Reams on Reems

Sunday's London Observer had a long, iilluminating, and very readable story on Deep Throat's reluctant comeback star Harry Reems. "Porn-again Christian" by David Keeps is probably the most complete article on the recovering former porn star since Inside Deep Throat refocused attention on him.

This fellow, born Herbert Streicher in New York City in 1947, sitting here in his bucolic Park City, Utah, mountainside home in a plaid shirt and neatly pressed khakis, has the smile, the voice and the disposition of a breakfast DJ. It is easy to see the ghost of a cocksure rake, the role he played in silly skin flicks with such brio three decades ago, when Harry Reems was one of many noms de porn that stuck. It is even more apparent, however, that he is no longer the firebrand freedom-of-expression spokesperson - and, later, more sadly, the wasted sot - on display in Inside Deep Throat, the wildly entertaining new documentary about the most profitable porno film ever made. It is 15:01 on the celebrity clock for Harry Reems, or, as he puts it, 'I've had my 15 minutes of fame, now I would like my 15 years of retirement.'

Though the film casts him as a tragic hero, Harry isn't the least bit sucked in. 'Nobody under the age of 50,' he says with great joviality, 'even knows who I am.'

Old Man and the Tee

Amy Bennett Williams has a nice story on Deep Throat director Gerard Damiano in the Fort Meyers, Florida, News-Press. She finds out he's not a dirty old man, but rather "a quintessential - if not entirely typical - Southwest Florida retiree. Great tan, golf-loving and quick with a joke, he could be the genial 76-year-old standing ahead of you in the supermarket line - the guy making the check-out girl giggle or the screaming baby smile."

Says Damiano: "I was just a nice guy, which is why I think I did pretty well. I mean, I'd meet an actress and have to say, 'Sit down, take your clothes off - I'm going to ask you to do some nasty things.' You have to be pretty nice."

(Read more)

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

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)

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)

RuPaul Remembers the First Time Ever She Saw Deep Throat

saturday, i saw INSIDE DEEP THROAT. the film was fantastic!!! i can't believe they were able to use the shot of LINDA LOVELACE going down on HARRY REEMS and keep their NC-17 rating. that one shot keeps reverberating in my ...er, um head. it's so fucking hot! HARRY REEMS is so fucking sexy, even today.

i saw the original film at the PUSSYCAT THEATER in SAN DIEGO when i turned 18. the only thing i remembered of the film was her driving my favorite car ever made, a 1969 CADILLAC EL DORADO, and HARRY REEMS' juicy cock. oh, and yes, i remember feeling really self-conscious as i sat down in a triple X-rated theater, surrounded by six older dudes in trench coats.  (RuPaul.com)

Reems Reads Reams of IDT Press

I have been following the film's path these past two weeks, focusing mostly on the reviews. I am delighted that almost all the press has been favorable. Randy and Fenton deserve all the accolades they are getting. Bravo!
 
Without question, the best description of our boys comes from "down under" film critic, Gary Maddox, who met them at the Berlin Film Festival and describes our heroes as dressed "in natty black suits and ties, resembling gay undertakers." Ah! The freedom of the press. You go, girls!!

- Harry Reems

First and Second Time Ever He Saw Deep Throat

As evidenced from Gerard Damiano Jr's following account of seeing his father's movie for the first time in a theater when he was 14, and then viewing it recently as an adult at home with his dad, Deep Throat could qualify as a "family film." 

My father may have been called The king of Porn, but he was pretty straight-laced when it came to family matters. For half of my childhood I was aware of the film Deep Throat , but was never allowed to see it. My sister and I might  have spent a lot of time around the film sets, but we were always quickly ushered off when it came time to shoot the "nitty gritty."

The first time I saw Deep Throat, I was 14 years old. My best friend Damion and I jumped the turnstile in Queens and rode the subway into "the City," back when Times Square was still Times Square.  There was a theater which had been running Deep Throat (on a double bill with The Devil in Miss Jones) for years. Shows were every hour on the hour, and you could see both pictures for 5 bucks. The guy at the ticket booth barely even looked down at us kids, he just said "Fi' dollas," and we were in.

In the opening scene of Deep Throat, Linda is actually driving my father's old blue Cadillac Eldorado. Seeing our family car up on the big screen was almost as exciting as watching sex for the first time. Even though I knew that my parents would be furious, I couldn't resist telling my dad that I had seen two of his movies when I saw him that night.

A few days before Fenton, Randy, and crew showed up in Florida to film my father's interview for Inside Deep Throat, I suggested that we watch the film to refresh his memory. He had not seen it in many years, and we had never seen it together. He was very critical, and a little embarrassed at the quality of it. He called out every mismatched cut, every glitch in the soundtrack and everything that he might have done differently. It was literally watching the film with a (live) director's commentary track.

One of the first scenes has a dolly shot of Linda walking. "You know how we got that shot without a dolly?" my father asked. "We mounted the camera to the hood of my car (the blue Eldorado) and Harry Reems was behind pushing it."

- Gerard Damiano Jr

First Time Ever I Saw Deep Throat

Raymond Pistol
Owner, Arrow Productions, current distributor of Deep Throat

Deep Throat was overwhelming to me. I'd hardly even seen a naked woman, much less a huge screen and a six-foot vagina. It was just like aliens suddenly dropped into my front yard. It was that unusual to me. 

