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112 of 116 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"I wanted to see a dirty movie... and I enjoyed it!", February 21, 2005
Enormously entertaining, and extremely enlightening, Inside Deep Throat is so much more than just a documentary on the 1972 skin flick Deep Throat. The film also presents - in often candid and lurid detail - the moral and censorship battles - that have constantly defined American popular culture for more than thirty years. In one pivotal scene, an elderly woman is asked why she went to see Deep Throat, and she replies by saying that she wanted to see a dirty movie, she enjoyed it, and that she didn't want government or anyone else dictating what she should or shouldn't see.
Herein lies the essential argument of this colorfully entertaining, sexually explicit, and occasionally perceptive movie that takes the viewer on a journey from the innocence of the early seventies, through the tumultuous, politically wrought censorship battles of the eighties, to the present day where the adult film business is now a multi-million dollar industry, and where professionalism and money seem to be the name of the game.
Inside Deep Throat uses a mixture of original footage from the film, interviews with the people who made Deep Throat, and questions a number of counterculture types, such as Gore Vidal, John Walters, and Annie Sprinkle, who comment on the effects of the film, past and present. Divided into two distinct parts: the first half is about the making of the film, while the second deals the ramifications of its release, the effect Deep Throat ultimately had on its stars, and the U.S. Government's desperate, and often successful attempts to have the film banned.
It's probably a bit of a stretch to say that Deep Throat single-handedly changed the nature of the industry. But the film definitely served a purpose and came along at a time when the sexual revolution was changing the way people thought about sexual activity. After hearing Johnny Carson's jokes about the movie on the Tonight Show - middle-aged, older, and intrigued suburbanites would line up at seedy theatres all across the country just to get a glimpse of Linda Lovelace's oral abilities. An act that had previously been considered an obscenity and socially forbidden, had now gained a glimmer of respectability- the New York Times even labeled the movie the new "porn chic."
Inside deep Throat does a great job of showing how the movie's fame and notoriety ultimately lead to the victimization and ill treatment of its stars. Linda Lovelace spent her life constantly vacillating between being proud of what she did, and later becoming a spokesperson for the feminist revolution against pornography by claiming that her performance in Deep Throat constituted rape. Approaching middle age and penniless, she desperately cashes in on her fame by appearing nude in an issue of Playboy.
Harry Reems, the hot, young male star who, at the last moment, shed his title as a production assistant to become the primary object of Linda's affections, initially enjoyed celebrity, but found fame and recognition fleeting. Deep Throat had branded him, and he found it impossible to be taken seriously as an actor. Harry faced serious jail time in a federal trial, and spiraled downwards into alcoholism and drug abuse when he couldn't get any conventional acting jobs.
Of course, the advent of the VCR in the late seventies meant that people could watch adult movies in the privacy of their own homes, and the moral crusade against hard-core adult entertainment in movie theatres somewhat tempered. Sharply edited, with a great sense of pacing, and often very funny, Inside Deep Throat is recommended for anyone who lived through the freewheeling, hedonistic days of the seventies. The movie also serves as a reminder that the culture wars, social morality, and issues of censorship are still as relevant today as they were thirty years ago. Mike Leonard February 05.
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73 of 83 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Back when screen porn was innocent fun, February 24, 2005
If you're old enough to have seen DEEP THROAT when it was first released in 1972, then the documentary INSIDE DEEP THROAT will perhaps be a rewarding trip down Nostalgia Lane (assuming your memory cells weren't fried by all the sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll of the 60s).
DEEP THROAT was the first porn film exhibited in public theaters, and the first to be viewed openly by mixed couples, undoubtedly elbowing out the raincoat crowd. It was produced for $25,000; to date, it's grossed $600 million, and is the most profitable, independently produced film of all time. Oh, and it's centerpiece attraction was actress Linda Lovelace fellating a goofy doctor character, played by Harry Reems, who's diagnosed Linda's character as having her clitoris in her throat. Do you get the naughty picture?
This film is a montage of archival footage from the era liberally sprinkled with interviews with the principals - producer Gerard Damiano, Lovelace, and Reems - and many others, including Hugh Hefner, Larry Flynt, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Dick Cavett, former porn stars Annie Sprinkle, Georgina Spelvin and Andrea True, plus authors, feminists, and the legal eagles that argued their respective sides in the legal battle that ultimately found scapegoat Reems guilty on obscenity charges. (Damiano and Lovelace had court immunity.)
The roughly 90+ minute film summarizes DEEP THROAT's conception, creation, release, distribution, and co-optation by the Mob, the anti-obscenity furor that the film sparked, and the ultimate acceptance of porn that followed due to it's wide distribution and availability via the introduction of the home video player around 1979. Mind you, the government anti-obscenity laws that convicted Reems still stand; they've just been overwhelmed by indifference and the glut of smut.
