Saturday Night at the Baths

It wasn't as bad as most reviews make it seem, but about 15 minutes of a club's floor show really brought the ending to a standstill.

Michael (Robert Aberdeen) is a jobbing pianist, living with girlfriend "Tracy" (Ellen Sheppard), who gets a job playing in the gay "Continental Baths Club". He isn't used to be being hit upon by scantily clad men, so is a little apprehensive until he begins to befriend his young manager "Scotti" (Don Scotti) whom he introduces to his gal - and believe it or not after a few drinks and spliffs, he starts to quite enjoy his work. What he hadn't bargained for, though, is his changing affections for his new best friend. Might temptation get the better of him? For a movie that is ostensibly about a place with more than it's fair share of hedonism, I found this to be really quite a tame affair. There is one extended sex scene - but that's between him and her and he looks as if the latter day intimacy co-ordinator had thrown a bucket of ice cold water over him just in case, and with the story being remarkably predictable and thin, I ended up thinking this was more of a slightly seedy documentary of life below stairs in a nightclub and of an early example of acquired sexual fluidity. There is quite a good soundtrack and though it has really dated now, it does illustrate just how carefree free love actually was amidst a society that was still fairly homophobic, but none of the acting really helps it along well enough to make it stand out as much more than a piece of, admittedly groundbreaking, nostalgia a little in the style of "Midnight Cowboy" (1969).