 For a film that even director Gerard Damiano admit was "not a good movie,"
the estimated $600 million worldwide gross says less about Deep Throat
than it does about the very beginning of America's fascination with
public cinematic sex.
Certainly the packed house at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood last night
was a testament to the evolution of that notion, and to a large extent,
that's what Inside Deep Throat is all about: Not so much the movie
itself, but the phenomenon that both the movie's very existence and the
attempts by law enforcement to suppress it have created – and the effects
that making Deep Throat had on all the major players involved in its
creation, most notably stars Linda "Lovelace" Boreman and Harry Reems, and
Damiano himself.
Damiano was the surprise guest at last night's premiere both in the
interviews that appear throughout Inside Deep Throat, and in the
brief glimpse shown of his character from the end of The Devil in Miss
Jones. During the Q&A session after the film concluded, Damiano laid a
couple of rumors to rest: First, that he was made rich by the film's success
– he didn't receive a dime over his director's salary – and second, that
Linda Lovelace was forced, as she later famously testified before the Meese
Commission and elsewhere, to perform the sex acts in the movie at the
commands of her then-husband Chuck Traynor.
Chuck was a very jealous guy, and Linda had fallen in love with Harry,
Damiano recalled, so when it came time to do her big scene, I could see
she was nervous about it, so we sent Chuck down to Miami to buy some more
film stock, and once he was gone, Linda gave us a great scene. Linda
just needed to be told what to do, When Chuck told her to act in this
movie, she did it, and she enjoyed doing it – no question in my mind. And
later, when people told her to talk about how horrible it must have been for
her to be forced to perform in the movie, she did that too.
But if
Inside Deep Throat had only concentrated on the adult industry
participants in the making and marketing of the original film, it likely
would not have been nearly as interesting, nor received the acclaim it will
undoubtedly garner in reviews leading up to the film's official opening on
Feb. 11. Instead, Bailey and Barbato searched out some of the more famous
mainstream folks, now all senior citizens, who'd been touched by Deep
Throat since its 1972 theatrical debut. These included directors John
Waters, Francis Ford Coppola and Wes Craven; sexologist Dr. Ruth Westheimer;
novelists Erica Jong, Camile Paglia, Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal;
Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown (who waxes eloquently about the skin
care benefits of a cum facial); talk show host Dick Cavett (who claimed he'd
never seen the movie); Citizens for Decent Literature founder (and convicted
swindler) Charles Keating; and prosecutor Larry Parrish and several other
law enforcement officials.
Also interviewed are several theater owners who showed
Deep Throat on
the big screen in the '70s – and who here recount how the mob's share of the
box-office receipts was collected, sometimes on a daily basis, by
representatives of the film's owners who had previously forced their other partner, Damiano, to sign over his
ownership interest.
Fenton and Barbato did manage to get an interview from Harry Reems, who
hasn't talked publicly about the film in more than a decade. Reems talked
about having been arrested for appearing in the film, and his trial in
Tennessee which resulted in a conviction for obscenity that was later
overturned. He also talked about his XXX career, which ended in a fog of
booze and drugs, to the point where he recalled that in his last feature, he
was so out of it that he had to be carried on and off the set, and was
unable to perform sex.
One particularly interesting piece of archival footage shows a younger Reems
going head to head in defense of porn on a TV news program opposite the
former chief counsel to Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Roy Cohn, a gay-bashing
anti-porn zealot who was later revealed to have been secretly homosexual,
and who died of AIDS.
The documentary also presents footage from Linda Lovelace's last interview,
with journalist Legs McNeil, where she recounts her journey from being the
world's best-known porn star, through her role as a spokesperson for
anti-porn feminists – another segment shows her being interviewed in 2002
saying that Deep Throat was essentially a "life lesson" for her and
that she bore no ill will toward anyone involved in the production.
The above is, believe it or not, only a small sampling of the wealth of
information and amusement to be found in this excellent documentary, which
should be required viewing for all involved in the adult industry. It runs a
very fast 92 minutes, is rated NC-17 – hey, they had to show Linda actually
deep-throating Harry for about 30 seconds -- and will open on Feb. 11 2005
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