Old School and New School

There's a very long, chatty, and good-natured column in Time, the magazine, by Richard Corliss, its film critic, on the good old days when porno was chic. The column is "rated NC17 for explicit nostalgia. And of course the release of Inside Deep Throat might have been what got him thinking about those days.

That was also the belief of Deep Throat's writer-director, Gerard Damiano, who said in 1973: "If it's left alone, within a year sex will just blend itself into film. It's inevitable."

To anyone who wasn't around in the early 70s, this statement must sound utopian, if not delusional. Well (and I know I've written this before, but this time, children, it's true), things really were different then. You get a sense of those old New Days in Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato's Inside Deep Throat, a snazzy documentary now playing in theaters and coming soon to HBO, and a more synoptic view in the new book The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry, by Legs McNeil, Jennifer Osborne and Peter Pavia. Diving into the nearly 600 pages of unmediated testimony from the actors, directors and producers, and the cops who kept track of them and tried to bring them down, a reader gets an inside look at a time when porn —the entire cultural life —was different, bolder, weirder, better.

But don't take my word for it. Listen to the Inside Deep Throat testimony of Damiano —now 76 and a Florida retiree, his trousers pulled nearly up to his tits, old-man style. "You had to be there," he says. "You had to be there. I'm thrilled that I was there. And I thank God I had a camera."

(Full story)

Also, in the College Heights Herald, the newspaper of Western Kentucky University, humor writer Amber North "pulls a Seinfeld" and writes about "nothing" in her column, Just Sayin'.

While we're on the glorious subject of sex, I saw the greatest documentary in the history of life over break: "Inside Deep Throat." Just by the title you can see that the movie was genius. It's a look inside 1972's porno flick, "Deep Throat," which grossed $600 million, more than any independent film. . . . It was just a 97-minute joy ride of brilliance and awakenings. Dennis Hopper narrated.

Love Does Lovelace

,

It's been reported that the cleaned-up rock mess Courtney Love will be portraying Linda Lovelace in a proposed biopic of the porn star's life, to be written by Merritt Johnson. News stories about this plan all say that Love "agreed" to appear in the film. More likely is that she prayed to God! they would consider her. Also, the stories say that Lovelace wasn't paid for her work in Deep Throat. Not true. Though it wasn't much, she got something. (KGET.com)

(And btw, doesn't that KGET newsteam look exactly like every other newsteam in America? How do they do that?)

Swag the Dog

Unbeknownst to World of Wonder, Imagine Entertainment, Universal, the WOW Report, Inside Deep Throat (the blog and the movie), a certain Chicago website called Chicagoist (windy sister of Gothamist, it would seem) featured an Inside Deep Throat contest inviting visitors to the site to come up with the best and worst titles for a porn film and have a chance at winning a bunch of IDT swag (T-shirt, mousepad, poster) that was sent to them by the kind and generous distributors of the film. Talk about re-gifting.

Turns out, the results were hilarious. We're still laughing at My Big Fat Genital Herpes and A Queer and Pleasant Stranger. Go ahead, laugh all you like.

Wide Open Places

OK, it's becoming widespread.
Almost.
But now it's probably in walking distance from where you live.

This Friday:

New York
Albany - Spectrum
Buffalo - Amherst

Massachusetts
Northampton - Pleasant St

Iowa
Iowa City - Campus

Florida

Key West - Key West Film Society

Wisconsin
Madison - University Square

Louisiana
New Orleans - Canal Place

Oregon
Eugene - Bijou

California
Oakland - Parkway

Canada
Ottawa, Ontario - World Exchange
Winnipeg, Manitoba - Globe

My Andrea True Connection

I just got a call from Andrea True. She was calling from Florida where she had just seen Inside Deep Throat. "I'm calling from my car, parked in front of my house, with the air conditioning on." She'd been to the 5PM matinee in Ft. Lauderdale. She said the theatre was quite busy. "It was an elderly crowd, white-headed retirees. They were older than me, most of them in their sixties." She went on to say how much she loved the film.

I asked if anyone recognized her. "Are you kidding? I had my hair up in a ponytail and a big pair of sunglasses on." What a star!

I asked what she liked about the film. "It's a real commentary on the times, the '70s. It captured something about the '70s that I think people have forgotten. By the way, Georgina Spelvin and Herb (Harry Reems) looked fabulous."

Was there anything that surprised her about the movie? "I was hurt by the girls at the AVN convention. It was shocking to me that they didn't know anything about the history of their craft."

We chatted for awhile, and she reminded me that if there are any great grandmother parts [Ed. note: not great-grandmother parts] in any upcoming films we are doing that we better consider her. I assured her we would. I was about to hang up when she suggested that perhaps we should set up a website where people could access the entirety of the interviews we've conducted. "People spend a lot of time on those computers, people wanna be entertained. Charge people, charge 'em five bucks. And advertise it on those pornsites." Hmmm, great idea Andrea. Got any more, more more?

– Randy Barbato

Aisle Say

Carly, the mistress of Pornblography took her time seeing Inside Deep Throat to avoid the hyped-up first-weekers. Later, braving a not-so-rare-these-days torrential rain, she walked with The Boy to Laemmle's Sunset 5 on Sunset Boulevard for a look.

I’ll be honest with you – I’ve never seen Deep Throat. I’ve also never seen Behind The Green Door. Aside from a few scant minutes of The Devil in Miss Jones and seeing Misty Beethoven in its entirety, I can’t say that I’ve seen any classic porn, really. Why? Because it doesn’t turn me on. Then again, neither does most of today’s porn either, but I won’t get into whining about that subject yet again.

Getting back on track. . . The theatre was. . . suitably packed. Obviously, despite my lack of classic porn knowledge, I was well aware of Deep Throat’s existence, but not so much its cultural significance or the controversy that brewed around it save for Linda Lovelace’s allegations of rape. There was no question that directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato had a huge task on their hands, because really, how do you encapsulate 30 years of history into a two-hour documentary? I think they did a pretty damn good job. (For more, got to Pornblography and scroll down until you see the shiny red lips)

Chris Vognar, reviewing IDT for the Tennessean.com website, seems impressed with the documentary:

There should be no question that Inside Deep Throat is a better film than its subject. Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, known for delivering a camp sensibility in their work for the movies (The Eyes of Tammy Faye, narrative and doc versions of Party Monster) and TV (Brilliant But Canceled, Showbiz Moms & Dads), turn Inside into a feast of cultural commentary, graphics and vintage music.

In Pittsburgh, at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Ed Blank seems positive:

Although there are no references to kiddie porno or snuff films, the documentary weighs in on First Amendment freedom of speech and the freedom to choose what one little old lady gleefully calls "dirty movies." "Inside Deep Throat" is never less than an interesting look behind the scenes of the most famous hard-core porno picture of all time, "Deep Throat" (1972).

Parental Guidance

I have the very good fortune of having really terrific parents who are well rounded in all aspects of culture. So of course when Inside Deep Throat debuted my parents were hip to go and support opening weekend. We went to the 4PM Saturday afternoon screening together and sat with an almost full house. It had been my third time seeing the film and, like something else people are fond of practicing, it just gets better and better.