So you had total sensory overload [back then].  It took me awhile to become attuned to it, to even discern one product from another.  I mean, if you see your first automobile, you're not worried about whether it's a Chevy or a Cadillac or whether it has leather seats. They're rolling down the thing on wheels.  That's kind of the way I was. There weren't a lot of people in the theaters.  I would tend to go during the day and there would be only like a dozen guys in the theater.  And everybody would sit 12 rows away from everyone else because we were a little afraid of the other guys.  Whenever you would see them stream out they looked just as normal and just the same as you did.

But nevertheless, you're thinking, I'm doing some kind of a horrible, terrible thing here. So you're assuming that these other guys have gotta be horrible and terrible too.  It's only after exposure and realization that it's a lot like combat.  The first time they shoot at you, your mind just kind of goes blank at, wow, they're shooting at me.  And it's only later on that you realize you have to shoot back and you have to function, otherwise you're not going to be very successful and you're not gonna stay alive very long.  But your first thought is, My god, they're shooting at me.  That there is a six-foot vagina is a shock.

First Time Ever I Saw Deep Throat

Eric Danville
Author, The Complete Linda Lovelace

Like most people, Deep Throat was the first porn movie that I saw. I was 18 and in college at the time.  It was 1982, and it had just been released on video tape, I believe, by a regular company, and my girlfriend and I went home from college while my parents were away for the weekend.  We decided to be really nasty and went out to get a porn movie.  I had never seen one but I had always heard about Deep Throat.  So we rented that and we watched it together and, uh, afterwards, my girlfriend gave me one of the best blowjobs that she ever, ever performed upon me.

Danville and Lovelace, 2001

Gerard Damiano

1. Describe yourself as if you were writing a personals ad.
I'm nice enough to take home to Mother. But only if Father is not at home.

2. What's the title of your autobiography?
The Devil Made Me Do It.

3. Who plays you in the movie?
It's a toss-up between Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.

4. Who do you go to for advice?
I never make a move without my Ouija board.

5. What makes you cry?
When I drop something heavy on my foot. Also, "president" George Bush.

Harry Reems

1. Describe yourself as if you were writing a personals ad.
NO LONGER FOR SALE. Porno star in his late 50s. Happy as a clam (no memory left). Will not sell his soul again. However, one can purchase his left rotator cuff, lower back, and both knees. All have been totally restored.

2. What's the title of your autobiography?
He Came, He Shriveled, He Left.

3. Who plays you in the movie?
Jim Carrey.

4. Who do you go to for advice?
No one. Very few are willing to sustain a meaningful conversation. Their loss.

5. What makes you cry?
My rotator cuff, my lower back, and my knees.

First Time Ever I Saw Deep Throat

Linda Williams
Author, Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the "Frenzy of the Visible"

I saw Deep Throat when it came out.  My husband at the time and I drove with another couple to see it in Denver at one of those Pussycat theaters.  And it was an adventure.  It was definitely the sort of thing that one felt a little bit excited about doing. I remember almost nothing about the film.  I think I can remember the famous explosion, the bombs bursting, bells ringing scene. But as far as being in any way moved by it, my memory of that has been entirely displaced by other films that I saw at the time, a little bit later, that were more powerful.  They were more sexually arousing.  And that was an uncomfortable, interesting thing to feel in a movie theater.

Write and tell us about your first time.

First Time Ever I Saw Deep Throat

Helen Gurley Brown
Editor, Cosmo; author, Sex and the Single Girl

I'm not sure whether it was chic to see Deep Throat.  I barely do anything because it's chic.  It was educational, of course, for my work as a magazine editor; also, my husband is in the movie business, and he ought to see everything.  So I went because I was interested and because it was educational and it was the right thing to do.

I don't remember finding anything educational about it. It's not that I knew everything, but I think I knew quite a lot in the '70s.  I can't remember how old I was then - I must've been 50.  So I didn't learn a great deal that I didn't know before, I just found it interestingly presented. I thought it was very well done, that was one reaction; and second, I didn't think it was so naughty, or so low down, or so unmentionable, I just thought it was a well-done movie.  I enjoyed it.

John Waters
Filmmaker, Pink Flamingos

Deep Throat wasn't a joke.  People didn't go to Deep Throat for parody.  They went because they had never seen this before. It was a badge of the new freedom.  "Have you seen this movie?  Have you been through the experience of paying to see a woman give a blowjob in a porno theater in your community?" That was very, very new. No one had ever seen that.  And once they saw it, they went home and tried it, and it perked up some marriages maybe.  And then they knew what porn was.  Some went back, some didn't.  And the rest led to everybody having it in their homes.  The title, the title, the title, and the act.  The humor made it OK for women to sit through it.  The humor made you feel less guilty.  There were a couple of good jokes in it.  So you could say it was funny, too, rather than, you know.

Write and tell us about your first time.

First Time Ever I Saw Deep Throat

Xaviera Hollander
Author, The Happy Hooker

I became aware of  Deep Throat the first time in Canada, in Toronto, where sex was still rather a taboo subject, at least in films.  There was a private showing of Deep Throat on a double bill with Boys in the Sand.  I went with two heterosexual boys, and we forgot Boys in the Sand was totally homosexual. You got into the theater for free if you would get undressed.  Of course, we all got undressed; otherwise, if you stayed dressed and were kind of prudish, you would have to pay the $15 entrance fee.  So, I said, Okay, boys, let's all go naked.  And before I knew what happened, there was like group sex happening left, right, and center. 

Hugh Hefner
You have to ask?

Well, I don't really remember the specific screening. But I remember the time frame and I do remember that we ran it in the living room for a select number of friends.  It's a comedy; one could suggest that it's a romantic comedy, a sexual comedy and it has a plot. I think one of the things that is unique about Deep Throat is that it broke that barrier. Porn films had existed in one form or another before, but Deep Throat was the one that really established a kind of porn chic and made it acceptable for men and women.

