Inside Deep Throat

Deep Throat changed America. It legitimized porn, creating a billion dollar industry in the process, and sent the sexual revolution to dizzying heights. Love it or hate it, Deep Throat was an historical event.

Inside Deep Throat looks back at that amazing phenomenon, it's causes and effects, and how it changed America and the lives of those who made it.

Interviews with Throat director Gerard Damiano & male lead Harry Reems give much insight into the porn biz of those bygone days, a dark world of sex & drug addiction, fly by night productions, and mafia money men. Sexperts Erica Jong, Dr. Ruth & Helen Gurley Brown offer their takes on how society reacted to and was affected by this new sexual openness, while 70s porn queens Georgina Spelvin & Andrea True offer quick sound bites that explain what drew people to the business.

The film covers many bases & covers them well. We see the hypocrisy of Jesus-inspired DAs, who waste millions of taxpayer dollars on frivolous prosecutions of actors, theater managers, and anyone else they see as an easy target in their crusade to "clean up America".

Censorship and free speech issues are discussed by the likes of Norman Mailer, John Waters, Dick Cavett and others, while Gloria Steinen & Susan Brownmiller offer their views on how porn degrades women. Both sides are eloquent and make valid points.

We see the tragedy of Linda Lovelace's wasted life. Unable to escape the stigma of being the film's star, she joined forces with the Women's Movement in denouncing porn. Shortly before her death in a traffic accident, Lovelace briefly returned to the biz because she was flat broke.

Inside Deep Throat is a brilliant film. It takes a time, place and event, a cultural phenomenon of it's day, and puts it under a microscope. Future generations may look at Deep Throat the film and wonder what the big deal was.

Inside Deep Throat explains it all to them.

All I can say is wow, this was a great documentary. Because of the subject matter it isn't for everyone, and the fact that it has an actual X-rated scene in it doesn't help either. But if you can get past that, this is an insightful, fascinating look at adult films and our society. And there is a lot of humor in it as well. I wasn't surprised that several people in the audience walked out, since even I didn't realize how graphic the language/visuals would be. Showing how Deepthroat brought the "BJ" into the mainstream of adult films was interesting, and the interviews with the people actually making porn were very insightful.

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.

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.

I was impressed with this marvelous doco after watching it yesterday and unlike Dick Cavett I remember watching the film in the heady days of the 70s in San Francisco-perhaps not as brave and revolutionary as watching it in Oklahoma City but a political statement none the less.

My thoughts about the film are coloured by this historical connection but that in no way diminishes the strengths of the film. After all these years to see the players in the flesh talking about such a phenomenon made for an enjoyable morning of film watching. You cannot view the film without seething anger at the religious conservatives that made virtually all the player's lives far more difficult than those lives should have been.

If there was a villain in the movie it would have been the Tennesee prosecutor who doubled as a lay preacher when he wasn't trying to make America into his own little brand of religious conservatism. Their kind of dead-head sociology and politics is still rampant in the States and the only difference is they've changed their target from sex to terrorism-or at least their definition of political terrorism.

The directors, Bailey and Barbato, have crafted a superb film inter-cutting old film clips with current interviews in order to create an excellent vision of all the threads between the personalities and opinions of the players. The hilarity of these characters come through when they speak with a forthrightness that generally ends up on the cutting room floor.

If you are an old guy like me-see the film for its historical look at a time that we can remember. If you are a young person interested in politics, look at the film to see the nature of the bad guys around us now but with new crusades to fight.