In 1972, a little movie made for $25,000.00 and shot in Miami by a quirky little man named Gerard Damiano who previously made his living a as a New York City hairdresser struck box office gold. To make this Cinderella story even more unusual is the fact that this wasn't a typical American movie made in the confines of the Hollywood system or even an art house film but an X-rated adult film – porn. For the first time in history, Deep Throat had regular men and women driving into downtown grindhouse cinemas like the Pussycat Theater in California or the 42nd St. movie houses of New York City to take in an 'adults only' feature film.

The premise of Deep Throat is simple, and quite honestly, pretty dumb. Linda Lovelace (a.k.a. Linda Boorman) can't achieve what she considers a real orgasm. She goes to see her doctor, played by Harry Reems, and he finds that her clitoris is way down in her throat. To counter this problem, Ms. Lovelace learns the art of deep throating a man and getting him way down in there to give her the stimulation that she needs to 'see fireworks and bombs going off.'

This goofy idea just happened to hit in the right places at the right time and Lovelace's oral abilities soon become the stuff of legend – and of much controversy. While the arts and entertainment industry accepted Deep Throat with open arms the conservative right saw it as obscene and soon prints were being confiscated and participants in the film were being put on trial. To make matters worse for those involved, the FBI was bound and determined to finger the mafia connection to the film's production and nail two birds with one stone, putting a certain New York based Italian crime family away for good measure. Well, it all boiled up into a big mess with Reems looking at serving five years in jail for his involvement in the film and Lovelace gaining immunity for her testimony.

Inside Deep Throat, directed by documentary filmmakers Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey and narrated by Dennis Hopper, explores not only the criminal investigation that resulted out of the film's astounding box office success, but also the rise to popularity that the film and its stars enjoyed once that success hit. Of course, everything that goes up, must go down, and we're also given a rundown of Reems and Lovelace's subsequent falls from grace.

On the surface, this is a pretty interesting subject for a documentary film – but sadly, the surface is all that we really get. For those who don't already know the story about Deep Throat, Lovelace's uncanny ability to swallow the largest of manly appendages and Harry Reems day in court this is probably fascinating stuff but for those of us who have followed the story with any attention to detail at all, we're not really going to learn anything new from this film. Inside Deep Throat probably would have been a more interesting film had it paid more attention to biographical details for Damiano, Reems and especially Lovelace, whose entire life on this planet seemed to have been a very troubled one, right up until the end. What we get instead are surface details, a cursory glance at the big facts and very little effort given to exploring anything other than those very same big facts.

That's really the only complaint I can levy at the film, however. Inside Deep Throat does a very good job of combining brand new interview footage with people who we have rarely seen on camera before, if ever. The filmmakers tracked down distributors, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and even Damiano and Reems themselves to give their take on the events that put them on the map (whether they want to be there or not – Reems has been very reluctant to talk about his past in the adult entertainment industry since getting religion and starting a real estate business in Utah – until now). The editing of the stock footage, which includes clips from Reems in court, protests in front of XXX theaters, and plenty of clips of Lovelace herself (and yes, the infamous act is shown in all its glory – no matter how many times I see it, it is still quite remarkable what that woman could do!) from her various incarnations. While it's regrettable that the filmmakers didn't give us more, what we do get is definitely good enough.

The DVD

Video:

Inside Deep Throat really benefits from a very nice 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer that boasts rich colors, strong and deep black levels, and very little edge enhancement or compression issues to note. While obviously some of the archival footage is in rougher shape, the newly shot interviews and cutaways look almost perfect and don't exhibit any print damage or dirt on the image at all. Skin tones look nice and natural, everything is lit properly, color reproduction looks very accurate and life like and there's a surprisingly high level of detail present in the image (you can see the fibers in Damiano's hair piece if you look hard enough for them!).