Movies Reviews
Movie Review: Inside Deep Throat
By Frank H. Woodward
Feb 9, 2005, 23:28 GMT

INSIDE THE DEEP THROAT is more than a documentary about the most successful adult film ever made.  It is an insightful film that tells us of a time when sex was not to be talked about and how one low budget porno changed all that.  It was a time not too different from today's morality run riot, where the government defines what is obscene... not the national mood. 

INSIDE DEEP THROAT doesn't lecture, however.  Thanks to the critical, yet never judgmental eyes of Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (the filmmakers who brought us THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE) and the strong support of family entertainment producer Brian Grazer, the revolutionary events surrounding DEEP THROAT are left to speak for themselves.

When DEEP THROAT premiered in Times Square on June 12, 1972, it was only considered what was then called a "blue film", costing all of $25,000 to make.  It went on to be the most profitable film ever, grossing somewhere in the range of $600 million.  Not only did it bring porn into mainstream culture, it also sparked off the sexual revolution of the 1970s.

It was the "badge of new freedom",  according to cult director John Waters.  Esteemed author Norman Mailer described DEEP THROAT as falling somewhere "between crime and art".

The movie broke all the records for a porn film

When filmmaker Gerard Damiano began production on DEEP THROAT, the act itself didn't even have a name (and, yes, we do see this act in all its glory.  The film is NC-17 for some reason).  The film had a gimmick and Damiano had a muse in Linda Lovelace. What DEEP THROAT didn't have was an agenda.  It was made to be fun, sexy and to turn a buck.  Never has a porn film been so innocent of its ultimate effects. 

The thrust of DEEP THROAT focused on the female orgasm.  This was an act women weren't supposed to be capable of.  Certainly, if she ever had one, a woman could never admit it openly.  Sexual pleasure was reserved for men only.  In the early 1970s, most people were forced to lie about their sexual experiences and desires.  As Gore Vidal points out, as one of the many interviewees from that decade, when you have a "nation that totally lies, then you have no reality."  DEEP THROAT unwittingly exposed some real truths.

The film opened to a record number of curious audiences.  The moral backlash was inevitable  New York shut it down (in all, 23 states banned the film).  President Nixon and his watchdog Charles Keating commissioned a study they hoped would give them scientific proof that sex was morally damaging.  Women were actually being told that DEEP THROAT was detrimental to their health because it emphasised the clitoral orgasm.

All this only made the lines around the block longer. A sexual revolution had begun.  People of all ages and walks of life were talking about the film and what its characters were allowed to experience.  Most couldn't see the big deal.  It was only sex.  In fact, The New York Times even went so far as to label the film part of the new porn chic.  Major studios took notice of the trend, just in case it became accepted to have hardcore scenes in mainstream movies (much like European cinema has done today in films like Patrice Chereau's INTIMACY and Catherine Breillat's ROMANCE - though neither could be seen as
titillating).

If the moralists couldn't prove that sex was a debilitating act, they must have taken some pleasure when DEEP THROAT claimed a few victims.  None were actually victimised by the film, however.  It was government censorship and feminist backlash that laid waste to the swingers.

Co-star Harry Reems was arrested for his part in the movie

The film's most tragic figure wasn't Linda Lovelace, though she did take her kicks in later years (while flip flopping between her life as a sex celebrity and as Gloria Steinem's poster child).  It was the production assistant turned stag celebrity, Harry Reems, who was literally persecuted.  In a last attempt by the conservative government to brand the porn chic movement as obscene, they went after one they felt was responsible.  Not the financiers.  Not the director.  They went after the actor. 

It was the first time (and, if current FCC laws prevail, not the last) that an artist was prosecuted for the content of their work. The government's goal was to deter other actors from taking parts in adult films.  It almost worked.  Reems was sentenced to five years in prison.  His only hope lay in a liberal president being elected (thank you, President Jimmy Carter).  The documentary's most obscene person is, in fact, Reems' prosecutor Larry Parrish.  This is a law officer that said he'd rather see "smut" off the streets more than dope... and still takes this out of whack position today!

Even though DEEP THROAT survived, the force of change it set off has become a coarse one.  In view of today's pervasive porn industry and the sexual objectification by Madison Avenue, any positive effects DEEP THROAT had on culture seem to be negated.  The film's financial connection to the mafia doesn't help the image either. With today's self censorship and government  intervention, one is left to wonder if history isn't already repeating itself.  <!--page-->

In a post screening Q&A, filmmakers Bailey and Barbato pointed out how the advertising for INSIDE DEEP THROAT is already a target of pre-emptive censorship,  based purely on innuendo.  The red lips on INSIDE DEEP THROAT's poster aren't doing anything overtly sexual.  The fact that they could be is enough.  As of this writing, the lips will appear on ads in the L.A. Times, but not in The New York Times, the paper that once championed DEEP THROAT's crusade.

This poster for the original saw the light of day, but even adverts for this documentary are being censored

The mark of an effective documentary is the amount of discourse it inspires.  As may be obvious from this lengthy review, INSIDE DEEP THROAT does just that. Many of the film's salient points are ones that have popped up in films like last year's KINSEY.  Here, though, Bailey and Barbato are wise never to mount their soapbox.  They let the humorous spirit of their subject possess the mood of the interviews (look for Miami theater owner Arthur Sommer and his disapproving wife Terry.  They are true gems!).  Not only does it make the audience comfortable, it also underscores the overreaction of those who think sex should stay in the bedroom... or the closet.  Heck, why have sex at all?

Anyone for a return to Puritanism?  I didn't think so.  Neither does INSIDE DEEP THROAT.