Long before Jenna Jameson became the face of the multibillion-dollar pornography industry, as well as a multimedia empire unto herself, there was an unknown Linda Lovelace in “Deep Throat,” the little movie that could, and did — until it was banned in 23 states, that is. Which only made it more popular.
The pioneering porn flick’s legend is detailed in the documentary “Inside Deep Throat,” which never goes as deep as the sex act to which the title alludes, but does provide an entertaining, high-energy depiction of the pop-cult zeitgeist in 1972 and of the film’s eventual influence.
As they did in their 2000 documentary about Tammy Faye Bakker, “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” filmmakers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato offer campy, colorful context and some lively interviews with the people involved in making “Deep Throat.”
“No, I don’t think it’s a good movie,” director Jerry Damiano happily admits at his Florida home, tanned and dressed in high-wasted slacks.
And he’s right. “Deep Throat” was shot in six days for $25,000, and it shows — though the Brillo-haired, bug-eyed production manager says he approached the movie “like I was Luc Godard or something.” It starred Lovelace, Damiano’s muse, as a woman with a peculiar medical condition in the back of her throat, and Harry Reems, a member of the production crew, playing the role of her doctor.
Looking back at “Deep Throat” now — and it’s available on DVD, who woulda thought that 30 years ago? — shows just how unsexy sex films were in the ’70s, all hairy and corny and poorly lighted, with that bad chicka-chicka-wa-wa music in the background. It also confirms how dead-on Paul Thomas Anderson was in his portrayal of the porn industry in his 1997 movie “Boogie Nights.”
But looking at “Deep Throat” then made the film enormously influential. Following its premiere in Times Square in June 1972, it became major watercooler fodder and a must-see — which drew the ire of the Nixon administration and prompted an eventual shutdown of the film. That only made people want to see it more.
“As we say in Israel, it was a mitzvah,” says Screw magazine founder Al Goldstein. Others interviewed in “Inside Deep Throat” include Ruth Westheimer, Gore Vidal, Erica Jong, Hugh Hefner and Helen Gurley Brown, who explains very daintily that ejaculate is good for a woman’s complexion because it’s full of plasma.
But Bailey and Barbato’s reporting is, at times, porous. The figure $600 million is bandied about a great deal; that’s how much “Deep Throat” reportedly grossed, which would make it the most profitable movie of all time. The filmmakers fail to follow the money trail — maybe because they didn’t know how, maybe because it was impossible.
They tell us that Lovelace (who died in a 2002 car crash) and Damiano never made a cent off the film, and although Reems was found guilty of obscenity and later had his conviction overturned, he didn’t get rich from the film, either. So how did we arrive at this $600 million figure, and where did the money go?
The idea of an organized crime connection is tossed out there — that the mob helped distribute “Deep Throat” and then sent “checkers” to swing by the theaters where it was playing to shake down the cashiers for half the day’s receipts. But even those dots aren’t connected completely, leaving you to walk away with more questions than answers.
If you’re only in it to have a good time, though, “Inside Deep Throat” comes through.