Norman Thaddeus Vane lived a life.

After an early conversion from Judaism to Roman Catholicism, a year in the Merchant Marine and two years in the Air Force, he attended Columbia University on the G.I. Bill.

After graduation, his first play, The Penguin, opened Off-Broadway with Martin Landau in the cast and received rave reviews—reviews that eluded his Broadway debut, Harbor Lights. He then spent the next two decades in London, where he wrote and directed Conscience Bay and The Fledglings when he wasn’t running nightclubs—one of which he sold to the Krays—and contributing to Penthouse.

He also married 16-year-old Sarah Caldwell when he was nearly forty, which formed the basis of his script for Lola (AKA Twinky AKA London Affair), a movie in which Susan George stands in for his wife — his wife did act in his film Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter — and Charles Bronson basically played him.

As the seventies began, he wrote the Italian film 1931: Once Upon a Time in New York, AKA Pete, Pearl & the Pole, which had Tony Anthony as Pete, Adolfo Celi as the Pole and Lucretia Love as the Pearl. He also wrote the Native Americansploitation film — is there a genre? — Shadow of the Hawk stars Jan-Michael Vincent, Marilyn Hassett and Chief Dan George.

Somewhere in the middle of the 70s, he shot the second unit on the adult horror comedy Dracula Sucks, which would serve him well when he made the mainstream Frightmare, a movie that has references to the Universal Dracula.

Perhaps his most interesting film is 1984’s The Black Room, which Vane revealed to Nightmare USA based on his real life, as he cheated on his wife in his black room with Penthouse centerfolds that he met while working at that publication. It’s also the only movie I’ve ever seen where a man rents a sex room from a brother and sister-couple who may or may not be vampires.

The last few movies of Vane’s career are hit and miss: Midnight, in which he was unhappy with the final cut, which was taken from him; Taxi Dancers, a sex film shot in the same nightclub used for Club Life and You’re So Dead, made when Vane was 79 years old and never shown, as far as I know.

Vane wrote an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times in 1991 in which he confessed to how hard agism had hit him, saying, “After being dropped by William Morris some years ago, I managed to sell several scripts to studios. But in recent years, the wall has been impenetrable. Instead of disappearing, I decided to write, produce and direct low-budget, independent features.”

If you want to know more, the incredible Hidden Films was lucky enough to interview Vane before he died in 2015.

But hey — we’re here to talk about Club Life.

Cal (Tom Parsekian) is a kid from a small town with dreams of Hollywood stardom. His journey takes him to The City, a nightclub owned by the coked-out Hector (Tony Curtis), who is in debt to organized crime but also loves to watch his wife Tilly (Dee Wallace) sing. Cal’s Hollywood dream leads him to become a bouncer, learning from the seasoned Tank (Michael Parks). The film features a unique scene where Tank effortlessly dodges every move Cal makes, leading to a moment of shared laughter and pain.

The girl Cal left behind, Sissy (Jamie Barrett), has come to Los Angeles looking for him, but she falls into a bad crowd at the same time as Cal leaving behind The City, as he comes to work at a lesbian bar called Different Drummer. Sissy also sings, and her number “First Class Man” gets her both booed off the stage at the ladies-only club and also catcalled.

This movie is awash in neon and fog. It also has one of the most fantastic sex scenes ever, as Cal and Sissy work it out on a clear waterbed lit from the inside and filled with fish. This is the movie that proves to you that you haven’t seen everything.

It’s not done yet.

After Tank gets killed, during which one of the tough guys says, “The cat can’t sleep if he wants to breathe.” Cal returns to The City and tries to keep Hector safe from all his debts. Did I mention that Cal can also dance? Or that he uses — and here’s the part that might be better than the waterbed filled with sea life — neon nunchucks that get a slow-motion dance fight scene that blew my brains out my nose.

This is a movie filled with strange BDSM fog-enhanced dancing set to music by Frank Musker (who is credited on the Stardust song “Music Sounds Better with You” thanks to a sample it contains from the song “Fate” that he did with Chaka Khan), Michael Sembello (the Flashdance force is strong within this) and Terry Shaddick (who co-wrote Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical”).

Smiley-faced balloons intrude on breakups, graffiti clowns watch over overdoses, and a funeral happens inside a nightclub. It’s also shot by Joel King, whose resume includes camera work on Just Before Dawn, The Beastmaster, Carrie, Out of the Blue and Embrace of the Vampire. That should give you an idea that this movie looks everywhere. As for the wild dance numbers were choreographed by Dennon Rawles, who also worked on Voyage of the Rock Aliens and Staying Alive.

Also, Kristine DeBell shows up, and again, her career has some wild choices, from Meatballs and the erotic Alice in Wonderland to playing Jackie Chan’s love interest in The Big Brawl to being in A Talking Cat!?!

This film ends as only it can. Cal smashes the hall of mirrors where his friend Tank died and basically decimates the entire club with his neon nunchucks. He then splits the disco ball and throws his brightly colored martial arts weapon over the Hollywood hills.

You best believe I was crying.

PS: Norman Thaddeus Vane was not paid for the movie, and when it was nearly finished, he stole the film itself. He told Hidden Films, ” The movie was being edited at Consolidated Film Industries, and I went over and stole these really heavy cans of negatives and put them in the cellar of a friend’s house. And then I told our representative, “Listen, tell Guy Collins that I’m not giving the negatives back until I get some serious money.”  They called the police and I said to them, “I’ve been working for this company for three months and I haven’t been paid dollar one. I’m holding the negative as a lien against the money they owe me by contract.” The police took my side. Guy’s brother came over and paid me $40,000  and said he’d owe me another $40-50,000, but I never got it.”

You can watch this on YouTube or download it from the Internet Archive.

You can listen to the podcast I did on this movie on YouTube.