First rate documentary and telling of what went down behind that notorious and originally daring adult pic. We see views from all sides, and learn some insightful stuff like the measly paycheck, the arrested male lead, Harry Reams was payed, as well as the film having ties and partly being invested by the mob, though this ultra sex porn masterpiece, wasn't the only one, the mob were associated with. From the anti porn community to the supporters, this doco pulls you in, it's that involving. Also now with the times we have a few seconds of real porno blow..g. There are some humorous moments too, where we owe it to that old couple, the old codger producer, who doesn't think much of Reems's acting, this media atrocity, marring his future acting career, including being dropped from the 79 classic, Grease. Hopper's narration is perfect, faultless, we tend at times, to forget it's him. Movie poster is very attracting, a mouthful you could say, but so is the movie, from beginning to end, even for viewers who don't dig this scene or it's subject. One of those solid telling tales, from which you can't really pull away from. You may feel a few emotions through this. This 2005 doco pic comes highly recommended. Don't pass this one by. A confectionery treat jingle may get in your head as well.

"Inside Deep Throat" is overall a very unforgettable documentary. It's always intriguing, sometimes devastatingly sad, but one of the most unique documentaries of this decade so far. However, those who don't know anything about the film "Deep Throat" should be cautioned: I had a friend who picked up the documentary thinking it was about Mark Felt, the C.I.A. operative who aided Bob Woodward in bringing down Nixon's administration. Needless to say, that friend was in for a big surprise.I went into this movie not knowing too much about "Deep Throat". I'm not a big fan of porn anyway. Although I respect the business for free speech reasons, and think that anyone who wants to watch or work in porn has every right to do so, I don't like watching it. Plus, it's a business that's historically corrupt, with direct links to organized crime, drug use, misogyny, and sexual abuse. Watching this documentary confirmed some of these previous concerns.It's worth it to note that I was born after the 1970's. So it was interesting to me to see footage of all these people waiting in long lines to see a cheap, seedy movie with incredibly unattractive people having sex. I thought, and sometimes still think, "Why would anyone want to see this movie? It's not good, nor is it sexy. Why the fuss?". I was a little disappointed that the filmmakers didn't attempt to answer this question, because it would have answered questions of people like me who weren't around when it was released.The editing of this film was excellent, and they had some great archive footage and good people to interview. I expected to see Hugh Hefner and Larry Flynt interviewed, but certainly not insiders like Harry Reems, Gerard Damanio (sp?), and family members of the late Linda Lovelace.The first half of the movie was for the most part fun, as it probably should have been. There was a good balance of footage between the success of the film, and the ensuing controversy it caused. What I didn't expect was how sad the movie would ultimately be. I wasn't disappointed by the second half of the movie at all, but it did traumatize me a little.Harry Reems' story was unfortunate, but not quite as sad as Linda Lovelace's because he eventually turned his life around successfully. It was just painful to hear the story of Linda Boreman, who really got the short end of the stick after the hype of this movie died down. The footage of her post-1980 was really hard to watch, and I actually found myself averting my eyes from the screen during her interviews on "Donahue" and "The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder" because she looked horrible! She seemed as though she was physically deteriorating, which in a sense she was. As I would read in an article by Joe Bob Briggs written shortly after she died in a car accident in 2002, what this movie details isn't even all of her tragic circumstances.But anyway, back to this documentary. This movie was good in organizing archive footage, and covering all sides of the controversial film from opponents, supporters, organized crime allegations, and the like. It really just told a story, and I credit it for not trying to cover everything, which in reality could be the length of a Ken Burns series.Having said that, however, there were some other areas I wished the movie delved into. For instance, it never seemed to answer the question as to why this movie was so popular, especially given the reasons I mentioned above. Second, it should have offered some sort of explanation or theory as to why some of the people involved with its making faced so much bad luck afterwords. Should they have been involved because it was a counterculture success? Or was being in this movie cause for their eventual demise? Or were other factors involved in their demise? Lastly, I would have loved to have heard commentary by movie critics, both those who saw the movie when it came out, and those that didn't. Roger Ebert had some very interesting things to say about both this movie and its basis, since he saw both. Having that incorporated into the movie would have been helpful, and may have even clarified how on God's green earth this movie made $600 million.But perhaps I'm being too picky. Overall, although this movie had some weaknesses, it was overall very intriguing. I recommend it, but I caution anyone who hasn't seen it about the parts involving Linda Lovelace. And I don't mean just that one scene which made this film NC-17, although that one was difficult to watch too.