Write and tell us about your first time.

First Time Ever I Saw Deep Throat

Wakefield Poole
Director, Boys in the Sand

I got the pre-publicity stuff on it and all the things and I thought well this I want to go see.  And I went like the second day it was running. Outside of the theater when I arrived there were quite a few people, I don't remember how many, but I know that there was quite a line.  In fact I was almost afraid I wouldn't get into the screening that I was standing in line for.  It was a lot of men and a few women, and basically they were in suits.  I went in the afternoon, so it consisted of people who got off from work. 

But it was very quiet in the line. I'd stood in line for many things, like for My Fair Lady when it first opened, and it was a party. But this wasn't a party.  Everyone was sort of, I think, a little uptight having to stand in a line.  And there were cameras all around, people with cameras and you didn't know whether they were professional cameras or private cameras. I think people were a little uptight about being photographed in the line, so a lot of people faced the wall of the theater, as opposed to facing the street.

I was very surprised by the film.  It wasn't at all what I expected.  It was much more fun and not as sensual as I thought it would be, for some reason.  But I went to see it and, as I said, I stood in line with the crowds and it was quite an experience. 

Erica Jong
Author, Fear of Flying

There was a screening in some psychoanalyst's apartment and everybody watched and smoked dope, yeah. I always thought it was ridiculous, if you want to know the truth.  I know the clitoris is not in the throat.  You know, I was not pre-med at Barnard.  I couldn't dissect the fetal pig.  I got a D in zoology and I became a writer. I thought it was quite absurd.  And I had nothing but contempt for Deep Throat.  You know, I was a kid who was reading the great novels of Tolstoy and people like that.  I was not really interested in this crap.

Write and tell us about your first time.

Penetrating Questions and Inside-ful Answers from Directors Fenton Bail and Randy Barbato

QUESTION: Does the original film have a message?

FENTON BAILEY: On the face of it, Deep Throat would appear to be about how to suck cock. A very chauvinist message. You have this ordinary looking person Linda Lovelace who just wants to get off and have fun - very much the mantra of the '70s - and she goes on this quest, finding sexual satisfaction only when she discovers deep throating.  But the film's message is even simpler than that, yet far more radical, and one that transcends the battle of the sexes that so often defines debates about sexuality. 

Because Deep Throat isn't really about oral sex. The movie is really about one person on a quest for sexual satisfaction. There are notions in our society about what is acceptable sexually and romantically, a kind of moral concensus that keeps us all in line.  The whole point about Deep Throat is different strokes for different folks. The DNA of desire is encoded uniquely in each of us. And while her path might seem highly unusual, therein lies the film's very message: Linda's quest for satisfaction stands for every man and every woman's quest. Everybody's path to satisfaction, sexual or otherwise, is an individual path. And the right to pursue that path and those pleasures and freedoms is what life is all about - or should be. And Deep Throat is saying that there's nothing wrong with that,  that sex in all its infinite variety is not only okay but also glorious.  There's nothing to be ashamed of.

 
QUESTION: So what did you learn personally?

FENTON BAILEY: That Deep Throat the movie and Deep Throat the Watergate source are the same thing. At first we thought it was just a coincidence; but there was a deeper connection.  Deep Throat was a secret source, an outlaw voice speaking out against hypocrisy and corruption. And that's what Deep Throat the movie was. An outrageous voice speaking up not just for sexual freedom, but also freedom of expression as became really clear when the film was the subject of dozens of trials trying to silence its unique voice.

RANDY BARBATO:  We are living in an age where we have to be very careful about things like First Amendment rights. And I don't think we ever really thought about that before we started making the film. Now, we started this film over two years ago but once we did so many things happened that seemed to mirror things that happened back in 1972. They had Nixon, we have Bush, both re-elected for a second term. They had Vietnam, we have Iraq, two international quagmires. We learned that there is a very strong connection between 1972 and 2004. So once again we find ourselves at a similar kind of crossroads that society was at when Deep Throat first came out.

FENTON BAILEY: You know, sex and sexuality always get used as a weapon of distraction .These kinds of issues raise their heads when people want to distract us.  So, if you don't want people thinking about what the real issues at hand are, i.e. a war in the Middle East, well then, let's get everyone in a lather about Janet Jackson's nipple. It's a weapon of mass distraction.  But don't underestimate its power to hoodwink us into giving up vital freedoms.

RANDY BARBATO: Personally, I learned it's important to defend the very things that people feel uncomfortable about defending, like pornography. In the climate we live today, people might think something like that isn't so important.  But while they may be happy to let freedom of sexual expression go by the wayside, that really could be the beginning of the erosion of other more significant rights.

FENTON BAILEY: And it's already happening. In 1972, they put the first surveillance cameras in Times Square. And there was such an outcry that they had to take them down. Today, Times Square is the most surveilled place on the planet. Not only do we accept being surveilled, we expect to be surveilled!

RANDY BARBATO: In 1972 the culture war was about a hard-core pornographic movie.  Today its about things that aren't even hard core:  Janet Jackson's nipple, innuendo in a promotional stunt for Desperate Housewives, gay marriage.  So we've come a long way - in reverse!

FENTON BAILEY: What's scariest here is that people are acting in fear. Fear of an FCC fine. Fear of everything.  Bush owes his re-election to the fear factor, fear that we might be blown up at any moment by a bunch of terrorists. And with the perception that our way of life is under attack comes a feeling that our way of life really is morally superior, and therefore needs to appear to be as decent as can be. So no gay marriage, no nipples at half-time, and a lot less sexual freedom. During life in wartime these things are easy to characterize as inappropriate, possibly even un-American.  Of course once you arrive at a place where freedom is un-American you're in a right old pickle.

