[A] valuable document of a cultural shift.
Inside Deep Throat (2005)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:117
Fresh:96
Rotten:21
Average Rating:6.9/10
Consensus: A documentary on the film that brought smut mainstream, Inside Deep Throat is gaining praise as an entertaining look at a pop culture milestone. However, some critics say the film could have gone a little deeper into the people involved.
Runtime: 1 hr 32 mins
Genre: Education/General Interest
Synopsis: After focusing on the decadent club scene of the 1980s with their film PARTY MONSTER, filmmakers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato travel further back in time for this documentary on the cultural... After focusing on the decadent club scene of the 1980s with their film PARTY MONSTER, filmmakers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato travel further back in time for this documentary on the cultural impact of the '72 movie DEEP THROAT. When director Gerard Damiano unleashed the film--a witty, yet explicit X-Rated movie starring Linda Lovelace as a fellatio-crazed woman with a clitoris located in her throat--audiences flocked to it in droves. The film was a cut above standard adult fare, and attracted an unusually high percentage of female viewers who reveled in seeing a female character attain sexual satisfaction in the male-dominated world of adult films. With the public's interest piqued, controversy followed, and a court case against the movie prompted the government to try to ban the film outright. This only drew more people to it, and its combined box office is estimated at $600 million--an incredible return on the original $25,000 investment. Or was it? Damiano never made a cent from the film, while Lovelace and co-star Harry Reems made $1450 between them. Lovelace complained bitterly about her treatment on the set in her memoir--the appropriately titled ORDEAL--and Reems had to go through his own obscenity trial, during which he succumbed to the temptations of alcohol and narcotics. Damiano and Reems return to talk about their experiences here (Lovelace passed away in 2002), while the indelible impression the film left on a shocked early-'70s society is fleshed out by comments from Hugh Hefner, Germaine Greer, Camille Paglia, and many others. A truly arresting film, INSIDE DEEP THROAT offers a fascinating lesson about how little the world has changed in regard to pornography and censorship in the 33 years that have passed between Damiano's movie and this documentary. [More]
Starring: Gerard Damiano, Harry Reems, Linda Lovelace, John Waters
Starring: Gerard Damiano, Harry Reems, Linda Lovelace, John Waters, Hugh Hefner, Germaine Greer, Camille Paglia, Norman Mailer, Erica Jong
Director: Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato
Director: Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato
Producer: Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato, Brian Grazer
Studio: Universal Pictures
Reviews for Inside Deep Throat
Deep Throat was of its era and important to it -- but the film did not, as this documentary would have you believe, create that more permissive era.
Fascinating social criticism and a witty and relevant take on American sexual history.
Bailey and Barbato are, as always, master showmen, fixing their story in time with a rhinestone-flashing flair that's both vividly remembered and relentlessly motive.
It makes a convincing case that the flick that made Linda Lovelace a household name was a major cultural event.
The documentary works best when exploring how Deep Throat came to be and what led it to become a financial success and cultural lightning rod.
What makes Inside Deep Throat not so easy to swallow is the way it forces us to take a good hard look at our own voyeuristic reflexes or snap moral judgments.
...a fascinating visit to a period of recent history that now seems unutterably remote.
Inside Deep Throat works best as a capsule of an era, using response to the porn classic as a model for national reaction to sexual liberation.
The absorption of Deep Throat into the political melodrama that was Watergate seems to have led to some grandiose statements in Messrs. Bailey and Barbato's documentary.
If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think it was made to serve as a high-gloss but insubstantial extra for a DVD release of the hardcore blockbuster that inspired it.
Its aim is to entertain and to recount a chapter in pop-culture history. It does this reasonably well, though its winking, tongue-in-cheek attitude wears thin after a while.
Unfortunately, just when the film really starts to explore an idea, it moves on to the next one. And the bit about how the adult-film industry has changed since the 1970s was done more effectively in the fictional Boogie Nights.
Hugely entertaining, but as its smarmy male-centric title implies, 'Inside Deep Throat' swallows whole the idea that the film was some kind of milestone of free expression.
Bailey and Barbato aren't as interested in the picture itself as they are in the people who made it, a collection of hustlers, crackpots, cranks and stooges colorful enough to inspire Elmore Leonard.
Latest News for Inside Deep Throat
September 20, 2007:
Anna Faris to Star in Linda Lovelace Deep Throat Biopic
After a string of comedic roles in films such as Just Friends and the Scary Movie series, Anna Faris is ready to get deep. Deep Throat, that is. More...
March 28, 2005:
Courtney Love to Play Linda Lovelance
More...
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