MOVIE REVIEW : ‘CLUB LIFE’: THIS JOINT IS REALLY JUMPIN’

“Club Life” (citywide) manages to bring freshness and warmth to the oft-told tale of youthful innocents adrift in Bad Old Hollywood.

Writer-director Norman Thaddeus Vane, who did such a fine job with the horror picture “Frightmare,” brings considerable style and energy to familiar material, and his people have far more dimension than is usual for a modestly budgeted genre picture.

Tom Parsekian’s Cal and Jamie Barrett’s Sissy have got to be the most naive young people ever to come out of Asbury Park, N.J., hardly a hinterlands Garden of Eden. Handsome, well-muscled and the best disco dancer since John Travolta’s Tony Manero, Cal comes out here with an extremely vague notion of attaining movie stardom but ends up a bouncer at Tony Curtis’ nightclub.

An aspiring singer, the patrician Sissy soon follows him but swiftly is caught up in the street life, hooking and seeking constant drug highs.

What gives “Club Life,” moodily photographed by Joel King, its edge is that it captures the seductiveness of its vital, escapist neon-lit milieu. Even more important are the people who give Cal a sense of belonging. They’re Michael Parks, a veteran bouncer who once thought he’d be the new James Dean--which is exactly what was actually said of Parks himself--and the paternal Curtis, who tries to defy underworld pressure to take over his place and turn it into a drug pusher’s paradise.

Only Dee Wallace, Curtis’ girl and the club’s singer, warns Cal that he ought to get out of the club life before he gets hooked on it. Pat Ast is on hand as the hearty proprietress of a lesbian bar where Sissy makes a disastrous singing appearance.

From Curtis, Parks and Wallace, who admits to Cal that’s she’s 37 years old beneath thick makeup and a blond haystack wig, Vane gets performances that compare favorably with their best work, which is saying a lot. Both Parsekian and Barrett are very likable and attractive.

Even though “Club Life” follows a predictable course, its people seem to have an unusual degree of authenticity. That’s because the film is based on the experiences of Bleu McKenzie, who collaborated with Vane on its story and is seen briefly as an underworld thug. “Club Life” (rated R for some sex and violence) claims to introduce McKenzie to the screen, but some of us can remember him when he started out as a young actor of considerable presence.

‘CLUB LIFE’ A Cineworld Enterprises Corp./Tiger Productions release. Exec. producers Charles Aperia, Guy Collins. Producer-director Norman Thaddeus Vane. Screenplay Vane; based on a story by Bleu Mckenzie & Vane. Camera Joel King. Music Jack Conrad. Choreographer Dennon Rawles. Art directors Cynthia Sowder, Phillip Duffin. Costumes Elisabeth Scott. Film editor David Kern. With Tom Parsekian, Michael Parks, Jamie Barrett, Tony Curtis, Dee Wallace, Ron Kuhlman, Pat Ast.

Running time: 1 hour, 32 minutes.

MPAA rating: R (Under 17 requires an accompanying parent or adult guardian.)