QUESTION:  And if you had to sum everything up in one sentence?

RANDY BARBATO: What's so funny about peace love and understanding.

Penetrating Questions and Inside-ful Answers from Directors Fenton Bail and Randy Barbato

(Continued from January 19th)

QUESTION:  Talk about the mob.

FENTON BAILEY:  Well, the mob produced and owned Deep Throat.  But Lou Peraino Sr., the producer, was so much more than a mobster.  He had a vision. With the money he made from Deep Throat he set up Bryanston Pictures, a legitimate distribution and production company and quickly scored with a succession of genre hits:  Enter The Dragon, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, John Carpenter's Dark Star, and Andy Warhol's Dracula and Frankenstein. Martial arts, horror, science fiction, and art house - they had all the genres covered.  It was a sort of a prequel to Miramax. People said they exploited their actors, screwed their partners, and threatened their associates. Just another day in Hollywood, and certainly nothing that would be of interest to the FBI - unless your last name happens to be Peraino.  Ultimately, Bryanston went bankrupt. Whatever you may think of the Perainos, they simply weren't able to run Byranston and defend themselves in Memphis in addition to many other multiple cases all across the states. It must have been very draining.  Sadly, none of this is in the film because no one - not one single person - would tell us any of it on camera.  All of those who worked at Bryanston who still work in Hollywood today (and there are many) either don't want to be reminded of the connection or are too frightened to talk. And even Lou's surviving relatives don't particularly want to be identified either.  

RANDY BARBATO: But Deep Throat really is the quintessential independent film. Not just because it was made outside of the studio system but also because it was independently distributed. Potentially illegal indie film couldn't officially be distributed by any recognized distribution system.  Instead the Perainos built their own distribution network from scratch, a truly remarkable system of checkers and sweepers who would fly all over the country and hand-deliver prints to theaters, as well as collect the box-office take on a daily basis.

FENTON BAILEY: But it was all completely underground. The FBI for one didn't recognize the legitimacy of this entrepreneurial activity; they called it money-laundering. You can be sure proper tax returns weren't being filed!  And because everything in this unofficial distribution system was in cash, everybody was skimming, taking a bit here and taking a bit there. So in the end the money just evaporated.  Still, in a way, the success of Deep Throat is the quintessence of the American dream and embodies the entrepreneurial spirit.

QUESTION: So where did all the money go? 

Well it certainly didn't go into Damiano's pocket, and it didn't go into Harry Ream's or Linda Lovelace's pocket.  Even many of the mobsters died penniless. It all just disappeared. Fatal subtraction - another Hollywoodism!

QUESTION:  Did these guys know what they were doing?

RANDY BARBATO:  No.  Add it all together and you've got the gang that couldn't shoot straight. They were all nuts, though I say that filled with love and admiration, because they were doing something they genuinely believed in.

FENTON BAILEY: The craziest amongst us are really the best, because they don't care what people think, and they are just going to do their thing. And when they do, everything changes.  And had they been more sensible, they might not have made this film.  They would have seen the risks and wouldn't have wanted to stick their necks out and risk their lives and livelihoods to do it. So if they had been more sensible, it simply wouldn't have happened. 

QUESTION:  So what did you learn?

RANDY BARBATO: We learned a lot about liberal ideology.  I think that the liberals that existed in the late '60s and the early '70s are very hard to find today. They're still alive, but they've changed their stripes and wear more conservative colors.  The same people who pioneered the sexual revolution have very conflicted feelings about sex and sexuality today.

FENTON BAILEY: We learned a lot more than we thought we would.  Everybody knew Deep Throat, everybody heard of Linda Lovelace, but the real story remained completely hidden from view. Although plenty of books have been written about the '60s and '70s, this aspect of the culture hasn't really been documented. So for us it was like digging up the bones of some dinosaur, or excavating an ancient civilization - even though it was just 30 years ago instead of thousands of years ago.

RANDY BARBATO: It felt like we were investigating not so much a conspiracy but an entire episode that the culture just wanted covered by the sands of time. A lot of people are reluctant for us to go digging that up again. Sure, there was the whole mob aspect, and people were still very frightened of their power and influence. But above all and most perplexingly, there was a sense that the freedom and the experimentation of the '60s and '70s was something people were ashamed and embarrassed about, and would just as soon not talk about. For example, a lot of Hollywood filmmakers got their start making adult films, but they did not want that documented.

FENTON BAILEY: And, you know, we couldn't really hide that this was a film about Deep Throat. You had to sort of come out with it sooner or later. And there was always a slight, let's call it a bump, I guess, that people had to get over. And some people never did get over it, alas. Because the one thing Deep Throat is saying is that there's nothing to be ashamed of, and I think in making our film we ran into people who were ashamed. And that was sad.

RANDY BARBATO: And intriguing. It might us wonder why.

QUESTION:  So tell me. Why?

RANDY BARBATO: We think it was the commercial success of Deep Throat. It changed everything. Before it, people thought and acted ideologically; they were pioneers, campaigning for freedom. After it, people began to be swayed by the potential of how they could profit from it. When they saw how much money there was to be made, ideology was passed over in favor of the bottom line.

FENTON BAILEY: Deep Throat was a turning point in terms of the commodification and objectification of our bodies and sexuality that's just become the norm today.

