Saturday Night at the Baths

This film does represent a historical piece of gay film. It's funny, dreadful, sweet and tender in bits! Don't watch this if you take things too seriously.

I was in my teens when this film came out, but I remember the times (I first saw it at an art house in LA). The plot of Saturday Night at the Baths has less to do with bath house culture and more to do with the exploration that was going on at the time. The leads do a good job of showing the freeness and openness of the sexual revolution (google it), so much so that when one takes a walk to the other side, aka a gay rendezvous, there is a thought that their straight relationship just may last. The film took my breath as I recalled the often silliness of pre-AIDs existence. All that passed with the millions of gay men who died in the years following this film. Since then, our culture has hardened, but it was nice to once again see how innocent we were despite the oppression of the time. When viewing the film, consider the boldness of the filmmaker and actors. This film was created before being gay was accepted and should be viewed through that lens. That alone makes this a groundbreaking film.

It's not a great piece of film making so don't expect a monumental tour de force of cinema. But as a specific glimpse into a turning point of American history it's well worth your observation. What is valuable is the the documentation of early 70s gay life and early 70s New York City... Pre-AIDS, pre/cusp gay liberation, a failing NYC under Mayor Beame and a glimpse into the values and lifestyle during a very tumultuous time sandwiched between the free love/rock and roll 60s and the decadent/greed is good 80s. From that sociological perspective it's worth a watch.

There are two versions of this movie on DVD, both released by Water Bearer Films, but they are very different. Get the SECOND version! The first was a chopped-up version released without the director's participation in 2006. Later an uncut version of the movie was found in the director's files and released as "director's cut" on a new DVD in 2008. The second DVD not only is a cleaner copy with better video and audio, but it includes several minutes of footage missing from the first DVD.

Most important **BY FAR** is a five-minute love scene between Scotti and Michael that not only balances the earlier scene between Michael and Tracey but blows it clean out of the water. The scene with Tracey is a sex scene; the scene with Scotti is a love scene, infinitely more sensual, passionate, romantic and erotic than the mechanical humping with Tracey. The gay love scene alone kills forever the criticism that this movie is worth watching only for its documenting of a life and a world long gone. It qualifies this as a very good movie in its own right and one of the sexiest gay moves of that or any era.

The new DVD has a guy's torso in a white towel on the cover, with the title like a blue bumper sticker over his crotch, instead of the first DVD's dark, murky pink and black cover with the title in the center. It also includes an extensive, fantastic making-of interview with the director David Buckley and a wide-ranging interview with Steve Ostrow, owner of the Baths - both filmed recently - which were not on the first DVD; and a few extra seconds of the magical Jane Olivor performance of "Pretty Girl" and of the fabulous Judy impersonator lost from the first DVD.

Don't bother renting and certainly don't buy the butchered 2006 DVD with two pink profiles on a black cover; BUY the 2008 director's cut DVD with the guy in the towel. You won't regret it.

I agree with the previous writers on all complaints about this movie. Apparently the owner of Continental Baths decides to make a movie about his just opened establishment in 1975. The script is very thin, the acting is pretty bad at times and the shots even worse. However, given that the movie was made in 1975 at a venue where very little film material is probably available I do think it is worth watching. Don't watch it because of the script, acting or quality of the movie itself. If you watch as a document of a phenomenon of that time in a dramatized way I think it makes much more sense. The movie can be found on YouTube now.