Inside Deep Throat

Monday May 16, 2011

For some mysterious cyber-reason, Barry Paris’ infamous review of “Inside Deep Throat” is making a victory lap around the Internet these days, popping up even on the first-tier Google search via a “2PoliticalJunkies.com” blog entry in 2005. Here, by unpopular demand, is a reprise of both the review & blog:

'Inside Deep Throat': Documentary revisits Lovelace's 'porn chic'

[Reprised from March 11, 2005]

By Barry Paris, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Linda Lovelace is remembered for one particularly literal gag order.

Her immortality through immorality was gained in "Deep Throat," a seminal movie released the same month (June 1972) as a famous third-rate burglary in Washington. Its claim to be "the most profitable film ever made" is dubious, even with subsequent decades' video sales; suffice to call it the biggest-ever porn flick. Made for $25,000, it grossed $600 million -- and millions of people out.

That cultural phenomenon dubbed "Porn Chic" by The New York Times -- coinciding with the sexual revolution, rise of feminism and Watergate -- provoked a furious anti-obscenity crusade. A third of a century later, its moral-political fallout is still with us, stoked anew in what Jimmy Carter might call a lusty, zesty documentary.

"Inside Deep Throat" chronicles the personal trials and legal tribulations of "DT's" creators, starting with hairdresser-turned-director Gerard Damiano's brilliantly absurd story concept: a woman who can't achieve orgasm because her seat of anatomical pleasure has an aberrational location in her throat. The dream-casting of Lovelace was Damiano's first great stroke, so to speak. The subsequent massive publicity, provided gratis by the government and the media, was beyond Damiano's or anyone's dreaming -- but be careful what you wish for.

Assistant cameraman-turned-leading-man Harry Reems, for instance -- said to get an erection at the sound of a camera motor whirring -- had wished for celebrity and raunchy sex with Linda but not for the creative "obscenity conspiracy" prosecution and conviction (later overturned) that came with it. No consolation to its stars that "DT's" place in the Pop-Culture Hall of Fame was secured by Woodward-Bernstein's use of the name as code word for their Watergate source whose identity still remains a secret.

Documentary co-directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato exhibit fine editing skills, making slick use of archival footage to deliver a lineup of the period's usual and unusual subjects: "Opinion-makers" Hugh Hefner, Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, Dr. Ruth, Allan Dershowitz, Erica Jong, Helen Gurley Brown, Dick Cavett, Al Goldstein, et al., provide then-and-now commentary, as do some erstwhile (currently ancient) porn queens. Even Bob Hope checks in ("I thought it was about giraffes"). But the real comic highlight is a mob-intimidated distributor being interviewed over the objections of his kvetching wife in the background.

For the most part, though, it's not a terribly funny business. What do you do when your 15 minutes of fame turns into 30 years of infamy?

If you're Reems, now a middle-aging and engaging Steve Martin lookalike, you abuse booze and drugs on the road to finding Jesus and becoming a real-estate broker in Utah.

If you're Linda (nee Boreman) Lovelace, you're not so lucky. "DT" made so much money, its exhibitors often had to weigh rather than count it. Lovelace, by contrast, got $1,200 for performing -- and was stigmatized for life, bouncing around penniless and later doing a revisionist danse macabre with Gloria Steinem ("Every time someone watches that film, they're watching me get raped"). The sadness behind her intelligent eyes is haunting in her dramatically delayed reappearance at age 51. It comes late in the film and in her semi-tragic life, which was cut short by a 2002 car accident.

"Deep Throat" itself is being re-released this month (in both NC-17 and R-rated censored versions) to coincide with the documentary. You thought it climaxed long ago? Anti-climax might be more like it. All the efforts to quell it have given way to the development of home video equipment and the Internet -- an unstoppable tide that has turned porn films into a multibillion-dollar worldwide industry of infinitely greater social and commercial impact than in the '70s.

As this fascinating, cutting-edge documentary suggests, what "DT" dragged noisily out of the closet has quietly crept back (closer to the front, with the umbrellas), reclassified as oral gratification. Strangely ironic but true: Millions of people (including the odd president of the United States) no longer even consider fellatio "sexual relations" any more.

That's what conservative moralists (and liberal first ladies) find so hard to swallow.

[END]

"Barry Paris - a sensitive reviewer"

From: "2PoliticalJunkies.Com" blog

May 16, 2011

[reprised from March 11, 2005]

Posted by DAYVOE

Ladies and Gentlemen: I normally don’t venture out into the wonderful, wacky world of critiques de cinema, but I felt in this instance, some attention must be paid.

Vide Barry Paris’ review of “Inside Deep Throat” in today's Post-Gazette. How many sex jokes does he insert in it? I count 6. Although there could be more. Let me know if you find any more...

Is Barry Paris 12? Is he still running around the schoolyard tugging on the ponytails of the pretty redhead who sits next to him in homeroom?

Sure sounds like it.

There is one thing you should notice amid all the adolescent snickering about Ms Lovelace’s “gag order” and how Deep Throat is a “seminal movie.” While Mr. Paris does use the word “fellatio,” his use of euphemism is telling: Linda Lovelace doesn’t have a “clitoris.” Hers is a “seat of anatomical pleasure.”

Seat of anatomical pleasure?? Why not just call it a "whoo-hah" and be done with it?

5 comments:

Ol' Froth said...

Heh, I was thinking the same thing when I read the story. An educated Bevis and Butthead article.

March 11, 2005 10:45 PM

Philip Shropshire said...

First, Barry Paris is a world class writer who deserves to be reviewing movies. Second, the most loathsome movie reviewer in the world lives in Pittsburgh and writes for the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. His name is Ed Blank. He apparently writes reviews from a conservative catholic perspectice, which, of course, means the incredibly stupid perspective...

March 12, 2005 9:46 PM

Ol' Froth said...

I do agree about Ed Blank, but I thought the making of Deep Throat review was juvenile.

March 13, 2005 12:22 PM

Kevin said...

Paris doesn't write movie reviews... he does stand-up routines.  Go here and scroll to "Barry, you gotta be Kidman" It's a letter I wrote to the PG four years ago about another one of his juvenile reviews.

March 18, 2005 6:59 AM

Anonymous said...

Barry Paris is a terrific reviewer (and a brilliant biographer). Not everyone of his newspaper reviews is a masterpiece - but so what.

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[...and SO THERE!  My bread should have such crust... –B.P.]