RANDY BARBATO: There was a fork in the road: Go with the money or stick with the ideology. And basically they all went with the money. And so that's where we are today, in this completely consumer capitalist society. It's more than ironic that Deep Throat, a film that has all these subversive ideas in it, would instead end up seeding this multi-billion-dollar adult porn industry. It's not what that film set out to do. But that's the effect it had.  Like so many of the creative endeavors of the '60s and '70s that ended up losing their ideology and just becoming hugely commercial instead.

FENTON BAILEY: The film's message was to do your thing and find yourself. But you can't watch any of the 12,000 adult titles released last year and find in any of them any trace of that ideology. So porn today is a very different experience to the porn of yesterday.

RANDY BARBATO: And today many of those hippies and sexual revolutionaries are all grown up, extremely rich, and have teenage kids. They are all for freedom of speech and freedom of sexual expression. But they also feel very conflicted about the sexually charged and saturated world that we live in today. It's a hard thing for them to stand up and cheer for because it feels divorced from intimacy and love. So it presents a dilemma for people. That's where we end up, with this contemporary moral dilemma we're all faced with.

FENTON BAILEY: Erica Jong says that the release of the '60s and '70s has created the biggest backlash ever. And their true legacy is shame, embarrassment, and the crazy fervor of today's moral crusades.  We thought perhaps she was being a bit overdramatic when we heard it, butŠ

(TO BE CONTINUED)

Penetrating Questions and Inside-ful Answers from Directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato

(Continued from January 18th)

QUESTION: Let's talk about some of the key players in the film. What are we to make of Linda Lovelace?

RANDY BARBATO: Linda Lovelace is an enigma. She was an ordinary girl with ordinary dreams, who found herself in extraordinary circumstances, and her life was transformed.  Not necessarily because of her ability to deep throat, but from stepping in that world of fame, from becoming a celebrity. And I think she kind of became addicted to celebrity, and that shaped much of the rest of her life. And the moment she became a celebrity, any chances of ever knowing who she was were killed. 

QUESTION:  What happened to her?

FENTON BAILEY: Linda Lovelace became famous both for her very ordinariness and for her ability to do this extraordinary thing! So she was ordinary, but in a very charismatic way.  1972, the year Deep Throat was released, was also the year that the Loud family was on television.  It was the very beginning of ordinary people becoming stars, and she was one the first reality stars.  

RANDY BARBATO: I think of Linda Lovelace as someone who never had the opportunity to find herself.  Before she could find herself, others found her and were able to manipulate her.  Chuck Traynor manipulated her, and then to some extent the feminists manipulated her.  She was trying to please all these people but she just didn't know how to please herself. She was like a deer caught in the headlights.

FENTON BAILEY: Once she was famous she continued to be famous for being famous. The kind of sublebrity you would expect to see today on The Surreal Life. But at the time people didn't know how to treat her and she didn't quite know what to do with herself either. She couldn't really act. Hollywood producer David Winters saw the potential of the brand and tried to mentor her, but Linda didn't really get it and was deluded by a misplaced sense of entitlement derived from her stardom.

FENTON BAILEY:  After Deep Throat, Linda did in fact appear in her own vehicle, called Linda Lovelace For President, which was supposed to be her mainstream breakthrough as a movie star. But it didn't succeed in making her a Hollywood star.  And there were just no other opportunities for her. So she disappeared for a while before making a comeback in the age of Oprah as a pioneering star of the confessional, and emerged as a voice against pornography, telling her own really truly harrowing story.

QUESTION:  Do you believe her story that she was forced to do what she did?

FENTON BAILEY:  I do believe her story. She was under the influence of this Svengali.  It's a classic case of domestic abuse, but happening at a time when - again - the rhetoric and resources of this weren't familiar to people. But after being the toast of the talk show circuit with her book, people lost interest once again.

RANDY BARBATO: In the end, the girl next door did find some contentment as the grandma next door; spending time with her grandchildren, her cats, and decorating for Halloween and Christmas.

FENTON BAILEY: I think she was kind of blindsided by the fame that was thrust upon her and didn't understand it the way we understand it now. If it happened today, we'd say, Oh sure, porn star crossing over.   Jenna Jamieson.  Write a book, do some movies, launch a fragrance, star in your own reality show. Or think of Paris Hilton. Today everybody is familiar with these processes.  

QUESTION: And  Harry Reems?

FENTON BAILEY:  Harry Reems' best performance was arguably not in Deep Throat, but in the role he played subsequently, defending himself against an unprecedented government assault on his constitutional rights. It was the first and only time that an actor has been charged and convicted for merely playing a part.

QUESTION:  Convicted of what?

RANDY BARBATO:  Conspiracy to distribute obscene materials across state lines.

QUESTION:  But he was only an actor in the film!

RANDY BARBATO:  Exactly. He had no control over how it was distributed and no backend participation - so he didn't profit in any way from the film's distribution. All very unfortunate, since he wasn't even supposed to have been in the film. He was hired as a production assistant.

QUESTION:  And why did Harry suffer most of the brunt of the legal action?  It seems so arbitrary.

RANDY BARBATO:  Well, there were many trials against Deep Throat, and their scope and scale is breathtaking.  They started on the city level and moved to the state, and ultimately ended up in federal court in Memphis in a huge conspiracy trial with over a hundred people charged, from the projectionist to - most notably - the film's star, Harry Reems.

FENTON BAILEY:  They arrested Gerard Damiano very early on, and made him cop a plea. So he - reluctantly - became a cooperating witness, and this also meant that in return he got immunity. So they couldn't prosecute him, much as they would have liked to.  They did the same with Linda Lovelace, although there was also a feeling in the South that it was unseemly to prosecute a woman. So that just left Harry Reems. The strategy was quite deliberate: Harry Reems was a high-profile actor so if you make an example out of him and send him to jail that's going to discourage other young people from following in his footsteps.  

