LSC Event Descriptions

April 28 & 30, 2006

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Rated NC-17
92 minutes

Inside Deep Throat (2005)
April 28, 2006 at 7:00 and 10:00pm in 26-100 and
April 30, 2006 at 7:00pm in 26-100.

After focusing on the decadent club scene of the 1980s with their film Party Monster, filmmakers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato travel further back in time for this documentary on the cultural impact of the '72 movie Deep Throat. When director Gerard Damiano unleashed the film -- a witty, yet explicit X-Rated movie starring Linda Lovelace as a fellatio-crazed woman with a clitoris located in her throat -- audiences flocked to it in droves. The film was a cut above standard adult fare, and attracted an unusually high percentage of female viewers who reveled in seeing a female character attain sexual satisfaction in the male-dominated world of adult films. With the public's interest piqued, controversy followed, and a court case against the movie prompted the government to try to ban the film outright. This only drew more people to it, and its combined box office is estimated at $600 million -- an incredible return on the original $25,000 investment. Or was it? Damiano never made a cent from the film, while Lovelace and co-star Harry Reems made $1450 between them. Lovelace complained bitterly about her treatment on the set in her memoir -- the appropriately titled Ordeal -- and Reems had to go through his own obscenity trial, during which he succumbed to the temptations of alcohol and narcotics. Damiano and Reems return to talk about their experiences here (Lovelace passed away in 2002), while the indelible impression the film left on a shocked early-'70s society is fleshed out by comments from Hugh Hefner, Germaine Greer, Camille Paglia, and many others. A truly arresting film, Inside Deep Throat offers a fascinating lesson about how little the world has changed in regard to pornography and censorship in the 33 years that have passed between Damiano's movie and this documentary. [rottentomatoes.com]

"It's a treasure trove of kicky archival footage-- and a pointed look back at the opening salvo in a culture war that still rages today."
      -- Sean Burns, Philadelphia Weekly. Read this review.

April 28 & 30, 2006 ← Previous | Spring 2006 schedule | Next →