My parents loved it. They have their own "seeing Deep Throat for the first time" stories. People are astounded that I would see a movie like that with my parents. Some say they "would never" – well, hell, how do you think you got here? Aren't some things meant to come full circle? If you can't have a good laugh about sex with your p's, what can you do?

I hope people are going to see the movie in the theater now. I was just in Chicago at the Esquire and I encouraged a really colorful couple to see the film. The bill on the marquee featured Inside Deep Throat and Finding Neverland. I have no doubt they found what they were looking for.

– Alicia Gargaro

The 'Deep' South

SouthFlorida.com gives Inside Deep Throat three-and-a-half stars and calls it "wildly, relentlessly entertaining." And not just because key scenes were shot there.

Watching Inside Deep Throat, you get the impression that it was a lot more fun to make a movie about making one of the most controversial, mainstream hardcore porn films in history than it was to make Deep Throat itself. . . . The documentary, made by controversy-addicts Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (Party Monster, Monica in Black and White), may be educational, but it's also laden with helpful visual aids. If you've never seen Deep Throat, have no fear. (Or, maybe, have lots of fear.) Many of the 1972 film's most explicit elements, including the act of the title, are fully represented. (More)

Where's It At?

This weekend.
Get in line.
Inside Deep Throat opens in your city.
It's getting to the point where if Inside Deep Throat opens any wider it will be able to swallow an anaconda.

Georgia: TARA Atlanta

Tennessee: GREEN HILLS Nashville
MALCO STUDIO Memphis

Vermont: ROXY Burlington

Massachusetts: TRIPLEX Great Barrington

Ohio: SHAKER SQUARE Cleveland

Texas: MAGNOLIA 5 Dallas
ANGELIKA FILM CENTRE Houston

Florida: REGAL SOUTH BEACH Miami Beach
GATEWAY Ft Lauderdale

Arizona: VALLEY ART Tempe

California: REGAL UNIVERSITY Irvine
LAKESIDE Santa Rosa
OSIO PLAZA Monterey

Utah: TROLLEY SQUARE Salt Lake City

Pennsylvania: SQUIRREL HILL Pittsburgh

Maryland: CHARLES 5 Baltimore

Canada: ODEON Victoria, BC
CARLTON CINEMA Toronto, ON

FM in the PM 2

Randy and Fenton have been riding a wave of radio interviews lately. First, NPR's "Fresh Air" had Terry Gross grilling them. Today it was KCRW's "The Treatment" with Elvis Mitchell asking about Inside Deep Throat. (Listen)

First Love Is the Deepest

The people of Coconut Grove, Florida, are proud to claim that some of the scenes in the X-rated movie Deep Throat were filmed at the home of local Hungarian-born sculptor Sepy Dobronyi, reports nbc6.net. The jungle that Linda Lovelace walks through in the movie belongs to Dobronyi, and Dobronyi confesses that the wine cellar where Lovelace has a tabletop encounter has some "dainties" tucked into the shelves to protect the wine bottles (see pic). The living room served as "Doctor" Harry Reems' examining room.

Of course, Frank Sinatra would later shoot some mainstream films there, yawn, but nothing seems to thrill the locals more than remembering that Deep Throat was their first.

For a movie that excited so much controversy and so many libidos, Dobronyi said the filming itself was often boring to watch. "It was very tiresome."

Dobronyi said the crew was a happy one, even Lovelace, who later complained that she had been forced to perform in porn. "It's not true -- she was very happy, running around naked," Dobronyi said.

(Read, see more)

FM in the PM

Randy and Fenton talk to Terry Gross on NPR's "Fresh Air" about Inside Deep Throat. Who are those "East Village downtown bohemian types" Fenton mentions and what about them? (Listen)

Faith, Hope, and Charitable Deductions

A woman calling her blog A Capable Wife (which sounds too much like Subservient Chicken) and whose husband forwards his emails to her (what's wrong with "Hey, honey, come look at this"), but who seems nice enough in her own Christian, bible-reading way, posted a forwarded email from her husband sent by the American Family Association about taxpayers having to support liberal PBS programming. Here's the part that caught our attention:

Recently, at the request of Secretary of Education Margaret Spelling, PBS cancelled a program called Postcards From Buster. The program, aimed at small children, featured a lesbian couple.

In addition, PBS featured an extended interview with Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato discussing their documentary Inside Deep Throat which is about the porn movie Deep Throat. PBS officials thought that the porn movie was so important that they just had to give it great publicity on their network using our tax dollars.

Surprisingly, Addie (that's Capable Wife's name) was fine with that, God bless her.

So what if they are liberal - it's the world we live in! - Get a grip - If your feet are firmly planted in truth, you are more than able to use some biblical, God-given discernment and live with confidence in this liberal choas that surrounds us...

(Read it all)

. . . And Say 'Ahh'

This weekend.

Inside Deep Throat.

More cities.

More theaters.

Atlanta - Regal Tara

Cleveland - Shaker Square

Miami - Regal South Beach

Pittsburgh - Squirrel Hill

Lust on the List

Inside Deep Throat makes No. 3 on Entertainment Weekly's current Must List (and btw, Owen Gleiberman gave it an A):

A strange but thoroughly engaging documentary that untangles the knotty story of a naughty film that went from grind house to art house to courthouse.

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

MONDAY APRIL 22 2002

NEW YORK - Linda Lovelace dies. Channel 4 UK call about us doing a fast turnaround documentary about her life. But we are up to our eyes in it with getting ready to shoot Party Monster, so there's no time to pull the pitch together.

But as it will turn out, her demise was the birth of this film. Brian Grazer had a script for a biopic, but her death throws the life-rights issue into confusion.

At the same time there were stories circulating about how, at the end of her life, Linda was going back to the adult world; posing for Legs Show magazine, and autographing copies of Deep Throat.

As we would later learn, she had watched the film only weeks before she died for the first time since making it and, according to her daughter, her response was "what's the big deal?"

That would be the big question.

Just what was the big deal?

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 1 2002

LOS ANGELES - Fascinating meeting with Brian Grazer about Linda Lovelace project. We were sure this would only be a quick 20-minute chat. After all, only the weekend before 8 Mile had had its spectacular opening. Surely he would have other things on his mind. As it turns out, though, that other thing is this.

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

DECEMBER 2002

Start writing treatment for documentary and quickly realize that the biography we're doing is really more the biography of a movie.

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

SATURDAY JANUARY 11th 2003

LAS VEGAS - We fly to Vegas to cover the porn oscars, officially known as the Adult Video News Awards.

This is really the start of The Awards Season. It's truly mind-boggling how vast the awards have become. Several ballrooms at the Venetian are joined to form a vast audience. The Golden Globes seem kind of modest in comparison. And nothing can beat someone thanking God for their award for Best Anal Performance. Filming on the red carpet - which stretches for perhaps a quarter of a mile, snaking all the way through the lobby of the Venetian - it was surprising how few of today's porn stars knew who Linda Lovelace was or had actually seen Deep Throat.