Is INSIDE DEEP THROAT graphically sexual? Well, yes and no. It does linger lovingly on that famous sequence where Linda orally engulfs all of Harry's member, but otherwise the sex scenes are no more graphic than in other recent mainstream releases - MONSTER'S BALL (2001) and IN THE CUT (2003) come to mind. That said, however, I have to believe that the rating board would have assigned an "X" instead of an "NC-17", based solely on the display of Linda's swallowing ability, if the former category was still in existence. Unless, of course, the board believes Bubba's Oval Office Oral Copulation Postulate, which is that the act isn't really "sex". Sure fooled me.
This documentary may illustrate the difference in the genre between then and now. In the 70s, porn actors and actresses seemed to be having more fun, and there was a certain relative innocence to it all missing in today's productions, which are cranked out in volume to maximize profits, and in which the performers labor joylessly to maximize the raunch for sheer shock value. "Debbie Does the Entire 1st Marine Division In One Night" - who cares?
Perhaps the most telling (and pathetic) point was made in a contemporary interview with Larry Parrish, the Memphis prosecutor who successfully convicted Reems under anti-smut laws extant in 1976 (only to have the verdict overturned on a technicality by a federal district court in '77). He wistfully observed that if the troublesome Al Qaeda terrorists would only go away, then the government could then refocus its energies on the more meaningful battle against porn. Puhleeze! God save us from the morality zealots of any ilk, Muslim or Christian! Perhaps "Debbie" needs to show Parrish a good time.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Perfect fodder for the next mock-umentary from Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer, February 13, 2006
A film documentary of the making, the release, and the lasting effect of film "Deep Throat," "Inside Deep Throat" is an somewhat interesting, if not revolutionary look at the original film, the culture of the 1970's, and pornography. As much as Bill Clinton's claim that the oral sex that Monica Lewinsky performed on him was not considered "sex" by the "reasonable person" has changed the way people in this country view fellatio, "Deep Throat" actually introduced the idea of fellatio to millions of unsuspecting Americans in 1972.
The film "Deep Throat," starring Linda Lovelace and Harry Reems, was financed by organized crime and produced for $25,000, was the story of a woman, Linda, who could not be satisfied by traditional sexual intercourse because her clitoris was located in her throat rather than in her vagina. As such, Linda must go to great lengths, pardon the pun, to achieve sexual satisfaction. Although rated NC-17, there is very little pornography in "Inside Deep Throat." The rating, obviously, is derived from an actual cut from the original film footage of Linda performing extraordinary fellatio on her costar. (The viewer, of course, has to see how the movie got its title!) "Inside Deep Throat" explores the social, political effect of the film as well as the consequences of the film on those people who participated in it.
Appropriately narrated by the perfectly lascivious voice of Dennis Hopper, "Inside Deep Throat" includes interviews with producer/director Gerry Damiano, Linda Lovelace, Harry Reems, other members of the production crew, as well as with past and present cultural icons like Erica Jong, Hugh Hefner, Dick Cavett, Helen Gurley Brown, Norman Mailer, Carl Bernstein, Wes Craven, Larry Flynt, Bill Maher, Camille Paglia, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, and Charles Keating, among others. From these interviews, we learn a great deal about the film and how it affected social mores. Directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato frame the both Richard Nixon and Senator Charles Keating as pragmatic opportunists in the battle for the hearts and minds of the American people in the context of the battle to censor "Deep Throat." At a time when support for the police action in Vietnam was waning, "Deep Throat" provided plenty of distraction and a political plank for the administration. "Inside Deep Throat" also exposed the corruption behind the making of the film. Financed by Mafia money, producer/director Gerry Damiano was muscled-out of the film as a partner, and therefore was not able to share in the more than $600,000,000 the film has made during the past three and a half decades. They made him an offer he could not refuse.
Other interesting facts uncovered in "Inside Deep Throat" include:
- Linda Lovelace, who refuted the pornography industry and then embraced it again, died penniless in a car accident.
- Linda's fee for her part in the film was $1,200.
- Harry Reems, who was originally offered the part of the coach in the movie "Grease" only to have the offer later rescinded by Paramount and given to Sid Caesar, is now a born-again Christian and real estate agent.
- The viewer learns during an interview with Erica Jong, that a woman's clitoris is NOT, in fact, in the back of a woman's throat and fellatio is NOT a necessarily pleasurable experience for the performer, as much as men think and hope that it is.
- Gloria Steinem is a very repressed and unhappy woman.
- Helen Gurley Brown instructs the audience about the benefits of semen as a face cream.
- Porn star, Amber Lynn, apparently embarrassed (Huh?) attempts unsuccessfully to explain how to "deep throat" without gagging.
While "Inside Deep Throat" does provide some interesting and thought-provoking perspectives of the film "Deep Throat," the pornographic industry, and society, it is not a "keep-you-on-the-edge-of-your-seat" film. Some of the other interviewees are flaky, as might be expected from an industry that does not include too many Rhodes Scholars. The reporting is sometime slanted, but seems to slant to and fro, or perhaps "in and out." (Another bad pun.) In fact, "Inside Deep Throat" might be the perfect fodder for the next mock-umentary from Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer.
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