Welcome to the Chippendales.
Welcome to the nights of the 70s and 80s in Los Angeles and your sexual liberation.
Welcome to a crime story under a sensual cover.
Come in.
The use of the feminine is not accidental, it is necessary. Because without them none of this would have happened. They were women - men were forbidden
to enter -
who filled the premises night after night,
doubled the capacity - there were 300 enough and 600 came in -
and they enjoyed the spectacle of muscular and oiled guys that he became for more than 10 years in America's biggest
strip
club
:
the Chippendales
. The work of Indian businessman Steve Banerjee, the money-making machine that was destroyed by fires, extortion, assassination attempts and suicides.
But we still have until we get there. We are in 1975, in Beverly Hills, the exclusive Los Angeles nightlife area, with party clubs proliferating on every corner. These are years of sexual and social liberation, of alcohol and drugs, of night and party. These are years of expanding business, of making money.
And, in that, Banerjee, owner of Energy, seemed to be the king
.
His club was packed every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. But he wanted more, the business had to grow. He decided to put muddy women's wrestling fights in the center of the track and magic shows, but the clientele no longer turned up. Until in 1979, promoter Paul Sneider came into his life from Canada. It was he who, with the experience of the neighboring country, introduced the show of the striptease. "
I thought it was the stupidest story I had ever heard in my life
, but I definitely had no idea what women wanted," he tells in the documentary series
The Curse of the Chippendales
, broadcast by Movistar +, the local lawyer, Bruce Nahin. The story has just begun.
The first show without order or choreography triggers the rumors and the crowds no longer cease in the club. Women feel free to live out their sexual fantasy and dancers begin to feel like stars.
There are bachelorette parties with young girls, meetings with co-workers and even octogenarian birthdays in
the audience. The figure of the master of ceremonies appears with Richard Barsh and in one of the first
shows
the police close the premises and arrest all the
strippers
for crimes of nudity and exhibitionism since the law did not allow the dancers to touch in places where alcohol was served . One more point of fame for the local.
The owner, Banerjee, decides that the time has come to give a change of scene with a reform and a new name to his place: the Chippendales. Word of mouth continues as the figure of Paul Sneider begins to blur. It does not count in the decisions of the
shows
; he is fired for his alcohol and drug excesses; his girl, Dorothy Stratten, doesn't want to stay with him waiting to be a PlayBoy girl, and the millionaire Hugh Hefner - the only man to enter the premises - gives her the opportunity. His life falls apart and, in July 1980, he murders his wife with a shot in the face after torturing her because she was going to abandon him for the film director Peter Bogdanovich and commits suicide.
Nothing seems to ruin the Chippendales yet.
The money keeps coming in and Banerjee decides to expand to New York
in search of true glamor. This is how he meets producer Nick de Noia, who had won an Emmy for the children's series
Unicorn Tales
, will make him his new partner and will give him the command to direct the
shows
in the Big Apple. He proposes that he take the dancers on tour and that the profits in perpetuity go to him. The owner signs without knowing the meaning of that word. He had just mortgaged his business.
The Chippendales were already a mass phenomenon across the country and had even starred
in national television
skits
.
But money and fame went mostly to De Noia.
No sign of Banerjee.
The business was beginning to crack and other clubs took advantage of the
striptease
formula
to put themselves on the night map.
Too much loss for the entrepreneur.
He decides to hire a collaborator, Ray Colon, and
orders him to burn down premises that have copied his idea
.
To avoid arousing suspicion for being the only one without fires, double the security at the Chippendales.
The dancers' tours are already outside the United States and the substantial profits continue to flow to De Noia.
It's time for Banerjee to regain command, but he has to get rid of his partner.
He hires a hit man and one night is found shot dead in the head
.
The police rule out that it is a matter of the Indian businessman.
Rights are back in their hands but
strip
clubs
are growing in the United States and Europe.
It is time to follow the criminal spiral and
the focus is clear: the Adonis company, in London
.
Why?
Because the owner was related to De Noia and the master of ceremonies was a former
chipperdales
, Read Scott.
What is the best solution?
A new hit man.
It is July 1991 and an individual begins to tell in the offices of the FBI in Las Vegas how he has been hired to inject cyanide to several strippers in London.
It is Strawberry whom Banerjee and Colon had hired to finish off the Adonis and whom he denounces for fear of being the next corpse.
Thus begins the police investigation that dismantles the criminal and murderous plot of the businessman,
arrested in 1993, sentenced to 25 years in prison for a criminal organization
and who, days after the conviction, appears hanged in his cell.
End of the party.
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