Written, directed and edited by Gerry Damiano (aka Jerry Gerard)

Produced by Lou Perry

Cast: Linda Lovelace, Harry Reems, Dolly Sharp, Bill Harrison, William Love, Carol Connors, Bob Phillips.

Now a historical curiosity that many may simply fast-forward through, in 1972 when it was first released, Deep Throat was considered to have high production values – for an ‘adult’ film. To modern audiences, the tedious and over-long opening credits sequence of Linda driving her car may put you off long before you get to the controversial bits. The stagey acting and corny, synthetic music, likewise. Unless, as Norman Mailer suggests in the documentary INSIDE Deep Throat, you can look at it simply as “a giggle”. And if you overlook all the split-screen sex and explicit bits which are not in the least erotic, it can work in parts as the same sort of cheesy, dated comedy as the Carry On series. The camera does occasionally give wide angle and middle distance shots and the sweet directness in the personality of Linda Lovelace is allowed to come through her character.

Unlike porno films then and now, Deep Throat has a plot with a beginning, middle and end, it has actual characters and a comedic theme. It also purports to be about female sexual satisfaction – something not known at the time to have a high priority. It was the first sexually explicit film to cross over into mainstream theatres. Sociologically hugely important as a landmark in the history of sexual expression, the film is being shown in theatres in conjunction with the 2005 documentary INSIDE Deep Throat.

After the long opening sequence the comedic quirkiness starts in a mild sort of way. Linda gets home (which later appears to be a suburban two-woman knocking shop) to a bored-looking friend Helen (Dolly Sharp) having cunnilingus performed on her in the kitchen, who asks if the chap minds if she smokes while he is eating. Linda herself looks irritated and later explains as they sit beside the pool that she feels something is missing in sex for her. Helen is satisfied with their lifestyle but Linda wants more, especially in her sex life. She gets tingles but wants bells, dams bursting and bombs going off. “Different strokes for different folks,” Helen says, significantly for the feminists, “It’s got to be right for you!” There’s a five-minute split-screen sequence of Linda and Helen having multiple partner sex where Linda is shown to be increasingly frustrated with sex that is not quite right for her.

Helen suggests she visit a doctor and Dr Young (Harry Reems) immediately asks her if something traumatic happened when she was younger to turn her off sex. Linda protests that she loves sex, she just doesn’t have orgasms. Dr Young then conducts a physical exam. “Nurse!” he cries, “Sterilisation please!” and dips his finger-tips for not more than one second in the bowl of water she brings him. Checking out Linda’s genitals with a telescope (!) he finds her clitoris is missing. His detective work takes him (her knee on his shoulder) to ask what gets her most excited. The nurse (Carol Connors) shakes her head in disbelief, as well she might, when Linda says “Giving head!”  Looking down her throat he makes the hysterical discovery that her clitoris is misplaced, and is actually deep in the bottom of her throat. Deep throat fellatio is the answer! “Try it on me!” he exclaims. The helpfully instructive song ‘Deep Throat’ is accompanied by Dr Young’s ecstatic head-lolling and followed by the bells and bombs, fireworks and rockets that make Linda a self-proclaimed ‘fulfilled woman’.

She begins work for Dr Young as a ‘physiotherapist’, for which he declares she already has all the equipment she needs, while he will provide the training. Linda looks fetching in her very short white uniform as she makes a succession of house calls including one where the ‘patient’ has an innovative way of drinking Coke, and another needs to dress up as a masked burglar while Linda shaves her pubes. Much skin-on-skin action ensues between the doctor and nurse as they dictate case notes into a microphone, and Linda’s bare bottom bending over the exhausted doctor with a sweetly bandaged penis is an almost successful tease.

The burglar client falls in love with Linda but she can only marry a man with a nine-inch cock. “Only four inches away from happiness!” he moans. Disaster - till she suggests he ring Dr Young for a surgical solution. The final gag is when he ecstatically tells her Dr Young can cut it down to any size she wants, showing her his full glory. Linda’s delighted face, bells, bombs, fireworks and the song ‘Deep throat’ finishes the film, with a wish “A deep throat to you all” under the End title. Norman Mailer was right, at its best it’s a giggle.

At first a symbol of the right to freedom of sexual expression and the fight against censorship, the film incurred a feminist backlash when it was realised just how much of a male fantasy it is, that there’s a woman only able to experience orgasm through fellatio. Before this, the idea of a woman’s sexual satisfaction, even the site of the clitoris, was not a subject greatly known. The sexual revolution still had a long way to go, but at the very least, this film got people talking about sex more openly and defending their right to do so.

© Avril Carruthers     20^th June 2005