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Feature
- The year was 1977 and New York City burned. As the metropolis hurtled into bankruptcy, the city’s nightlife hit unprecedented heights. In midtown, the ultra-exclusive Studio 54 was a cocaine-fueled celebrity clubhouse. Downtown, at the spartan CBGB s, punk rockers set out to destroy everything Pop. Meanwhile, in the basement of the prestigious Ansonia building on the conservative Upper West Side,
Overview
The Seventies were sexy and sleazy. At the epicenter of it all was Plato’s Retreat, the controversial, first-ever swingers club. In New York’s conservative Upper West Side, Plato’s embraced adventurous couples who came to dance, to swim, and… to swap. It was the start of a revolution. The brainchild of Larry Levenson, the self-proclaimed King of Swing, Plato’s Retreat quickly emerged as the mainstay of public sex for the me generation, welcoming anyone and everyone. For only , couples checked their judgments and pedigrees at the door; debutantes got it on next to bus drivers, as movie stars gave secretaries the starlet treatment. For Levenson and others, Plato s was a utopia. However, this wild party did not last. American Swing brings this enigmatic epic of excess to the screen for the first time.
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April 17th, 2011 on 12:00 pm
raw but intrigung look into the sexual revolution,
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Anyone who ventures into “American Swing” expecting to see a documentary on Benny Goodman is in for one hell of a rude awakening – and that’s putting it mildly. For the “swing,” in this case, actually refers to the “wife-swapping” phenomenon that swept through middle-class suburbia in the 1970s. And no figure did more to popularize that trend than Larry Levenson – the “King of Swing” as he came to be called – whose “live sex club,” Plato’s Retreat, located in Manhattan`s Upper West Side, served as the epicenter for so much of the action.
Let it be stated right up front that this eye-opening documentary is not for the prudish or the easily offended, for its footage is graphic and its language raw, often akin in its look to crude 1970`s porn. It takes us straight into the heart of a scene that became famous for its flagrant nudity, its unbridled group sex, and – if the eyewitness accounts are to be believed – its really bad food (apparently, the smorgasbord that kept bringing the people in was of quite a different kind!). Directed by Matthew Kaufman and Jon Hart, the film features interviews with many of the now-aging club regulars who happily regale us with tales of their personal escapades there. A number of celebrities who frequented the club, as well as certain reporters and broadcasters who covered the beat at the time are also interviewed.
“American Swing” is most interesting as a social document, showing how the “free love” ethos espoused by the hippies in the 1960′s expanded into the mainstream a decade later. Suddenly, ordinary businessmen and housewives, truck drivers and longshoremen could partake in the life of the sexually liberated. In his own mind, Levenson sincerely believed that he was serving a salutary purpose with his club, providing couples who didn’t want to be stuck in a monogamous relationship with a more honest alternative to “cheating.”
It is not the intention of Kaufman and Hart to judge the people who took part in what Plato`s Retreat had to offer, but neither is it their intention to shy away from some of the less savory consequences that eventually overtook many of them: principally, the diminution of romance, rampant drug abuse, and the spread of disease. In fact, it was the sudden appearance of AIDS in the early 1980s that brought the decade-long love-train to a screeching halt. That, along with Levenson’s own troubles with the IRS (including time spent in prison for tax evasion) and possible dealings with the mob, is what eventually brought an end to the place – and to the era of licentiousness that helped to spawn it.
So, was Levenson a trailblazing sexual revolutionary who made it possible for otherwise ordinary middle-class people to live out their wildest fantasies? Or was he an emotionally stunted individual who cast away the mores of society in a bid to fulfill his own kinky desires and make a kingdom and a name for himself in the process? To their credit, Kaufman and Hart provide no easy answer to those questions, neither for the prigs in the audience nor for the libertines.
All same for the movie itself – for even though Levenson’s life ends sadly, “American Swing” does not play out like the typical cautionary tale. For, in the end, we are left to reach our own conclusions as to whether Plato’s Retreat was in reality a hedonistic paradise or merely a moral cesspool – or, indeed perhaps, a little of both.
The only thing you can really do is check out “American Swing” and make that determination for yourself.
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|April 17th, 2011 on 12:14 pm
Good documentary; difficult subject,
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“American Swing”
(Magnolia Pictures, 2008)
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(NOTE: some spoilers included below)
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This is an utterly compelling documentary about an amazingly seedy topic, the life and death of a popular New York sex club called Plato’s Retreat, which catered to heterosexual “swingers” during the height of the disco era. It was, apparently, the equivalent to the swinger scene what Studio 54 was to the gay-socialite set, a place of immense personal liberation and shocking group debauchery. I used to think of the heyday of “wife-swapping” as being in the early and mid-1960s, but this saga took place in the musty ashes of the ’60s Sexual Revolution, as the hippie era gave way to a more generalized hedonism and self-centeredness in American society. The film largely shies away from an examination of the larger changes in society at the time, sticking closely to the immediate drama of the Plato club, and indeed, it’s a pretty compelling story. It’s also an unsettling topic: I had no idea that straight (hetero) society had such an out-there free-sex culture, and while this is fascinating in theory, seeing it made plain (there is quite a bit of archival footage) is a little nauseating, if the truth be told.
