Film: 
DVD: 
Written and Directed by: Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato
Starring: Dennis Hopper
Features:
- Filmmakers Commentary
- Interview Commentary Track
- Deleted Scenes
- Theatrical Trailer
Released by: Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Region: 1
Rating: NC-17
Anamorphic: Yes
My Advice: Rent It
A single event can change the world, creating ripples that affect the progress of history. The nailing of Martin Luther’s 95 theses, the blasting of Oppenheimer’s atomic bomb, and the release of Jerry Damiano’s Deep Throat. “Huh?â€, I can hear you say. But this is the main premise behind the documentary Inside Deep Throat. As the 95 theses and the Bomb struck a resonant chord with the discontent with the Catholic Church and the paranoia and fear of the Cold War, Deep Throat manages to bring to a head America’s conflict with sexual freedom and moral authority.
[ad#longpost]All this fuss over a cheap porno where a woman’s mouth takes a man’s dick to the hilt. Of course, when it makes over $600,000,000, people are going to make a fuss. Some saw the movie as the start of the acceptance of hardcore sex into mainstream media and opening up America’s legs… I mean mind to erotic freedom and the pleasurable possibilities out there. Other saw it as a threat to traditional values and the total abjuration of responsibility and the degrading of women to the status of a sex doll. Inside Deep Throat covers the raging storm of sex, money, politics, principle, and the people who got swept up in it. And what’s left in the aftermath.
The filmmakers set the stage for their documentary be starting with a behind the scenes look at the making of Deep Throat. For instance, porn movies back in the day were made more like independent films today: using people’s houses for locations, dealing with a myriad of logistical problems, and getting creative due to to financial restraint instead over artistic inspiration. You even get to see the infamous deep throating from the film. This allows the filmmakers to show how normal, if a little eccentric, the people who made Deep Throat were. The ‘notorious’ pornographer Damiano now looks like the typical South Florida retiree with his pants hiked up. Harry Reams who was convicted of essentially starring in Deep Throat is now a respectable dealer in real estate. It is very clear from the interviews that no one had any idea what was about to happen.
The majority of the movie is about the ruckus caused by the film. Deep Throat itself wasn’t that extraordinary. It had more humor than your average porno and it has its infamous gimmick. But like a lot of other independent films who get mainstream success, it just happen to hit the right spot. The film is really about how various groups interpreted (or misinterpreted) the film and its impact. Many groups tried to turn Deep Throat into a symbol for their cause. Both sides have credible advocates that are sincere in their positions. Some people interviewed thought it could bring about a golden age of hardcore sex on the local multiplex and all sexual hangups disappearing. There are others who thought Deep Throat and porn in general would destroy American civilization and send the country into the bowels of Hell.
The documentary shows that there is a lot of wriggle room between these two extreme positions. Those who championed this movie in the name of free love and freedom of expression somehow forgot to mention that a mob family provided financing and made a killing on distribution. Literally in a few cases. On the other side, those who championed morality and decently, disgraced banker Charles Keating and disgraced president Richard Nixon, tend not to practice what they preach. This meant that jurisprudence and the Constitution could be twisted like a pretzel to further their aims. And in the end we are freer and more restricted when it comes to porn. There is so much more porn and it has become so easy to obtain. However, it still has that allure of the forbidden and sordid so that actual hard core sex is still relegated to the ghetto of pornography. Even now, any sort of mature sexually will get you an NC-17 rating. Even the filmmakers got this rating for including the deep throating scene, which is the focus of the movie.
The extras are quite interesting. There are plenty of deleted scenes which show the directions the movie could have taken. More than a few were about the absurdity of the legal battles Deep Throat went through. The documentarians did something interesting with these extra scenes. They used the audio of these scenes as well as others in a “interview” commentary track to further illuminate the movie. Now, some of the audio you’ve already heard in the Deleted Scenes section, still this is something other documentary makers should look into. There is also the regular filmmaker commentary track. The discussion between the two filmmakers touched on how they wanted to create a sense of time and place with the film. They also expressed some regret for de-emphasize Linda Lovelace’s part of the story but felt they had to so they could include everyone else. There was also some talk about the motivations for the anti-porn movement came from. This and the other extras add to an already interesting documentary. If you want to rent something besides porn, check out Inside Deep Throat.
today the world is full of porn–off a persons computer–some is like education–or how todo it–pointers for learning–everyone ,,