MANHATTAN’s pre- AIDS debauchery at its high (or low, depending on your point of view) 30 years ago is celebrated in “American Swing,” a lovingly documented look at notorious Plato’s Retreat.
In 1977, Larry Levenson, a schlubby kosher-meat salesman from Long Island, took over the basement of the Ansonia Hotel on the Upper West Side, formerly the site of the gay-oriented Continental Baths where Bette Midler rose to fame.
This dedicated swinger turned Plato’s into a freewheeling orgy where, for a $35 admission charge, celebrities rubbed elbows (and often a lot more) with the bridge-and-tunnel crowd that was turned away from the concurrent (and more drug-oriented) Studio 54.
Originally, only couples (and celebrities such as Madonna and Sylvester Stallone) could buy admission to Plato’s, which boasted an Olympic-size pool, a 60-person whirlpool bath and a “Mattress Room” occupied by wall-to-wall naked bodies.
Filmmakers Matthew Kaufman and Jon Hart have unearthed a treasure trove of hard-core clips, including some jaw-
dropping orgy footage from Al Goldstein’s X-rated “Midnight Blue” TV show.
The show originally aired on old Manhattan Cable’s public-access Channel J, which also carried hilarious vintage ads for Plato’s with Levenson and his busty wife that appear in the documentary.
By then, his sexual Eden had moved to 34th Street and 10th Avenue, and prostitutes were available for men who needed a second half of their “couple.”
The handwriting was already on the wall well before AIDS pulled down the curtain on the city’s most permissive era.
The city began shutting down its gay bathhouses, and the padlocking of Plato’s on New Year’s Eve 1985 made front-page headlines.
Levenson died of a heart attack in 2002, at age 62. But the documentary features ex-employees and aging former clubgoers from the suburbs who are eager to talk about their wild youths — even if they recall Plato’s wasn’t exactly the cleanest of venues.
Don’t even ask about the buffet.
“American Swing” doesn’t have a particularly well-defined point of view, but it is a succinct, entertaining and valuable record of a time that in some ways now seems as remote as the Roaring ’20s.
AMERICAN SWING The real sex and the city. Running time: 81 minutes. Not rated (explicit footage, nudity). At the Quad, 13th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues.