Memorable, crazy movie

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Seeing this "play" on PBS when first aired, I was left with questions ranging from character development, story location, interpersonal exchanges, etc. After (fortunately) viewing this masterpiece on several occasions I decided "Steambath" & my questions have individual answers to everyone. So, "What is Life?" and After remains a question with an infinite number of solutions; each your own. "Steambath" was & remains in my top most influential "plays/movies" ever! On par with this "10" is Dalton Trumbo's "Johnny Got His Gun"(~1969 movie) which describes the individual horror of War (WWI) from the perspective of a soldier - quadriplegic who also has lost sight & speech. He can only "Hear" who/what happens to & around him in the aftermath of man's inhumanity to man.

Steambath starts out with a whole cross section of the human race waking up in a steam room, wrapped in nothing but towels and wondering just how they got there. These people are not an easy fit with each other, but the clue should have been that this particular steam room also has a woman in it, not something usual in the Seventies or now, and definitely not something that the two gay men in the place would have found inviting even with the woman being Valerie Perrine.It's Perrine and Bill Bixby who realize the situation and also the various waiters are not quite human. Where is God in this whole affair and he makes his appearance shortly in the form of Jose Perez, the washroom attendant.What author Bruce Jay Friedman has done is given us a Seventies version of the old after life classic Outward Bound which got two big screen versions under its original title and later as Between Two Worlds. The majestic figures of Dudley Digges and Sydney Greenstreet as the Great Examiner are replaced here by Jose Perez who has a sardonic view of the highest life forms on the pecking order he's created.There is no great moralizing here, death is merely a process whereby you transition from one existence to another. The Steambath is merely a synonym for purgatory like the ocean liner was in those two films Only Bixby really does want to go back and he and Perez get into a bit as to just what he's going back to.Steambath is an amusing and existential take on life and death and man's ultimate place in the universe. Maybe a Steambath is what our souls need, a place to dry out and relax before moving on.

When I happened to tune into KQED in San Francisco in 1972, I was blown away by this truly outstanding program. I've never seen such a successful combination of mystery, comedy and tragedy presented in any medium or in any production. That show alone made me a life-long supporter of PBS television. I was fortunate to have seen it a couple times in the mid 1770's as it was occasionally shown during subscriber drives while I was living in Milwaukee. I have never seen any trace of it since. Believe me, I've tried.

Yes! Steambath was one of those dramas that deserve to be out. I wonder who has the rights to this version and can it be put out on video? Well worth watching. Especially the comment on Cuban cigars in view of Bill Clinton and Monica, heh, heh, heh...grin!;Seriously, it and 'Nourish the Beast,' were some very good early 1970's PBS dramas.