So different to the previous night when we attended the Legends of Erotica awards, where Linda was remembered posthumously. It's a small crowd - maybe 50 people - of porn diehards (and one really drunk person) in one of Raymond Pistol's adult stores, located far from the glittery part of the Strip. The cinder-block building and overhead strip lighting doesn't really lend much in the way of glamour. Bill Margold hosts and Eric Edwards presents the award.� It's a poignant moment. Touching that she should be remembered at all, but sad also that it should be on such a modest scale, compared to the previous night's bash.

The next day we go to the adult trade show and talk with several legends of the business: Nina Hartley, Ron Jeremy, Candida Royale, and Ron Sullivan.

Ron Sullivan: Deep Throat impacted America because it finally challenged, for the first time in our history, First Amendment rights and privileges.� It was finally put to an ultimate test.� And ever since then pornography has been taking one step at a time towards being decriminalized and legalized.

Nina Hartley: The whole idea that women finally were able to have sex for their own purposes and not just to keep a man or to get pregnant.� Revolutionary.� Revolutionary.� People don't understand that.� I'm a product of the '70s.� I couldn't be here, happy and healthy and sane, had it had not been for the '70s.� So Deep Throat really opened up everything.� The good and the bad. It opened up a Pandora's Box.� And so along with a sense of freedom comes sexual excess.� And response to excess is conservatism. But the genie's out of the bottle.� People want their sexual entertainment.

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

SUNDAY JANUARY 19th 2003

PARK CITY - Head up to Sundance for premiere of Party Monster in competition (but that's a whole other story).

Meet with Harry Reems at Deer Valley Ski Lodge. He's cautiously interested, though says he has been talking to HBO for some time about doing his life story. For him, the big story is the mafia involvement, and in particular he's keen to know where all the money went. He seems to think that somewhere there's a big stash of cash, with someone living very comfortably off of it!

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

FEBRUARY 2003

In the course of doing research for the film, one of the big mysteries we come across is why the golden age of porn was so brief. The immediate and most quoted answer is that the advent of video took away the need for people to go to xxx movie houses and watch porn in public with an audience.� With that the need to tell a story and appeal to a broad audience disappeared, since sitting at home alone with the remote in one hand it was possible to seek out specific scenes.� But that doesn't explain why porn went from being chic to creep, and why it suddenly wasn't okay to be into it...

Thinking about this, we were reminded of an interview we did with Camille Paglia for Pornography: The Secret History of Civilization.

There was a kind of synergistic hybrid at that moment between the intellectual world and the pornographic world that for some reason fell apart.� It's one of the victims of the failure of the '60s in general through the self-destruction of my generation through drugs.� There was a tremendous intensification of creativity and then a collapse in so many areas in the graduate schools, in the art world, in the film world, and also in the pornographic world.� Something was about to happen.� The final emergence of pornography as a major art form has not been sustained.

The women, the ballsy chicks of my generation, the really truly radical women of my generation were interested in pornography and used also four-letter words and all kinds of barnyard epithets that respectable women had never used since we all lived on the land and farmed.� And� just all of a sudden feminism itself took a wrong turn, you see.� Germaine Greer came sweeping through America in 1971 as this incredible figure of free love and believing in balling as many men as she could and so on.� And all of a sudden five years later she had, she was anti-sex, anti-men.�

The culture took some strange turn in the 1970s that I don't think has ever been explained yet.� We may need like another hundred years to get perspective on it.� But it was a general collapse of the '60s in so many ways, including in rock music.� And I can't explain it.� The culture took a reactionary turn after what seemed like we were heading toward a climax of the sexual revolution that we never actually attained.�

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

MARCH 2003

We started off optimistically sending out hundreds of letters, but then the stony silence that followed was disconcerting. Follow-up calls only yielded negatives.� New York Times poohbah Arthur Gelb wouldn't be interviewed - even though he led an entire editorial department from the paper to see the film when it opened. Gay Talese wouldn't be interviewed. He spent years writing Thy Neighbor's Wife, a completely un-put-downable account of the sexual experimentation of the era that was every bit the Ur-text of the period as Bonfire of Vanities was of the '80s. The judge in the New York trial won't be interviewed. Perhaps we can't be that surprised about that. His verdict banning the film in New York blew the film up into a nationwide phenomenon. In addition to being a huge mistake, his verdict was also born out of ignorance; he didn't even know what the missionary position was. Finally the manager of the theatre in New York that showed the film won't be interviewed. He might just have a valid excuse; he's still wary of the mob connection.

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

FRIDAY 25th APRIL 2003

Meet Gerard Damiano Jr, whose dad directed Deep Throat. He's trying to determine our intentions to see whether he'll encourage his dad to participate in the film - since his father hasn't talked about the film in many, many years and is somewhat bitter about how he never really made any money from the film. We talk for almost three hours.

'Throat' Gets Cut, Directors Perform Surgery

Ten days ago, Michael Hiltzik wrote a column in the LA Times Business section accusing Inside Deep Throat directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato of deeply sketchy math in coming up with the figure of $600 million to estimate the eventual gross of the little culture-upheaving porno film Deep Throat. Actually, he came right out and called the claim "baloney." And then went on and on in great detail, as if the $600 million was the subject of the documentary.

Leaving aside that "Deep Throat" was financed by mobsters and that therefore any figures are suspect, logic and arithmetic alone are enough to tell you that its box-office gross could not remotely have approached $600 million.

We're talking about a movie that was released in 1972, banned in half the country and generally exhibited in one theater at a time even in the biggest cities, such as New York and Los Angeles. (Full story)

Today, in "Letters," the Times has printed Bailey and Barbato's response to Hiltzik's attack. We understand that the Times will edit the rebuttal, so we give you the complete story here.

Michael Hiltzik's reluctance to believe that this little film could generate $600 million is understandable.

But like the Deep Throat of Watergate said, "follow the money," and we did. Sadly we didn't find the $600 million stashed in bags anywhere, but what we did find - having spent more than two years speaking to hundreds of people, sifting through thousands of pages of trial transcripts, and rummaging through dozens of boxes of FBI files - is a wealth of evidence to suggest that this figure is about as close to the truth as we are likely to get.

Inexplicably, Mr. Hiltzik decides to leave aside the fact that the film was financed and controlled by mobsters, seeming to doubt that they could preside over a $600 million operation. Odd, because the mob's ability to generate and deal in vast - albeit shadowy - sums of cash is perhaps one of the most well-documented and oft-repeated things about it. If anything, the stated figures are likely to be the tip of the iceberg.

Starting with the tip of the iceberg, some things to consider:

DOMESTIC BOX OFFICE

While Mr. Hiltzik is correct to say that the film was ultimately banned in close to half of the states in the United States, that was not before it was shown in every single state with the exception of Mississippi (Sinema, by Kenneth Turan and Stephen F. Zito). And banning a film didn't mean that theaters didn't show it, or that people didn't go to see it. Quite the reverse; they flocked to the theaters in droves.