RANDY BARBATO: But they underestimated Harry Reems, who turned his conviction into a cause celebre.  Hollywood spoke out in defense of Deep Throat because there were other trials threatened against more mainstream films. They thought, Gee, I might not be in Deep Throat, but what are they going to think about Carnal Knowledge?  What are they going to think of some other project that someone might misinterpret as pornographic? I might be the next person to go to jail.

FENTON BAILEY: The extent of the government's desire to stop not just Deep Throat but also all pornography was so blatantly an attempt to curb freedom of expression. Because pornography was the one thing that most people are least likely to defend. No matter how liberal you are, pornography is at the bottom of the list when it comes to freedom of expression.  So it's the best thing to attack.  No politician wants to stand up and say, "I'm for pornography."  So it was a great political move, and it was a political move that went from the city straight to Washington.

RANDY BARBATO: And you can trace today's culture wars and that bitter divisiveness to Deep Throat. The federal trial in Memphis was one of the first times that the red states flexed their political muscle. It was the beginning of America feeling the political power of the Southern bible belt, and feeling the impact of what that could mean in terms of dictating and policing culture.

QUESTION: So Harry got off.

FENTON BAILEY:  Yes, eventually. All charges against him were dropped about five years after his nightmare began.

RANDY BARBATO: Harry, whose ambition was to be a Shakespearean actor, thought that he could parlay his notoriety into a mainstream legitimate career.  And he even got offered the part of the high school coach in Grease. But the studio withdrew the invitation before filming began.  I think many people thought that when porn became chic it was a stepping stone to legitimacy.  There were lots of incredibly talented people who were attracted to that world, not because they wanted to have sex or because they were looking to make lots of money, but because they were ideologically motivated. Pornography was a frontier of expression, a place for people to boldly go.  And, believe it or not, a lot of people who are successful in Hollywood and the media today were part of that scene then - though not that many of them are prepared to talk about it.

FENTON BAILEY:  Anyway, following the trauma of the trial and his failure to cross over into the mainstream, Harry became an alcoholic, ending up in Park City. Today he's sober, happily married, and a real estate agent.  He's never changed his name - it's Harry Reems Real Estate.  Because while he is now a committed Christian, he says he's not ashamed of his past, and isn't trying to deny it.

QUESTION: What about Gerard Damiano?

FENTON BAILEY: He saw himself as the next Spielberg and hoped that by getting the money for his films that he would be able to ramp up his productions and make bigger and better films.  Deep Throat was made for $25,000, which was not very much money (and even less given the complete absence of any kind of independent film business). So while technically it's easy to criticize, in many other ways it was a remarkable achievement. But because he never got any of the money his films made, he wasn't able to realize his dream of becoming a mainstream filmmaker.

RANDY BARBATO:  Though he did make one of the most significant hard-core films of all time, Deep Throat,  as well as The Devil And Miss Jones, which he made right afterwards.  But he never made any money.  He ended up being a caddie in Palm Springs, without a penny to his name.

FENTON BAILEY:  Damiano saw himself as an auteur filmmaker, and the outlaw medium of sex was the way for him to express himself.  Because there was no independent film business to speak of at the time, and Hollywood was a closed shop.  Deep Throat really is a keystone of the independent film business, because it was made for this tiny amount of money by this moonlighting crew and it showed people, perhaps for the first time, that there was a way to make movies that made money outside of the studio system. It just so happened to be controlled by the Mafia and it would be a while before things like Sundance and today's indie film biz emerged.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

Penetrating Questions and Inside-ful Answers from Directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato

(Continued from January 17th)

QUESTION: What was it about Deep Throat that appealed to you as documentarians?

RANDY BARBATO: On the one hand we live in a sexually saturated atmosphere, and sex is used to sell just about everything. But it's still something that makes people feel awkward and anxious. It's still taboo and people easily wig out about it. So sex and sexuality is this big elephant in the room and I think that was intriguing to us - why is it this big elephant in the room?  And by looking at this film that crossed over into mainstream in a way that no other work of pornography did, we thought we might be able to find some answers.

FENTON BAILEY: As we were starting out someone disparagingly said Deep Throat wasn't very important, that it was the Pet Rock of porno. Just a fad. But of course it wasn't the rock itself that was the thing, it was all the people who went out and bought it. Why were they buying Pet Rocks? So it's not the film itself, but why and how it connected with the audience on such a huge scale.

RANDY BARBATO: I think it was the blowjob, really. As a society, America is obsessed with blowjobs. To an OCD degree. After making Monica Lewinsky In Black And White it seemed to us that sex is such a divisive, problematic force in our society today. It was the furor surrounding a blowjob that all but destroyed a president and brought the government to a virtual standstill at a time when attention was so much needed elsewhere, as the events of September 11th made tragically clear..

FENTON BAILEY: In some respects we were born to make this film. While a student at Oxford, I edited ISIS, the university magazine, and my first issue was seized by the police for a feature spread examining the porn business in Britain. Charges were eventually dropped. But pornography has always been interesting to us. We produced for Channel 4 in the UK a six-hour series called Pornography: The Secret History of Civilization showing how pornography is a vital cultural force as old as civilization itself. And far from being the marginal and corrupting force it is often demonized as, it's a very vital force - especially in terms of new media. Every new medium that comes along - whether it's print, photography, film, video, the internet - the killer application is often porn. It's the way they become assimilated into the mainstream. 

