While the gay community experienced all sorts of new freedoms in the post-Stonewall era of the early ’70s and 80′s there isn’t much of a film record of that time until a 2005 American documentary film about gay sexual culture in New York City called “gay Sex in the 70′s was released. (Now on Netflix Streaming CLICK HERE) Other than that most films representing that era have been over the top or gritty and sterotypical like The Boys in the Band, Crusiing, and (shudder) Can’t Stop The Music
Saturday Night at the Baths, is a roughly edited no-budget record of gay New York life circa 1975, when the scene revolved not around cave-like steam rooms and baths, where the wild entertainment included everything from floor shows and interpretive dance to anonymous sex with anyone and everyone.
The movie itself is early independent filmmaking at the basest level with no production values and flat acting, but has real importance as history and deserves to be seen, especially by younger gay people who have no memory of gay life before the AIDS epidemic.