Mr. Hiltzik thinks we should compare this to Star Wars. But Deep Throat, less than an hour long, could pack in twice as many screenings as the intergalactic caper that was more than twice the length.

While punters going to see Star Wars paid the average ticket price of about $2, that wasn't the price of admission to see Deep Throat. Because it was banned, because it was a hot ticket, theater owners across the country (Denver, Houston, Milwaukee are just three examples) charged $5 - more than double the average ticket price (generously a theater in Chicago only charged $4 for a matinee). On special occasions, after a police raid in Atlanta, for example, ticket prices soared to $10.

The high-ticket prices were reflected in swollen box-office numbers; an FBI field report (obtained by us under the Freedom Of Information Act) details the Perainos, the producers of the film, talking about two theaters that generated a gross of $100,000 per week.

While Variety tracked Deep Throat's domestic grosses during the first few years of its release, the box office chart was determined by a sample of select theater markets. At any given time, no more than five theaters were listed. However, various sources, including the New York Times, claim that it played in more than 70 U.S. cities within six months of its release. The actual number is likely to be even higher; an FBI source referenced a search warrant that showed the film having played at more than 300 theaters simultaneously.

So while Variety estimated Deep Throat grossing $4.6 million in 1973, it would be reasonable to multiply that by a factor of 10. OK, so Deep Throat didn't earn $46 million every year in release until the Memphis trial in 1976, but this would put its domestic box office way beyond the $30-50 million that Mr. Hiltzik claims based on something called "the most commonly cited estimates of ticket sales."

So with twice the screenings, four times the ticket price, and at least 10 times the number of screens, we feel that $100 million is a conservative estimate of Deep Throat's domestic box office take since its release. This was the number quoted by one of the Peraino's attorneys, who wished to remain anonymous, in an LA Times article. He also said that it was a gross underestimate. He should know. So let's add $10 million, then - a modest adjustment.

But wait, there's more.

Unlike Star Wars, the number of Deep Throat prints in release was not tightly controlled. Even the mob themselves had a hard time controlling the number of bootleg prints that were in circulation.

So effectively was the film bootlegged in Florida by one brave guy that they made him the official distributor and fired the other guy, Arthur Sommer. In Hollywood, bootleg prints were so commonly available that even the judge in the Beverly Hills trial managed to procure his own copy when the jury wanted to take a second look at the film (and that's another thing: Mr. Hiltzik claims that more than the entire population of the United States would have had to have seen Deep Throat, though he doesn't take into account the number of people who saw it more than once - something not limited to juries).

But still there's more.

All the box-office takes were in cash, collected by a purpose-built manual distribution system of checkers and sweepers, and sent back to their Fort Lauderdale HQ.

This all-cash system was ingenious but also porous and subject to skimming at every stage; the guy in the box office would stuff money down his trousers, then the checker would peel off a few bills and finally the sweeper took his cut.

Finally the money arrived back at party central where they counted it, right? Wrong. They weighed it. There was too much money to count. Too much money even to get around the room. Bags of money went off to the Bahamas, bags of money went off to Hollywood to underwrite the Peraino's legitimate operation, Bryanston Pictures. You can be sure that bags of money fell off the truck en route as well.

So let's add 15% for "shrinkage." $16.5 million.

Overseas, our research showed that Deep Throat was licensed to at least 75 foreign territories for theatrical release. The grosses in these individual territories ranged from the high end of $5 million in Sweden to $4 million in Germany to $400,000, with most records leaning toward the higher number. Even if we were to take a conservative figure of just over $1 million per territory, that's $80 million.

Let's add another 15% or $12 million for skimming, shenanigans, and lapses of accounting. That's $218.5 million

VIDEO AND DVD

We know that by 1995 more than three million VHS cassettes of Deep Throat had been sold. Mr. Hiltzik is right that VHS players were very expensive in the late '70s and early '80s, but that didn't deter people from buying them. By the mid-'80s, 23 million homes had a VCR. By the mid-'90s, VCR penetration had reached nearly 80 percent.

And it wasn't just VCRs that were expensive, tapes were expensive too. When it was first released on video in 1977, the average price was around $180. Arrow Productions, the current distributor of the film, estimates that half the copies sold at this premium price (for a total of $270 million). If this seems excessive, there is evidence that cassettes of Deep Throat sold for as high as $350 a pop prior to 1978.

In 1979, Deep Throat videos were advertised for $99.50 (films like The Graduate sold for $59.95). Thereafter, the price drifted down to the $60 mark, which is the average retail price Arrow calculated for the sale of the other 1.5 million units (for a total of $90 million), creating total video revenues of $360 million until 1995.

So these numbers are high, but Deep Throat - along with the few other adult titles available on video in the late '70s - was initially the killer application for the VCR, selling, according to one retailer at the time, 50 times the number of tapes as any other pre-recorded tape.

Then we must also take into account rental income. Variety reported that by 1994, VHS rentals from Deep Throat had made $20 million.

So that's $380 million, counting nothing for the last 10 years in DVD/video sales and rentals. Currently, Arrow Productions sells on average about 15,000 Deep Throat DVD units a year, generating almost $5 million over the last 10 years.

So by adding our box office total of $218.5 million to our DVD and video sales of $385 million, we get a grand total of more than $600 million, a total that excludes all the hotel pay-per-view delivery that is currently the lifeblood of the adult business.

So it's quite possible that $600 million is indeed baloney because the true figure is even greater than that.

Certainly it's an estimation. The mob's accounting systems are rarely audited, and the shame of porn has meant that hard and fast figures - just as much today as then - are difficult to come by. Is the adult business today really the $11-billion monster everyone says it is?

And while we could argue about it till the cows come home, what can't be argued is the fact that, given its modest budget, Deep Throat is the most profitable movie of all time. Even if Star Wars outgrossed Deep Throat (and we clearly don't believe it did), its budget of $11 million was 440 times that of Deep Throat. And that's no exaggeration.

Everybody's a Star

"I first saw Deep Throat about 15 years ago on grainy bootleg VHS tape," says Daniel Robert Epstein in the intro to his interview with Bailey and Barbato on the Suicide Girls website. "At the time I thought that Cinemax Friday Nights After Dark were more scandalous and titillating. However Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato’s documentary Inside Deep Throat schooled me just as it will school everyone else who forgot or never knew what an impact the seminal porno film Deep Throat had on this country."

Randy: I think every single person we interviewed for this film is a star and not just the obvious characters but even Norman Mailer, John Waters and Camille Paglia. For all of them you just want the camera to keep rolling. I bet there is about 10 reality series which we could spin off from this film.

DRE: Where did the footage of the debate between Harry Reems and Roy Cohn come from?

Randy: Bill Boggs used to have a show in New York midday. Harry wiped the floor with Roy Cohn on that.

(More)

And the Hits Just Keep on Coming

People are still writing reviews of Inside Deep Throat. Here's another one, from Gay.com.

Gay filmmakers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato -- who brought their playful, peppy, "Entertainment Tonight" style to documentaries about Ellen DeGeneres, Tammy Faye Bakker and "Party Monster" Michael Alig -- tackle the notorious 1972 porn film "Deep Throat" in this jagged but wildly entertaining documentary. The filmmakers are working with a lot here -- "Deep Throat" came to represent many things in the mid-1970s. (More)

There's this one from The Tufts Daily:

First there was "Kinsey," and now there's "Inside Deep Throat" - the latest movie to address America's obsession with sexual morality, and expose a hypocrisy that became evident in the '70s, yet has continued to thrive , safely delivered from the Nixon administration right through to the Bush era. Directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato of "Party Monster" fame, "Inside Deep Throat" is a vastly entertaining documentary about the low-budget '70s porn movie "Deep Throat." Fast-paced and hard-hitting, the documentary comes across as an illicit history lesson that is at times hilarious and at others somewhat difficult to, um, swallow. (More)

And this from the student newspaper at Fairfield University:

The commentaries are unavoidably interspersed with graphic clips from the original film, which merits the NC-17 rating. Still, the film's producers would have you believe that "Inside Deep Throat" is pure family fun. I'm not sure what your families are like, but let's just say this isn't a Disney movie. Despite all this, co-directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato and producer Brian Grazer (the Oscar-winning filmmaker of "A Beautiful Mind") do an excellent job at legitimatizing this film as a true documentary. It's abundantly clear, at least, that they did their research. The film features a depth and breadth of commentaries and sources you simply wouldn't expect. Indeed, the film references a variety of research, from D.H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Love" to the final report of the Attorney General's Commission on pornography. (More)

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

FRIDAY MAY 16 2003

PHOENIX - As we limber up to the first shoot we are kind of shocked to discover how many people who were proud to be a part of the sexual revolution then not only didn't wish to have anything to do with it, but also wanted to cover up their role in the first place.

As it turns out, our first interviews are in Phoenix, with Jeff Smith a reporter from the local paper who reviewed the film and followed the trial when it was raided by the feds. He lays the whole thing out for us.
�

It's not the conservatives who've taken the fun out of American society now, it's the liberals.� Because they've got money, they're driving Saabs and Volvos, they're sending their children to Montessori School.� The very people who were behind Hey let's get out and have a good time and sleep with everybody and we can find whether we know them by name or not and we'll take any drug we can and get drunk and raise hell and make nasty films.� Uh-uh, they're not like that anymore.�

We ain't the people we were when we were kids.� And we're not nearly as much fun as we used to be because we take ourselves too seriously. They've made a ton of money and they're locked away behind guarded gates.� They know what you can get into by way of mischief and fun and they don't want their kids to do it, and they don't want anybody else doing it, you know.�

Liberalism, the flower power, the whole thing, it's just, it's, it's been horribly corrupted. They've risen to positions of wealth and prominence and, and real tight-ass conservatism. It's very undemocratic, it's very tightly structured, and they're scared to death that their children are gonna start having the kind of fun that they had when they were their children's age.

Liberalism itself has changed. Liberalism doesn't mean anymore being independent and willing to embrace the new and willing to consider any point of view, no matter how outrageous or unpopular.�Today's liberalism is so rigidly conformist; you gotta buy the whole package.� You buy the lattes and Swedish cars and private schools and natural fiber clothing and the whole goddamn kit. You violate from that dogma and you'll be drummed out of the corps and called all sorts of nasty names at parties.� And that's what's happened to me.

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

SATURDAY MAY 17 2003

TUCSON - This was where the feds first prosecuted Deep Throat. It's as hot as can be. You could fry an egg on the sidewalk. Manage - after Ashley and Mona do a capital job persuading them - to get inside the courtroom to film at the weekend. The judge at the time was so contemptuous of the whole proceeding that when the film was screened he sat behind rather than in front of the screen that the film was being projected onto for the jury. According to John Jacobs, the theater manager at the time, one of the jurors became physically aroused during the screening! Linda Lovelace was also brought into town to testify as a witness for the prosecution, but when she was called to testify they couldn't find her.� Apparently, she was in her room at the hotel blow-drying her hair. Priorities, priorities!� In high dudgeon, the judge continued without her.

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

SUNDAY MAY 18 2003

LOS ANGELES - Clinch deal with BSkyB and Channel 4 UK to make a 13-part series called Porno Valley, a docusoap following the lives and loves of the contract players of Vivid, possibly the leading adult production company in the San Fernando Valley, aka Porno Valley aka the other Hollywood.

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

MONDAY MAY 19 2003

PARK CITY - This place without the Sundance film festival is a ghost town. You get to so used to the crowds that the complete emptiness is extremely unsettling. You feel as if you are walking on a movie backlot, which in a way is what the place is - a staging area for independant filmmakers, all players in our own dramas, all the stars of our own musicals.

We are here to do our first interview with Harry Reems, Linda Lovelace's co-star in Deep Throat. The guy's a complete charmer. Get the feeling that Harry is a kind of local hero. We follow him to the country club and watch him play golf. Everybody in town knows Harry. He takes us to a house he's building on spec; his company is called Reems Real Estate. And his fan base stretches far and wide. He tells us about the HRAC, the Harry Reems Athletic Club.

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

WEDNESDAY MAY 21 2003

BOSTON - Interview legendary attorney Alan Dershowitz. When Harry was convicted in Memphis, Dershowitz helped him on his appeal. He said the funny thing was that when Harry came to meet him at Harvard Law school, he was the one dressed as a porn star, with long hair, jeans, and sneakers, while harry was the one who looked like a lawyer, with short hair and in a suit. Alan said that Harry would have made a fine lawyer.

In the afternoon we go to Quincy House, where, in the 80s, a screening of Deep T hroat provoked a schism first between the feminists and chauvinists of the faculty, and then between the police and the entire student body. It's so amazing how much the times have changed. Within the space of eight years, Deep Throat and porn in general went from being something chic to something politically incorrect.

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

THURSDAY MAY 22 2003

PRINCETON� - When Deep Throat came to this Ivy league town, the Governor put in a call to Bruce Schragger, who was then the local county prosecutor, asking him to shut it down. But he declined. Instead of shutting down the film, Bruce and his wife went to see it. The theater has since been demolished and replaced by a Pep Boys. Bruce gave us a tour!

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

FRIDAY MAY 23 2003

NEW YORK - Shooting in Times Square. Susan Brownmiller is our tour guide, reprising the role she played taking people on Women Against Pornography tours in and around the sex shops of Times Square for $5. But today Peepland and the rundown theaters are all gone, and in its place the razzle-dazzle of America's favorite brand names, from Disney to McDonalds. It's so different, and yet.� . .� "I don't know if we won anything," sighs Brownmiller, gazing up at the torso and crotch of a gorgeous black model hovering overhead like a UFO. Turning away from the stories-high billboard of a naked Jenna Jameson and running directly into a wide mouth fellating a popsicle, she looks down at the ground.

From Brownmiller to Al Goldstein.� Al Goldstein is a Rabelasian character, fat, foul-mouthed, and unapologetic. He uses free speech to spew politically incorrect invective. For example. . . .