RANDY BARBATO: We've also produced a 13-part docusoap called Porno Valley, for Sky and Channel 4 UK, which is a look at the lives and loves of the girls of Vivid, the premiere adult production company.  It shows that porn stars are people too, and perhaps only different from us in that they have sex for a living. It's incredibly warm, funny, and innocent - sort of. Perhaps that's why it's unlikely ever to be shown here where porn stars can only be portrayed during sweeps weeks as doomed pathetic characters heading straight to hell  - if they aren't halfway there already.

FENTON BAILEY:  We love to tell the stories of people or things that the mainstream considers unfit, or dismisses as marginal. And we love to do that because we've always had a keen sense of our own marginality and felt the sting of that judgment. I'm talking about the gay thing, here. So whether it's rent boys, Tammy Faye, Monica Lewinsky, or club kids, we love to show just how mainstream the marginal is, how critical to the fabric of our lives.  And everybody involved in this film paid a very, very high price.

RANDY BARBATO: It's the curse of Deep Throat: So many of the people involved have such unhappy histories with it. 

FENTON BAILEY:  Now whether you say it was their immorality or their foolishness, or whether you say it was their bravery and courage, either way everyone - even the mobsters - paid a really high price. And for that reason theirs is a story that we wanted to tell, because we felt it deserved to be told. 

QUESTION:  Who went to see Deep Throat?

RANDY BARBATO: Everyone. The film played in New York, LA, and urban cities, but it also played in Princeton, New Jersey, and countless mainstream suburban theaters. It played in the blue states and it played in the red states. It played in small towns and college towns. Everyone went to seep Deep Throat.  It was when porn made the big jump from X-rated theaters to completely mainstream theaters in suburban communities. Previously, pornography had been for dirty old men only. But with Deep Throat hard core jumped species. Ordinary middle-class men and women who wouldn't be seen dead in a porn theatre, and many of whom had never seen hard core, openly went to see Deep Throat. It was chic.

FENTON BAILEY: But it was more than chic; it was actually a virus. Once infected, people wanted more.

RANDY BARBATO: It was the adult equivalent of Love Story.  Love Story was a dating movie, couples went to see it, and this was exactly the same. Guys got laid after taking their dates to see Love Story, and after taking their girls to see Deep Throat, guys got something else.

QUESTION:  What was the secret of the film's success?

FENTON BAILEY: Deep Throat was a kind of perfect storm. No different from any other box office blockbuster, it was made by the happy coincidence of many different factors. Although the film is a hard-core film, first and foremost it was a comedy. A comedy about sex. 

RANDY BARBATO: hard core + humor = box office!  Because when you combine sex and comedy it makes it easier to watch. Actually, the comedy gives people permission not only to go see this hard-core film publicly, but also to talk about it - something people were aching to do. The swinging '60s had happened, but in terms of trickling down to Main Street, that sexual revolution hadn't yet penetrated suburbia. People were just beginning to talk about sex and open up to sex, when along comes Deep Throat, this weird sex comedy. The comedy element gives people permission to see it and talk about something they've been curious about for so long. And, yes, it's dirty but it's also very funny - and everybody is going to see it anyway. So you're not necessarily a smutty old thing in a raincoat, you're a social observer of the Zeitgeist, you've got an ironic distance that makes you cool and chic. So these were some of the things that helped create a huge audience for Deep Throat.

FENTON BAILEY: It was an ice-breaker. It gave people a way to start talking about fellatio and other sexual practices, that was really timely.

RANDY BARBATO: And - hello - it did not hurt that it was called Deep Throat. Calling it Deep Throat was the icing on the cake that took it over the top.

FENTON BAILEY: But, perhaps above all, the government's attempt to shut down Deep Throat made it a hit, because it turned the film into a must-see event. When it opened, Times Square was the focus of a big cleanup campaign. The film already had a high profile thanks to reviews in Screw and Variety - which gave it a mantle of legitimacy that it wouldn't have otherwise had - and word of mouth only further fueled that. So right away it was impossible for the authorities to ignore it. They were almost forced to shut it down.

RANDY BARBATO: The government's stamp of disapproval drove people to rush out and catch the movie before it was banned.

FENTON BAILEY: The more they tried to shut it down, the more attention it generated. And because audiences were continuing to see this film week after week, the theater could afford to fight. So whereas most obscenity trials were open-and-shut cases, this time the theater managers mounted a spirited defense and brought in expert witnesses. This was so unusual that the New York Times covered the trial. And so it continued to escalate. Finally the judge's verdict shut the film down in New York, but simply spurred other theaters across the country to run itŠ and so it went, on and on.  So those are just some of the factors combined to create this perfect storm for the movie.

QUESTION:  What was the state of pornography before this movie came along in 1972?

RANDY BARBATO:  Pornography has existed since the beginning of mankind; it's on the cave walls in Pompeii. In America in the '40s and '50s you had the stag films shown in men's club - they called them smokers. These films were rites of passage for men that also served as a rudimentary kind of sex education. In the '60s you started seeing them in theaters disguised and dressed up as educational films.

FENTON BAILEY: Those were also known as white-coaters. Necessarily dry affairs, they featured a doctor in a white coat pointing to diagrams explaining the mechanics of intercourse, cutting away from time to time to a couple actually having sex - not out of wanton lust, but purely to educate by example!  These films coincided also with scientific studies - Kinsey, Masters & Johnson, and Shere Hite - and the emerging science of "Sexology."  The idea was that sexual pleasure could be scientifically perfected and that within these medical confines, sexual exploration was permissible.

