Deep Throat

What is there to say about Deep Throat that hasn’t already been said? It is a genuine classic, not just in porn, but in the wider world – it holds a place alongside Debbie Does Dallas and Behind the Green Door as titles that even people who know nothing about porn can recognize, and it was the first porn movie that ever made national headlines. It came as close to legitimizing porn as anything ever has – it was such a sensation that suburbanites were lining up to see it in broad daylight, news crews were out covering its progress across the country. By some measures it has been ranked as the most successful movie ever made, and nearly 40 years after it came out, it is still a hot topic of conversation. Its name has passed into common coin in the sexual vocabulary of the English language (helped along by the Washington Post), and there are very few people who don’t know what it means (although Sasha Grey’s character in Vivid’s new version of the classic has to have it explained to her.)

In the movie, Linda Lovelace plays a woman who wanders through life feeling indifferent about sex until she discovers, via the help of a quack doctor (played by Harry Reems), that her clitoris is deep in her throat, and she can only reach a full orgasm by taking a man’s penis all the way down her gullet. It’s a pretty controversial movie – Linda Lovelace has basically claimed that she made it at gunpoint, forced into it with a combination of hypnosis and physical abuse, and feminists have criticized it as nothing more then the ultimate male fantasy – a woman who can reach orgasm only by servicing a man with no need for stimulation or reciprocation, and it was undeniably financed with mob money and distributed by a notorious crime family who probably padded the movie’s alleged box-office receipts to launder drug and prostitution money.

All that said: is Deep Throat actually a good movie? Depends on what you want out of it. These days, it’s pretty tame. Most of the action isn’t terribly explicit, but that’s par for the course in seventies movies. I liked it – I don’t need a gynecology lesson in every shot, and there’s a certain charm to the scenes, accompanied as they are by slightly (and more than slightly) cheesy music. On the other hand, it was the first porn movie that really tried – the sets and acting are better than the average movie today, and I think the people involved thought they were actually making a real movie. The effort shows, but it doesn’t always really pay off. It has a sense of humor, which is rare (it’s a cheesy sense of humor, but it’s there) and it puts a good deal of time into its plot. Some might think too much time, but you have to take it for what it is. If you want a gonzo movie that gets right to the action, there are plenty out there, but if you want a porn comedy with some great cocksucking, Deep Throat is pretty much your go-to movie.

The sex isn’t especially plentiful, even for the time, when sex scenes tended to run to a couple of minutes, but there is enough of it to satisfy the requirements of porn. There are only three women in the movie – Linda Lovelace herself, a bored nurse (played by Carol Connors), and Lovelace’s friend Helen (Dolly Sharp), a promiscuous acquaintance who does her best to help Linda find sexual fulfillment. The nurse is the hottest of the three, and Lovelace and Helen are of a type you often saw in the seventies – older than the average porn star these days, but looking pretty hard-used. Like a lot of classics, there’s a little kink in it – it was  time when anything went pretty much and although it doesn’t get into anything we’d call illegal, there’s some weird stuff padding out the cocksucking. Deep Throat’s deep-throating is especially notable in one aspect – Linda Lovelace was really taking a cock all the way down her throat without choking and gagging on it, and although none of her costars was especially huge, she was still really deep-throating, and not just getting her neck fucked by a stallion, which is what often passes for deep-throating these days.

So yes – Deep Throat is worth watching, if only as a curiosity. If you’re used to modern porn, it’s going to seem quaint, but it is definitely a movie you can enjoy if you’re willing to grant it some leeway. And you should.

What is there to say about Deep Throat that hasn’t already been said? It is a genuine classic, not just in porn, but in the wider world – it holds a place alongside Debbie Does Dallas and Behind the Green Door as titles that even people who know nothing about porn can recognize, and it was the first porn movie that ever made national headlines. It came as close to legitimizing porn as anything ever has – it was such a sensation that suburbanites were lining up to see it in broad daylight, news crews were out covering its progress across the country.... Read the Full Review!