To Susan Brownmiller:� "You moron, dimwitted turd.� You smelly little facsimile of a human being.� You moron.� First of all, some women have rape fantasies.� Secondly, I want nothing more from a woman than to be her slave.� I have told many women to own me.� Use my tongue.� Let me bring you off.� I'm going to stay between your legs not for an hour, for days.� I've taught her not to have one orgasm, but 20. . . ."� Etc.�

Many find him repugnant and he would probably agree with them.� He's just such a turn-off that in the end he doesn't end up in the film as much as he should have, considering that he said the most important and truest thing that anyone would say:� "Our sexual freedom, your sexual freedom, it's very fucking important.� And it's a war that's never won.� So we need people like me who are either half-crazy or half self-destructive to keep the fight going.� Because it's not going to stay won.� You need nutcases like me to fight it."�

Who said it had to be pretty?

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

SATURDAY MAY 24 2003

BINGHAMTON - It was here that in the first of many trials against Deep Throat that a jury found that the film was not obscene.� James Barber, the defense attorney, shared with us some of the secrets of his strategy.

A) Bring in expert witnesss to testify about the film's socially redeeming value.

B) Practice saying key words - like clitoris - so there would be no sign of embarrassment or shame as the the case was made.

C) Pick an all-male jury.

And it worked. Which is why, when the film went on trial in New York, the prosecution figured out a way to avoid a jury trial.

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

WEDNESDAY MAY 28 2003

MIAMI - The prosecutor and the defender.� First we interview Bill Kelly, the FBI agent who relentlessly pursued not only Deep Throat, but many pornography cases. Although today he's retired, he's still very active in the cause.� Bill loves the camera and has endless stories to tell.

Then we hook up with Herb Kassner, who defended Deep Throat in the infamous New York trial.� He lives in one of those retirement communities where all the houses have beige interiors and anonymous looking modern furniture. They call these places God's waiting rooms, though we're� not sure He would appreciate the decor. When we arrived Herb was out on the patio smoking a stogie. As far as he was concerned, much of the campaign against pornography was a politically motivated sham.

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

MONDAY MAY 29 2003

Interview Art and Terri Sommers. In his younger days, Art distributed Deep Throat in Florida, until he was shooed off by the mob - and that's why Terri is dead set against him speaking to us. They duke it out on camera and, although it gets quite heated, Art prevails. By the end of the interview we've all fallen in love with them. No question about it, they should have their own film, and by the time we've returned two more times to interview them, we probably have enough material to make it.

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

MONDAY JUNE 2 2003

MEMPHIS -� Famed for Elvis Presley and Martin Luther King's assassination. Otherwise, it just gives us a feeling of vast emptiness and a sense of being frozen in time - not unlike the grassy knoll in Dallas.

That morning we interview Larry Parrish, the prosecutor famous for the Memphis trial of Deep Throat. En route to his office, there is a downpour of biblical proportions.

Thinking we'd go in with righteous guns a-blazin', we instead found a sneaking admiration for the guy. Ultimately, his point was simply either to repeal the obscenity laws if you don't believe in them, or enforce the laws as they stand on the books. Significantly, the laws have not been changed since they were used against Deep Throat. When we ask him today if pornography has penetrated too far into the mainstream to make it possible to turn back the tide, he shakes his head. While it might be true that blue chip companies like AT&T and Time Warner are involved in the distribution of hardcore either via the web or cable, he reckons they would back off in a New York minute if, in just a couple of cases, senior executives were sent to jail for conspiracy to distribute obscene material over interstate lines.

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

THURSDAY JUNE 26 2003

SAN FRANCISCO - We are shooting at the Institute of Advanced Study of Human
Sexuality, where Ted McKillvenna presides over an enormous collection of pornography (26 warehouses, 3 million items). We shoot an interview with him in the narrow corridors of his vast collection. He shows us beautiful erotic photos of an interracial couple that he believes were the prime motivation in the government case against a subscription erotic magazine called Eros. In one of the few genuinely successful prosecutions against obsenity, the editor, Ralf Ginzburg, ended up serving jail time.

Sexology seems a weird subject to have any academic status. But adult star Annie Sprinkle has a PHD in the subject from the Institute. We shoot an interview with her arranged on an array of cushions, used - in what seems like a throwback to the '70s - to teach the faculty.� Or maybe the '70s never ended here.

Annie's first job after leaving home was in the box office of a theater in Tucson where Deep Throat was playing. When the feds raided it, she received a subpoena to go on the witness stand. This otherwise unfortunate event had the benefit of introducing her to Gerard Damiano.

I'd just left home and I was a young hippie, 18 years old, and I looked in the newspaper for a job.� And there was a job working in a movie theater.� So, I went to the movie theater, got the job, and had really no idea that it was a hard-core porn film. I think the first time when I walked into the theater to watch the film that I was selling popcorn for, I looked up at the screen, and it was kind of an epiphany.� It was really truly an, a religious experience. To me it was a beautiful thing to watch people have sex on a big, giant screen - that screen was huge.� That blowjob, that penis was 1000 feet tall, and it was like church.

Deep Throat was a huge success.� There were lines around the block, and there was just money, money, money all over the place. I� couldn't sell tickets fast enough.�

Little did I know that seeing Deep Throat would impact the rest of my life.� I then spent 30 years in the sex industry and studying sex and making sex films.� So Deep Throat, I can honestly say, changed my life radically.

Several months later I get a subpoena to appear in court and I was absolutely amazed that I was going to have to testify in this trial, because I was just there selling the popcorn. Anyway, sitting in the witness room, waiting for my turn to testify, I met Gerard Damiano and flirted with him shamelessly, because of course to me it was like meeting Steven Spielberg. I was very attracted to him, he had a lovely grey goatee, and he was very Italian.� He made funny sex jokes.� My in with Jerry was like, "oh, could you teach me to do Deep Throat?" So, he did.�

For a change of pace we then drove up to Berkely to interview Linda Williams, the author of Hard Core, a seminal academic text on pornography.

On the way back, we heard that the Supreme Court had repealed the sodomy laws.

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

MONDAY JUNE 30 2003

Legendary porn star interview #1:� Marilyn Chambers. Marilyn, of course, was not in Deep Throat, but in Behind The Green Door. And after Linda dumped husband / abuser / svengali Chuck Traynor, it was Marilyn who took up with him. By her account, she had a happy and mutually beneficial relationship. Chuck was the one who taught her to deep throat, using the same technique of hypnosis that he had supposedly acquired while a Marine in Vietnam.

So, er, how exactly do you do it?

There's a whole technique that's involved in it.� Chuck Trainer taught me how to do it.� He taught me through hypnosis that your mind controls your body.� And that, obviously, you have certain, uh, gagging reflexes that you can control.

OK, well, it's kind of the secrets of the trade.� How much are you paying me for this?� (Laughts, clears throat) There's a whole positioning involved, and when somebody. . . it's very difficult to explain, I mean, and I'm not an artist.� But if a man is like laying on the bed, okay, and his, now I'm going to get like embarrassed. (Laughs) I know that seems impossible.

