in the 1980s with plenty of archive footage and remembrances from staff and visitors. There is quite a large quotient of name-dropping, as well as everyone from Elton to Cary to Sylvester was there. Chita Rivera (RIP) is interviewed about launching her cabaret at the club's back room and admitting how daunting it was crossing the dance floor to get to her show.
All of this great but so what? Lots of clubs existed in the 1980s. What made this one special? The hook is that the now-shuttered club is about to be demolished in 2018 as a big bad developer has taken over the property. Duran and his pals are keen to stop the demolition, and they put on a reunion to raise the club's profile. It takes until the 70th minute for anyone to mention AIDS and then it turns into a memorial as Duran speaks of all the lost angels looking down on them. This is moving but many people who were mentioned earlier are never given their due. What happened to them?
The editing is bizarre, skipping from a declaration that the club owner ran a racist admission policy to talking about Can't Stop the Music and then on to the DJ playlist. Visits to a local archive are interesting and there is a brief glimpse of some lost and now found photo negatives. But it's a bit of a mishmash.
If this gives a new generation an idea of how club life functioned in WeHo pre-AIDS, then all to the good. I do wish there had been a bit more reflection on Studio One's cultural context. Spoiler: the party ended very, very badly.
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