Inside Deep Throat

This is the story of the film that changed our culture and how our society looks at sex. Inside Deep Throat takes us behind the scenes of the making of the film,tells us how it became a huge blockbuster, and how it changed the lives of all of the people involved.

This is a very good primer to understanding Deep Throats impact on sex and censorship. This film does a very good job at laying out the story of the film and placing it into the context of the times. If you don't know what the big deal was when this film came out, you'll get a very good understanding of just why and how the film became so big that even small kids knew its name (though not its content). You'll also get a good over view of the battle to censor and to keep the film from public view, and an idea of how it shaped our world today.

I really did like this film a great deal. My one real reservation is that this film focuses a too much on the one film. Certainly the with Deep Throat in the title, I expected it to be mostly focused on that, but the censorship wars that were being fought at the same time involved other films and other media,for example the battle over George Carlin's Seven Dirty Words was happening at about the same time and was just as important.

But I'm nit picking. This is a good movie. Its a good starting point for learning about the film and the times that made our times what they are.

i am an unashamed porn fan, not in the sense that i sit around all the time watching th stuff, but in the sense that i find the people involved in the making and distribution of the stuff to be very interesting, if not somewhat shady and bizarre people but none the less they have a story to share that not many people can lay claim to and so i like to give any material broaching the subject, particularly in its formative years, a listen.

so i haven't seen deep throat, and i don't really want to, if I'm going to watch people engaging in sexual acts i will buy something a little more intense and modern without all the premise of having a plot for arts sake. but this documentary is not about the film persae, it is about the people involved with it and how it affected their lives.

we see and hear from a lot of people who's lives have been both positively and negatively affected by this film over the years and it gives the viewer an insight into what really makes these people get involved in the business to begin with, and surprisingly enough its not just the money as there wasn't much money in it for the actors as such back in the 70s.

so i suggest that anybody that has an interest in rights and freedoms should really watch this as it gives a deeper appreciation of these simple gifts that we have to live by today and are so readily taken for granted.

if you like this kinda stuff also check out a film called Wadd which is about the life and death of john Holmes and also read How to make love like a porn star, the autobiography of Jenna Jameson.

Yes, there is fellatio depicted inside the documentary Inside Deep Throat. About 3 seconds. So go see the original groundbreaking porno flick of 1972, Deep Throat, if you want to be deeply titillated and experience a poorly made movie that grossed over $600 million and sparked a sexual revolution that resulted for exhibitors and actors in stiff penalties that carry through today in Nikon's' wet dreams.

Today fortunately is also a world where videos allow private viewing of private parts and only a handful of "art" houses even try to offer porno films. So why go back to those carefree days of free love and iconoclasm? Because conservatives have taken up Nixon and Reagan's call for a purer world, a world suited to George Bush's values-laden regime. Inside Deep Throat is a cautionary tale that implicitly argues, sometimes humorously, that young Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty are on to something when they complain our rights are being stolen.

Much bigger mirth arrives with the interviews of the retired director and project manager, among others, in their cheesy Florida print shirts and garish bungalows pontificating about the film's greatness emerging out of a mere $25,000 into film history. Not funny is star Linda Lovelace's return to the business, after disavowing it by taking an anti-porn feminist position with Gloria Steinem to speak for her and then going back to make a buck.

Sadder still is star Harry Reems' long association with substance abuse after being hounded by the feds as a scapegoat eventually cleared of obscenity charges. His current license to sell real estate in Park City, Utah, is a rich bit of irony. However, the humor continues with profundities by pop culture stars John Waters, Erica Jong, and Gore Vidal. Only a wry Dick Cavet puts it all into ironic perspective to ask if he could see the original now since he missed it and to aver that he always does what Nicholson and Beatty recommend.

Inside Deep throat is not as artful as Boogie Nights or as thoughtful as Kinsey; it is, however, a light look at a dark world that still thrives on privacy regardless of the public hunger for sex.

If it's possible for a movie to be intriguing and tedious at the same time, Inside Deep Throat has mastered the art of it. Having a famous porn film that cost $25,000 to make and went on to make over $600 million as your subject could make any movie intriguing. But the intrigue wears off about a half hour into the movie. It's clear that the film-maker knew he had a good idea for a documentary but as time went on, he found that there was not nearly enough interesting material to last over 45 minutes. It would have been just the perfect amount of time to fill an hour of E True Hollywood Story, but the NC-17 rating would make that hard.

The best thing about the movie is the vivid creation of the sexual revolution that spun through the US during the time of the film's original release. The life of the main character was also interesting. But these two things don't drive the movie. The rest of the movie may be fascinating, but the story telling is not fascinating. The script is scattered and choppy. The interviews are hardly believable also. Who actually believes that a bunch of porn movie makers who made a porn with such a stupid subject matter actually did it to try and change how Americans thought about sex? They were making a porn! They wanted money, among other things. Nobody sat down and thought about changing America with Deep Throat.

In the end, the movie is something you won't forget, but even a few hours after seeing it I can't remember why I found it interesting anyway.

"Inside Deep Throat" is one of the most entertaining documentaries I've ever seen. This film doesn't cover all the aspects you may want to see about the porn-film-turned-cultural- phenomenon, but it is fun to watch -a thing you can't say about most documentaries. The tone is light-hearted, which will make people squeamish about seeing a film related to porn less threatened. It is however, one of the few films I've seen well deserving of the NC-17 rating.

The lessons to be learned from watching it are: The Christian Right is the American Taliban. The Republican Party spent too much taxpayer money and time deciding what you should and shouldn't see. Their silly "American values" platform has been around for decades. The silly obscenity laws are still around, though it'll be a big waste of taxpayer money to enforce them, as it was back then. The movie made so much money because it was banned and people were drawn to the controversy. The mafia was the biggest beneficiary, while most people involved in the film became victims of the movie's success.

I read somewhere the late Linda Lovelace said she realized the feminist crusaders used her more than the porn industry did. You can see a bit of that in this movie. In archive footage, Lovelace is being interviewed, but a feminist next to her doesn't let Lovelace speak and answers all the questions for her. Poor Lovelace was used to push whatever agenda she could be used for. In one part you see her defending the porn industry and free speech, the next you see her as the ultimate anti-porn crusader, and at an old age you see her posing nude for Playboy, defending her change of mind.

This will be a great DVD when it comes out. Many people won't agree with the points of view portrayed here, but we all can agree this is good storytelling.