There's a certain way to breath.� And, if you want to come over here, I'll show you.� (Laughs) No, I'm kidding.� Um, there's a certain way that you breath.� There's a certain angle that you have to be at.� Because it's kind of like being a sword swallower.

But, um. . . .� (Laughs) God, you lay, uh, the woman. . . .� (Laughs) Shit, now, I can't say it.� I'm turning red, so, which is really stupid, okay.� (Laughs) Start over.

And so that when, and, you know, the lip action is real important.� And, um, the breathing is, uh, it's really kind of easier to show than it is to explain.� But the breathing action is, um, is very important, because you don't want to choke, you don't want to gag. I mean, that's like really embarrassing when you choke, you don't want to do that.

I mean, your mind just gets into a whole thing where, uh, your throat does feel like a vagina.� I mean, it's like you, your, your whole, you get confused, it's like you go into a trance basically, of, to what you're doing.� And, it's really, um, I was going to say psychedelic, but that's kind of an old word.� (Laughs) Psychedelic.�

Before Chuck, Marilyn had been married to a bagpipe player.

That day we also interviewed Tony Bill. Call it the Oscar Factor, but there is something about interviewing people with the little gold statuette on their mantelpieces.� Tony Bill was one of the producers of The Sting who ended up being one of the very few witnesses allowed to testify for the defence in the Memphis Deep Throat trial. In a nutshell Harry Reems was charged, merely for acting in the film, for being a part of the conspiracy to distribute obscenity. Well, the defence and Hollywood had something to say about that. But the judge wouldn't let them - because if he had let people like Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty it would have been quite clear that the actor had nothing to do with the film's distribution. So after Tony BIll, he decided not to hear any more witnesses.

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

TUESDAY JULY 1 2003

Legendary porn star interview #2:� Georgina Spelvin. Georgina Spelvin - not her real name - was the star of Damianos second big hit, the classic Devil In Miss Jones.

Back in Shakespeare's time they tell me, whenever there was a part that was too small for an actor, and he didn't want his name on it, he'd use George Spelvin.� Or if they were picking up townies to fill in, they'd use the name George Spelvin on the programs which they'd print ahead of time.� So George Spelvin was kind of like the John Doe of the English theater.� And that's how I picked the name George Spelvin, feminizing it to Georgina, which I thought sounded real classy.

Apart from that, she has our hands-down favorite line of all time. . . .�� Let's face it.� There is no more sincere compliment in the world than an erection.�

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

THURSDAY JULY 3 2003

Driving along Santa Monica boulevard in the early morning sunshine to get some general views of the Pink Pussycat theatre where Deep Throat had played - now the all-male Tom Kat - it seemed like nothing could go wrong.�

But things immediately went awry at the interview with James Clancy, an elderly� anti-porn activist. Age has not dulled his enthusiasm for his crusade. He arrives at the office with stacks of papers, court transcripts, and speaks for a solid hour before we can so much as get in a question.� He pulls out his time motion studies that cover our conference room table, documenting stills from porn films on the vast sheets in front of him. His goal is to make the corporations accountable for the spread of pornography into hotel rooms. But then he talks about straight cops being brainwashed into masturbating each other by subliminal frames cut into the film, and how he fears we might be in league with the Kennedys, so it all becomes much less clear.

That afternoon we interviewed Rod McKuen, famous - among other things - for creating the slogan MAKE LOVE NOT WAR. He gave a committed interview as the first amendment champion of the rights of Harry Reems.

Along with local news anchor Chuck Ashman, he organized a benefit screening for Harry Reems at the Pink Pussycat, generously attended by Hollywood royalty. He was a little coy about the A-list stars who showed up to the event - respecting their retrospective right to privacy, and covering for the fact that many have subsequently regretted their public association with the movie. Still, great stuff!

But then at the end of the interview he wouldnt sign the release but said he'd have his representative look at it.

Next day, Chuck Ashman called, who we had also interviewed and who, it turns out, was also Rod's rep. And in return for a signed release he wanted a fee of several thousand dollars that we simply couldn't pay.

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

MONDAY JULY 23 2003

NEW YORK - Funny moment with Ralph Blumenthal, the reporter from the New York Times who wrote the famous article "Porn Chic."� He was standing on a street corner in Times Square, showing us the site where the New Mature Theatre once stood. Except that he was on the wrong corner, on the wrong street.

Inside Deep Throat Opens Wider

Starting Friday at:
       
Loews Esquire, Chicago IL        
Magnolia, Dallas TX        
Angelika Film Centre, Houston TX        
Brenden Palms, Las Vegas NV        
Bala Cinemas, Bala Cynwyd PA
Lumiere, San Francisco CA      
Carlton Cinema, Toronto ON        
Capitol, Vancouver BC        

Hirsch v. Grazer: It's Nudes to Us

Inside Deep Throat producer Brian Grazer made some remarks about the adult film industry the other day on Good Morning America. We didn't watch or TiVo it, but Steve Hirsch, CEO of Vivid Entertainment Group, one of the most powerful producers of adult product, Group did. And he fired off an open letter to one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood. The letter appeared in AVN.com.

Dear Brian:

Congratulations on the tremendous reception your documentary, Inside Deep Throat , has been receiving. Good buzz and the attention of the talk shows and papers should help build the audience you're looking for. I've always admired your work and applauded your championing the right of the people to see and read what they want without interference.

Therefore, I confess to being a bit confused and curious about some of your comments last Tuesday on "Good Morning America." If I heard you correctly, you called your movie a "cautionary tale" and said that adult films are not good for people in front of or behind the camera.

When World of Wonder producers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato started filming Porno Valley with Vivid, you got an inside look at a professionally run business that does not in any way exploit people - whether they are before or behind a camera, or are simply enjoying our entertainment products in the privacy of their homes.

There are good and bad apples in every barrel and every profession. Most of the 12,000 people who work in "Porno Valley" are responsible, mature citizens who work hard and enjoy their jobs and who rarely have any problems as result of their employment. Today we in the adult business mirror mainstream entertainment companies far more closely than the impression you left in your GMA appearance.

With all good wishes,

Steven Hirsch
Co-Chairman and Co-CEO
Vivid Entertainment Group

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

SUNDAY JULY 25 2003

Interviewed Erica Jong, forever to be remembered to her chagrin as creator of "the zipless fuck." We said we'd only need half an hour, but she was a firebrand and everything out of her mouth was just so good.� But she saved the most mindblowing till last.

We were very naive.� We thought if everyone smoked hashish and marijuana there would be world peace. I mean, it was silly. Smoking dope did not bring about world peace.� Instead, Nixon got reelected after being declared politically dead.� And the forces of repression came in in a huge, huge way.� And the forces of repression have been in control ever since.

You'll probably cut all this out.� But that's the real history of our times. And now what do we have?� We have a right wing government.� We have a John Ashcroft trying to take back women's choice.� We have incredible censorship of the media that proceeds from the White House and from the five corporations that own all the networks. And they're down there in Washington even as we speak, trying to get the FCC rules lifted so we'll have even less choice.

