Night at the Golden Eagle focuses on Tommy (Donnie Montemarano) who is just out of jail and all set to return to his old ways. But his best friend, Mick (Vinny Argiro), has other ideas. He has gone straight, saved over $2000 and hatched a plan: they will head off to Vegas, where their skills as blackjack dealers will make them a fortune.

Arguing in typical fashion, they miss the bus (Mick has sold the car) and have to spend the night in Mick’s room in the rundown Golden Eagle hotel.

To say the Golden Eagle has seen better days is like saying that Los Angeles used to be an orange grove. The place is a dump, inhabited by whores, junkies and the living dead (the film was shot in an actual downtown LA hotel, The Bristol, whose decline almost exactly parallels that of the Golden Eagle). And interwoven into the story of Tommy and Mick - sometimes fatally - are the lives of the other inhabitants. There are Amber and Sally, two crack-addicted whores; their pimp, Rodan; and Loriann, the teenage runaway he is sweet-talking into working for him. There is Ruby, the derelict who sits expressionless on the stoop. There are the Golden Eagle’s two oldest inhabitants: Sylvester, who spends his time watching TV and waiting for Bela Lugosi movies to come on; and there is Mr Maynard, once a tap-dancing Hollywood star, who now lives alone with his decrepit dog. Finally, there is Ray, the evil-tempered owner of the porn shop where Mick works. They are not a pretty bunch.

Fayard Nicholas as Mr Maynard

“I didn’t feel it was my place to cast moral aspersions on these characters,” says Rifkin of the Californian ‘Lower Depths’ he has created. “I just wanted to show a slice of life in this part of town. The real stories of the people who live in the real hotel were, in many ways, more bleak than anything we could have imagined.”

And anyway, Night at the Golden Eagle is a movie, and some of the fascination comes from the eclectic background of the actors who play the denizens of the Golden Eagle’s lobby.

Sylvester, for instance, is played by Sam Moore, the surviving half of legendary soul duo Sam and Dave. Porn-store owner Ray is played by former porn star Ron Jeremy Hyatt, and Russ Meyer icon Kitten Natividad is Ruby, the derelict. “It’s sort of like a little extra prize for anyone who recognises these people,” says Rifkin. “And for those who don’t know, it doesn’t detract from the movie.”

Ann Magnusson and Natasha Lyonne as Sally and Amber

With Mr Maynard, Rifkin really struck lucky. “I originally wrote the role with Fayard Nicholas, the great tap dancer, in mind,” he notes. “By the time I was ready to cast the movie last year, I was told he was dead. Imagine my delight to find that was untrue. Eighty-six-year-old Fayard agreed to come out of retirement to do the part. I was thrilled, not only to have his confidence and participation, but also because Night at the Golden Eagle would serve as the vehicle for probably his last dance performance on celluloid.”

Natasha Lyonne (from American Pie and But I’m a Cheerleader) plays Amber, one of the whores, with UK football hard man-turned-actor Vinnie Jones as Rodan, the pimp. The bigger part of Sally, the other whore, was originally played by Farrah Fawcett, but it didn’t work out.

“She was prohibitively difficult so we fired her,” says Rifkin bluntly. “Because I knew Anne Magnusson from Small Soldiers, she very generously and heroically stepped in at the very last second - literally, with just hours to prepare for the role, she came in and did a great job.”