Sex, drugs and disco in the infamous Studio 54 – now told as the director MARK CHRISTOPHER intended. A love letter to late 70’s New York.

This film exists in a narcissistic world, where characters cavort about in a blizzard of cocaine and champagne; a pill popping swamp where everyone sleeps with everyone, in whatever configuration they choose. Originally made in 1998, the original producer Harvey Weinstein was apparently worried that audiences would not connect with such morally bereft, bisexual characters, and so set about sanitising it. A third of the films 100 minutes was cut and the director was sent to reshoot whole scenes, promoting Neve Campbell then flushed with success from SCREAM, to the central love interest. The film was ruined, the director furious, the critics bemused and the film sunk without trace.

Now, somewhat amazingly, the director has managed to restore the film as originally intended, bringing back the beautifully bittersweet coming of age tale it had always intended to tell. It is your basic rags to riches and back again story, Shane (Ryan Phillipe) want to get into studio 54 to check out the girls. “Not in that Shirt”, they smirk at the door. He takes it off to reveal a body beautiful.

He’s in, and so begins his odyssey in to the self-obsessed epicurean, drug fuelled and sexually ambivalent world of the New York elite.

There are still some issues. It tries to tell too broad a story and never quite gets there, unlike say, BOOGIE NIGHTS, an obvious comparison and made just a year earlier. Also, now that much of the original footage has been restored, the scenes with Julie (Neve Campbell) make less sense; although there is a touching scene between her and Shane that is touching and leaves you wanting more of them. He’s in, and so begins his odyssey in to the self-obsessed epicurean, drug fuelled and sexually ambivalent world of the New York elite.

But actually these are minor complaints, as the film stays with you. Its bittersweet charm slowly envelops as the innocence and the bonds between the central characters grow. The performances are great. Salma Hayek is funny and gorgeous as the wannabe singer ready to perform at the drop of a hat. Sela Ward plays Billie, the self-centred, cocaine fuelled hedonist who tells everyone how they will be in for a treat with Shane: “he fucked me unconscious”, which indeed he did, only to check himself in the mirror and carry on regardless. A great moment that sums the Machiavellian heart at the centre of this film is when Billie says, “ What would you be prepared to do to get to where you want to go?”

But it is Mike Meyers as the snivelling Steve Rubell, the owner of the club, who steals the show. He works, “72” hours straight, snorting, pill popping, making a pile of cash while laundering much of it with the mob. He is a lonely character, sad because he does all the things he does but with no real motivation. “There are no labels here” he says while asking to suck Greg’s (Breckin Meyer) manhood. “I’m not gay” he continues, while dribbling bile on to a pile of cash strewn over his bed. The scene sums him up brilliantly, not to revile him but to pity him, and it is played with real pathos.

During the restoration, a handful of shots were rescued from videotape, their degraded texture only helping to enhance the sense of foreboding and melancholy that the film elicits. It is this that reminds you throughout what an improvement this is on the original. It deserves a second chance, and the film stays with you well after the credits have slipped away. It makes you think how many other directors out there are waiting for the chance Mark Christopher has had. How many hidden gems are there waiting to be unearthed? Because, make no mistake, this is a hidden gem.

 54: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT screens on 9 September at 16.15 at the Arts Picturehouse