I know that probably you'll want to censor all of this.� But that's the reality.� What the '60s did that brief six-year period, in which the sexual revolution went public, let's say, was to set up an excuse for the biggest backlash of all time.� And the backlash is in the White House now.� The truth of the matter is that they don't want you to see the context and the big picture. They want you to see everything as little bursts.� You know, like the sexual revolution happened, yay.� And then the sexual revolution diminished because women wanted to go back and have babies and be mothers and all. None of that is true.��

We nodded earnestly, but it was a lot to take in, and it would be over a year before we can truly comprehend the true sense of her words.

Then we sped downtown to our old East Village stomping ground to interview Lovelace fan and expert, Eric Danville, author of a basically authorized autobiography of Linda, The Complete Linda Lovelace.��

He didn't have room for us to shoot in his apartment, so we ended up shooting across from our old apartment on 9th Street between B and C.� We turned around and looked up to the window of the sixth-floor walkup we had lived in for five penniless years.� So close to the past - about 20 feet - and so far - about 20 years.

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

WEDNESDAY JULY 28 2003

FLORIDA - In the afternoon, we did the legendary Count Sepy, whose house was used as a location for shooting the original film.� We arrived, DP Teo Maniaci already rolling as he came out to greet us in black leather shorts. He had designed and built his house in Coral Gables to resemble a bull. He points at the roof line as if it's self-explanatory, but we can't really tell if entering the front door we are entering through the tail or the horns. It felt a little of both.

Inside, the house was a sensurround aphrodisiac crammed with erotic primitive art, much of it from Borneo.� Overlooking the vast living room was a loft with the prow of a Viking boat that served as a bed,�and in which the count claimed to have been deep-throated by Linda Lovelace. Someone later referred to the boat as a canoe, but you refer to the count's prow as his canoe at your peril.

He took us to the wine cellar where the infamous glass dildo and Coca-Cola sequence was filmed (you'll have to watch the original film if you want to know anymore), and regaled us with stories about orgies in the '60s.� Just then, a pair of unbelievably and barely clad nubile babes arrived in an open-topped sports car to go "swimming." Time for us to go.

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

TUESDAY JULY 29 2003

BOCA RATON - Drove up to Fort Lauderdale and interviewed Andrea True, Len Camp, and Wakefield Poole. We were in an all-but-shuttered Marriott hotel that was celebrating Christmas in August for handicapped children. We did Andrea in the closed restaurant, appropiate since she turned up with a box of donuts for the crew - which was very generous and kind of her. But unfortunately, this being Miami, everyone's on the Atkins diet, so poor Andrea has to eat them all herself, which she gamely does. Then again, she once said that the the only thing better than sex would be swimming in a pool of mashed potatoes and gravy.�

Then Wakefield Poole showed up. But before that, we were treated to an impromptu visit by Len Camp, the location manager for the movie. He seemed to have no intention of being interviewed, but also no intention of leaving, and arrived with stacks of nude photos he took during the Deep Throat days - and some unmentionable celebrities baring unmentionable things are part of the collection.

By now, Wakefield Poole had waited patiently for three hours. We were interviewing him because he arguably started the porn chic craze with Boys In The Sand, a gay hard-core porno that played in a regular theatre to rave reviews. He in turn had been inspired by Andy Warhol's Blow Job.

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

JULY 30 2003

FORT MYERS - Interview Gerard Damiano and his son and daughter at their home in Fort Myers, Florida.

I was asked a question by Oui magazine what's better than sex? And a lot of people had given these flowery quotations of what they thought was better than sex.� And I said better than sex is a good bowel movement.� I always thought that sex was like water, water was all over the place and water is only important if you don't have it.� You die.� Uh, sex, if you don't have it, that's when people go bananas.� When you deny people the the ability to be sexually free, if you take that away, then it's dangerous.

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

SUNDAY AUGUST 1 2003

MIAMI BEACH - We were curious to see if we were to remake Deep Throat today if anyone would turn up. And so we printed up a flyer with audition details and wandered up and down the beach handing them out. The next day we set up our cameras at the audition location, the idea being to interview anyone who showed up and ask them about their motivation for auditioning. But then no one shows up, which answered our question, sort of.

Inside Deep Throat Directors' Journal

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 4 2003

CAPE COD - Interviewed John Waters. The trouble with John Waters is that everything he says is smart, and he's such a consummate master of the interview genre.

He reminded us of two films we probably won't make mention of in the film.� Andy Warhol's Blow Job, filmed in 1964, showed a naked John Giorno from the waist up receiving a blow job from an unseeen worshipper.� Waters points out that it's a cinematic masterpiece. And it is.� He also mentioned Bill Orso's Mona The Virgin Nymph. This was a feature length sex comedy also about oral sex. The premise was that Mona, engaged to be married, could remain a virgin by blowing her fiance and - it becomes apparent - everyone else, even (in a remarkably risqu� scene you could never get away with today in any context) her own father.

Perhaps inspired by John Waters, we purchase a giant pink inflatable dinosaur for Randy's pool.

Have You Had Your Sprinkle Today?

Annie Sprinkle, Ph.D, porn actress turned sexologist, addresses the question of whether Linda Lovelace was, as she later claimed, being raped when she made Deep Throat.

"While I do believe that Linda Lovelace was in a co-dependant, sometimes abusive relationship with her husband Chuck, I believe she was not being 'raped' when swallowing Harry Reems' penis on the set of Deep Throat. I swallowed Harry Reems' penis several times, both on film sets and off, and while it was never a particularly sensitive, loving, caring experience, it certainly was never cruel - just sexy fun. Also having been very close to Gerard Damiano, I know that he doesn't have a mean bone in his body. If he sensed that Linda was being 'raped,' he never would have filmed her. She said she had a very rough night with her husband before the filming of Deep Throat. But to blame others for that, like Damiano and Reems, was cruel and hurtful to them. She abused them! If you watch Linda having sex in Deep Throat, you will see that in those moments, she is relatively happy. Still, she will always be my favorite porn star, because she seemed to enjoy having sex so much. I sure do wish Linda Lovelace was alive today."

5ive Questions with Annie Sprinkle

1. Describe yourself as if you were writing a personals ad.

Big hearted sexologist/artist is looking to share the love on her web site loveartlab.org.  Let's collaborate sometime.

2. What's the title of your autobiography?

It's Dr. Sprinkle's Spectacular Sex--Make Over Your Love Life.  It's an actual book coming out in May from Penguin/Tarcher.  In the book, I tell a lot about my life exploring sex in all it's glorious and inglorious forms for over three decades.  It's also a how-to book for anyone interested in having more spectacular sex.

3. Who plays you in the movie?

Bette Midler.

4. Who do you go to for advice?

My porn star support group, Club 90.  It's a group of five women, and we've all been in the porn movie world in the early days in New York.  We've met for over 20 years.  And we are all super close. Now we mostly meet by email, as we live in different cities now. But I love and trust this group of women with all my heart.  Gloria Leonard, Candida Royalle, Veronica Vera, Veronica Hart, and myself make up Club 90.

5. What makes you cry?

When i have a really deep, beautiful, exquisite orgasm with my lover, I am moved to tears.