Inside Deep Throat [DVD] [2005] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

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.