RANDY BARBATO: This doctors and nurses thing is one of the oldest of devices: Kids exploring their sexuality often use this very device. By role-playing as a doctor or nurse, they have permission to view and touch what's normally off-limits. Deep Throat came along and parodied all of that mercilessly. 

FENTON BAILEY:  There were hard-core feature films before Deep Throat - and even one about oral sex.  Mona The Virgin Nymph, which Bill Oscar directed, tells the story of this "virgin" who is engaged to be married but who goes around having sex with everybody. The way she does it and remains a virgin is that she gives everybody blowjobs.  So it's a feature-length film about oral sex.  But it didn't have Deep Throat's catchy title or its outrageous, off-color, compelling, and surreal concept - the idea of a clitoris in the back of your throat.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

Marilyn Chambers

One of the people you'll meet in Inside Deep Throat

From The WOW Report

1. Describe yourself as if you were writing a personals ad.
Former Ivory soap box mom looking for funny (not looking though!), articulate, pleasant-looking man who can take my breath away! Must love animals and children and be compassionate to those less fortunate than he. Baggage is okay, as long as he leaves it at the curb.

2. What's the title of your autobiography?
Confessions Of America's Most Famous Porn Queen.

3. Who plays you in the movie?
Reese Witherspoon

4. Who do you go to for advice?
My big sis, Jann.

5. What makes you cry?
When my teenage daughter tells me how much she loves me and how happy she is that I'm her mom.

Penetrating Questions and Inside-ful Answers from Directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato

QUESTION:  What did Deep Throat mean to you?

RANDY BARBATO: It was very much a time where you didn't talk about pornography, or you didn't talk about sex, and I lived in a very suburban neighborhood in New Jersey. I don't think I knew what Deep Throat  meant, other than it made my mother and her friends blush and giggle.

FENTON BAILEY: As as a kid I had a vague idea that there was some kind of movie out there called Deep Throat. But I didn't know what it actually meant. It was kind of like a code word, and if you didn't know the code, you were shut out of this secret world.

QUESTION:  When was the first time you saw Deep Throat?

FENTON BAILEY: We didn't actually see the movie until we started to make the documentary. It was Christmas, some friends were over and we thought, let's put it on. The holiday spirit just evaporated. It was kind of icky-making and uncomfortable to watch. Lots of it is out of focus, sort of out of sync, it's not very well edited and the acting is, er, not so good. Like the director Jerry Damiano said, it's not a good film.  And it's also from a time when the notion of what makes a person attractive on film has changed considerably.  There was a lack of grooming, I suppose. In the end we had to stop and turn it off and play a Christmas party game instead.

RANDY BARBATO:. We were all very embarrassed, even though our friends are pretty hard to shock. Which is interesting because back then in the '70s middle-aged middle-class people actually went to movie theaters and watched this film in public.  Today of course, if anybody wants to watch pornography, they do it in secret.

FENTON BAILEY: The privatization of sex and the fact that people look at it on their computer screens alone, it's kind of a shame. I'm not advocating public orgies or anything like that. But you have to admit that the degree of shame attached to sex today is a great regret. And it clearly was so different then. And "then" wasn't so very long ago. And so it seemed worth asking, What happened?

QUESTION: How did you come to make this Inside Deep Throat?

RANDY BARBATO: Fortunately we were chosen. By Brian Grazer.

FENTON BAILEY: We had made a film called The Eyes Of Tammy Faye that did okay at Sundance, and there we met one of the nicest people in the business, Kim Roth.

RANDY BARBATO: In fact, she's so nice you wonder what she's doing in the business.

FENTON BAILEY: So we had heard that Brian Grazer was planning on making a biopic about Linda Lovelace. And Angelina Jolie, tearing a page out of Madonna's book, was campaigning to play the part. So we did our own Joliefication and suggested we should direct the film.

RANDY BARBATO: Except that we thought Mariah Carey should play Linda Lovelace.

FENTON BAILEY: And Kim was gracious enough to indulge us with a meet-and-greet.

RANDY BARBATO: And then nothing happened.

FENTON BAILEY: As you would expect it to.

RANDY BARBATO: But then Linda Lovelace died.  And I think Brian felt that when Linda died, doing a film about her life was problematic because there isn't a very satisfying cinematic arc to her story. 

FENTON BAILEY: So he had the idea to make a documentary instead of a feature. And then he had a beauty contest of highly-noted documentarians, and fortunately we seemed to win that particular pageant. 

QUESTION: What was it like working with one of Hollywood's most powerful producers?

FENTON BAILEY: Well Hollywood moguls have a reputation for making the people around them crawl around in fear. But he makes it very easy to be yourself around him.  There were no mogul antics to dish about!

RANDY BARBATO:  There were some mogul-y touches.  It was cool to watch the cut in his screening room; the screen is vast. It was cool to fly on the jet.  Making documentaries doesn't call for much in the way of travel by private jet, sadly.

FENTON BAILEY: Normally when making documentaries you're carrying all the equipment and figuring out where to park the van. And it's just been great to be able to do this on a scale, thanks to him, where you can really think about the film and not worry about the van.

RANDY BARBATO: And  throughout the process he was just so interested and engaged. This wasn't something he was just going to put his name on, and walk away from.  And he was always challenging us

FENTON BAILEY: I lost count of the number of times he called us up and said, "No really guys, what is this film about?"  We were just tearing our hair out. He was right, of course, because for the longest time we had no idea.

RANDY BARBATO:  We knew it was an important moment, and we knew that it had significant cultural impact. But we didn't know much more than that. He gave us an extraordinary amount of room in terms of figuring out what this film was.

(TO BE CONTINUED)