Deep Throat was filmed in less than six days at a cost of $25k. At the time, pornography was far from the mainstream and the easiest way to see sex was in sex education films and understandably there was moral outrage over this film. Despite bans and protests, the film went on to gross in excess of $600,000,000 and be one of the most profitable films ever made. This documentary looks back at how the film came about and the impact it had on society as it grew in success. However it also looks at the personal costs and benefits of those who were directly involved, from the stars to the director.This film opens in an energetic fashion with lots of editing, cool music and animated effects, I like this style but I did wonder how the hell it was going to keep it up for 90 minutes or indeed how I was going to keep up with it. Fortunately the film only uses this approach until the title card and from then on it is comparatively more traditional, but still quite pacey. The story itself is interesting but perhaps is stronger for the link it makes to the wider impact of pornography on society as well as the impact on those involved in the specific film itself. It is not 100% successful at this because it seems to want to have its feet in several different camps. As a result it fudges the bits on modern society and relies heavily on Norman Mailer telling us how porn is different not because it is all about money and how the interest in artistic expression has been lost – which is all very good while he says it in his unique, booming style but not when you think about 1970's pornography and wonder how much artistic creativity was involved versus the desire to make whacking material.Despite this fudge though the film is mostly interesting and well structured, with contributions cutting over each other to good effect. In terms of bias though, it is clear that we are not on the side of the moral crusaders here. We get chances to hear them speak, which is fair enough if you take it as read that the film is not meant to be a debate of the right and wrong of pornography so much as it is a discussion starter on the subject. Hopper's narration is solid and the couple of celebrities who pop up are wisely hardly used in favour of those who were directly involved.Overall this is an interesting documentary that is lively and interesting. Not the place to come to for a debate on the morality of pornography but it does a reasonable job of looking at the impact the film had at the time and, to some degree, the wider impact it had on society. However the potted focus on the film itself makes for an interesting and accessible film.

As Blockbuster was emerging as the nation's video store in the late '80s, they had some policies that made some video store patrons try more localized, adventurous places. One was that they didn't stock any X-(or today NC-17)rated movies. That would include such non-porn films like Last Tango in Paris, Henry and June, or this one, Inside Deep Throat. However, they do have Unrated movies meant for over 17 customers available like Dawn of the Dead, Zombie, and Kids-a drama about the sexual exploits of teenagers. To me, that seems like the most hypocritical stance a corporate chain could take concerning a movie's content and the judgment to make whether such movie should be made available to the general public. This documentary makes the point that before Deep Throat was released in the summer of '72 at a Times Square movie theatre, there were hardly any porn films that made such a fuss that the government wanted to shut down movie houses that showed it. It also looks at the lives of the three important people involved and how they were affected: director Gerard Damiano didn't make a dime because he sold his share to the mafia who controlled the financial end, male star Harry Reems was going to be jailed for 5 years before the charges were dropped, and star Linda Lovelace (actual surname Boreman), initially defending her participation in the film, then denouncing it after writing an autobiography called Ordeal, then coming back to pose in sleazy magazines because she was dead broke, eventually died that way when she was injured in a car accident in 2002. Damiano seemed to want to make the point in the film interviews that with the success of his movie, porn was entering the mainstream but emerging obscenity laws would make that an impossibility. Which probably meant that any X-rated movie would make that automatically porn no matter the content simply because of the stigma. NC-17 was supposed to change that in 1990 but there are some newspapers that won't show ads for such films or movie theatres exhibit them. So unless cuts are made in certain director's pictures in order to show in the most possible screens, the only other alternative is showing it Unrated except Major Studios won't accept that in their contracts, only independents do (this is why Miramax-a Disney subsidiary-couldn't distribute the aforementioned Kids so head Harvey Weinstein formed another distributing company-Shining Excalibur-for the sole purpose of keeping Kids from getting an NC-17 or clipped for an R). I've probably talked enough here so I'll just say that Inside Deep Throat puts in perspective what it was like in the '70s when both the sexual revolution and feminism was emerging and not on the same paths and how they affected society to this day. Whether what the results that became were good or bad depends, as always, on your point of view.