As the story unfolded, I assumed that the advent of AIDS and HIV disease would be what would do the club in, and while it did factor in, it was actually the club’s ties to organized crime that rocked its foundations: the club’s owner, Larry Levinson, went to jail for nearly three years for tax evasion in the early 1980s. Amazingly, the venue survived for several years until finally being closed down by the City of New York, as the AIDS crisis intensified and it became clear that unsafe sex was unsafe no matter what sexual orientation was involved. What makes this film so watchable, though, is the parade of characters — bouncers, clubgoers, porn stars, journalists — who are interviewed decades later, and who speak of Plato’s Retreat with both refreshing candor and sincere, unrepentant, misty-eyed nostalgia. It’s a slice of American history, and a portrait of a time and culture that seems profoundly remote now. Certainly worth checking out. (Joe Sixpack, Slipcue film reviews)
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|April 17th, 2011 on 12:54 pm
Pay Your Taxes (warning: plot spoiler),
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In recent years we’ve witnessed the emergence of a new movie sub-genre that might be called “Sexual-Social Deviant as Hero.” Among the more notable entries are Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Boogie Nights,” based on the career of porn star John Holmes, and a number of others the titles of which have slipped from memory almost as quickly as their subjects. Some who come to mind are Larry Flynt (publisher of Hustler magazine), Howard Stern (ground-breaking shock jock), and Bob Crane (TV series star who was a sex addict and victim of an unsolved brutal murder).
“American Swing” is definitely in the same vein, except it’s unlikely that it showed on many theater screens. It’s a low-budget documentary about a libertine-crusader, Larry Levenson, who was the founder of Plato’s Retreat, the NYC swingers’ club that might be seen as a metaphor for heterosexual sex in the seventies (and a bit beyond). If you never got around to reading Gay Talese’s comprehensive, authoritative best-seller “Thy Neighbor’s Wife” (1981, though it’s currently available on Amazon in an updated 2009 edition), “American Swing” might seen as the Cliff’s Notes version (though Talese is admittedly one of America’s talented writers–check out his essay on Frank Sinatra).
All of the aforementioned five movies take a basically sympathetic view toward their protagonist, making him appear like a sincere, well-intentioned social maverick who was misguided (by his inner demons?) and paid a price (though Flynt and Stern fall more into the “to be continued” category). When all is said and done, none of the major players, like so many near-tragic heroes, “knew what hit him.” Larry Levenson, like Bob Crane, left behind loving progeny (one son, in Bob’s case; two, in Larry’s). Moreover, Larry’s sons have faces made for the screen–some of the widest eyes you’ll ever see in front of a camera lens. But the real gold mine for filmmakers Mathew Kaufman and Jon Hart is a pair of former Plato’s Retreat members–a married couple looking like typical retired AARP card-carriers–both of whom can’t say enough about Larry, his adventures and misadventures, his alliances good and bad, and his notorious buffet.
Of course, there are snippets of more familiar faces–Mayor Koch, porn star Ron Jeremy, TV host Phil Donahue–but the camera’s constant return to the retired couple pretty much says it all: Plato’s Retreat was a dump, and poor Larry Levenson was, above all, the captive of his own delusions. The complimentary buffet that he took such great pride in was, in fact, deemed inedible by experienced members, who knew enough to bring their own food if they planned to stay for any length of time.
Despite the unpopular (if unforgettable) buffet, the disintegration of his love life, the loss of all his friends, a brutal mob-like beating that nearly killed him, and serving extensive prison time, Larry kept his chin up and, like the Road Runner, kept coming back, ever optimistic about the future and unshaken in his belief about the rightness of his cause. But Larry was so caught up in his magnificent obsession that he overlooked a minor matter: paying taxes to the IRS. In fact, to hear the interviewees tell it, he didn’t go to the trouble of concealing the crime, he left witnesses to his indiscretions all over the place, and finally it scarcely occurred to him to mount a legal defense.
By now you no doubt will have guessed the ending, though it’s still probably worth hearing it told. Plato’s is closed for good in 1985. Larry winds up driving a cab. Larry dies (in the 1990s) at the age of 62 (I thank the writer who clarified the matter). Apparently there were no more fast lanes or entrepreneurship opportunities to be pursued. The last shot of this 2008 film is of a former acquaintance who, upon being asked his recollections of Larry Levenson, responds: “Larry Levenson! Did he die?”
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