Movie: AMERICAN SWING
2008, Directed by Mathew Kaufman and Jon Hart
Holy fuck, dude. The 70s were strange. Like really strange.
I still have a difficult time comprehending that people (straight, gay, whatever) regularly would drop trou and just have sex with random strangers back then. For me, my adolescence hit the same time AIDS did. The idea that people regularly had sex without asking for complete previous partner histories was mind blowing to my teenage self. (And yes, I’m well aware that people are still having random, unprotected sex.)
AMERICAN SWING is a “warts and all” documentary about the NYC swinger’s club Plato’s Retreat. For a $25 membership fee, you and your opposite sex partner (no homosexuals, please) could come to the club and dance, drink, swim, and have sex with others who shared the “lifestyle”. There was also an all-you-can-eat buffet.
To repeat: an all-you-can-eat buffet in the same room as hundreds of naked people, in the same room as a disease ridden hot tub, and steps away from the “mattress room”. For some reason, the passing mention of this buffet fascinated me more than the actual sex and swinging that was going on. Really, they should have made it an advertising slogan: “Come for the sex, stay for the lasagna!”.
AMERICAN SWING is a documentary in the same style of INSIDE DEEP THROAT or WADD - a seemingly risque subject treated seriously and accurately. It’s quite fascinating, but not for the 70s-era footage shot inside the club, which is completely unsexy. What’s more fascinating is watching now 60ish-year-old couples talk about working at the club (such as sill-married managers Charlie and Annie Grippo, who marvel at the quality of the buffet food), or just being a regular customers. The documentary spans from the beginning of the club and it’s various locations, to owner Larry Levinson’s tax evasion arrest and imprisonment, to the club’s demise in the heyday of the AIDS crisis.
Fun fact (besides the buffet): there was actually a hit single - reaching #6 on the Billboard charts in 1978 - by Joe Thomas called “Plato’s Retreat”. Listen to it here. (Completely safe for work, it’s just a picture of the album cover with the song.) What other time than the 70s could have this happened?
