A Deeper Look at Throat

As things go, 1972 was a landmark year. President Richard Nixon ordered the development of a project that seemed right out of the science fiction magazines, something called a Space Shuttle programme. A few blocks down the street, the Supreme Court declared capital punishment unconstitutional and no one was executed in the United States again until they changed their mind only four years later in 1976. I’m not sure what changed in that time, but apparently state sponsored murder was a-okay once more. In the Great Lakes region, Milwaukee police arrested George Carlin on obscenity charges for walking on a stage and saying “shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits.” They were Seven Words You Could Never Say on Television, and apparently not on stage in a country with a First Amendment.

Strangely enough, another 1972 event would be inextricably linked to politics and Nixon in name if not in action, though you could easily make the argument that people got screwed in both cases. See, 1972 was the year the world discovered a pornographic movie called Deep Throat.

Deep Throat is as controversial as it is stimulating. Porn movies existed before Deep Throat, but mostly in underground circles where you had to know someone who knew someone else who’s cousin had access to some footage and the equipment to show it. Keep in mind, this is before VCRs, so if you wanted to watch a movie, you needed a projector and reels of film. Certain things about human nature can be easily predicted and one of those things is that there is a faintly short amount of time between the development of a new technology and using it for pornographic purposes. So after the creation of moving pictures, it didn’t take long for someone to take a camera someplace with the expressed intention of recording some fucking.

So while Deep Throat wasn’t nouveau, it was certainly different because it was the beginning of mainstream pornography. People talked about the movie at work around the water cooler. It became a darling of the celebrity set with people like Johnny Carson and Truman Capote acknowledging that they’d seen the film. Beyond that, everything about the movie is controversial from its earnings to the performers. Linda Lovelace, the star of the film, famously decried the film in two books, which she wrote after writing two previous books where she glorified the production. Some of the people involved back her allegations of abuse and rape while others say that she was a willing participant and a woman who always had trouble taking responsibility for her actions.

Even the earnings are controversial. Some figures claim the film made $600 million dollars, but that could be fabricated. The mafia was involved in the distribution of the film and it’s likely they used proceeds from the film to launder money from other… projects. We might sneer at such activity, but keep in mind that there are certain Hollywood accountants who refused to pay Winston Groom, the author of Forrest Gump, anything more because they claim the film hasn’t made any money. Right now, there’s an accountant in Hollywood who would tell you that Star Wars lost money. Fudging the numbers is a long standing tradition in moving making.

Let’s not discuss that here because far more intelligent and better connected people than I have talked about it already. Let’s talk about the film and look at it in the context of its era and this one. A lot has changed since 1972 both in the real world and in pornographic productions. How has Throat held up? Is it as entertaining, stimulating, and controversial today as it was then?

Well actually, that answer may surprise you.

Deep Throat begins with a driving scene, literally. Linda drives an early 70s model land yacht while some professional camera work shoots in and around the car while it’s on the move. Already this is better than your standard Redtube fare involving a couch, two people, and a nearly stationary camera. The background music is your standard 70s tune for pornography, but that doesn’t automatically make it bad. At the time, some of the larger budget porn films commissioned original music. So while the song isn’t the kind of thing you’ll be whistling the next morning, it’s not horridly irritating. The most eye catching part of the intro is the fact that the credits sync to the music, appearing in time with the melody.

In other words, somewhere, someone cared enough to do that and make it work. The credits weren’t just a throw away thing you suffered through before the movie begins. They were trying to make it a part of the film.

Unlike much of modern day pornography, the movie doesn’t just open right up with sex. Indeed, the first sex scene doesn’t even roll until after four minutes into the film. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but keep in mind that three-quarters of that time was opening credits. They went out of their way to put names to occupations. Whether the names were fake doesn’t matter, they bothered to do it at all.

The first scene involves Dolly Sharp getting eaten out by some random guy that we’ll never see again during the film. He’s the grocery delivery guy and she’s paying him with her pussy. Linda walks in on them, and it’s obvious that she’s unfazed by her roommate getting head on the kitchen table. There’s a lighthearted play to this scene, definitely a nod to the sexual liberation the film is said to portray. They carry on their conversation and Dolly asks Linda for a cigarette. She takes it from Linda and pulls the man’s head away from her snatch long enough to ask him a question:

“Do you mind if I smoke… while you’re eating?”

It’s still a funny line. It’s a kind of classic line that’s been done before, but before you dismiss it as cliché, remember — every cliché has to start someplace and while this line didn’t originate with this movie, it certainly became popular in mainstream parlance because of it. There’s something about this film that you don’t find in a lot of skin flicks these days, because it’s really hard to do.

No, not the cinematography or the sex. Cinematography is easy and sex is even easier. I’m talking about comedy. Tragedy is easy, comedy takes talent and that line is the start of a comic streak that runs throughout the movie. You can tell that the makers of Deep Throat knew they were making a fuck film, and saw no reason to take it one hundred percent seriously.

Let’s not leave cinematography by the wayside so quickly, however. Because the climax of the scene, literally in this case, is a funny and intelligent bit of scene changing. Dolly is well into what she’s doing and puts on a sexy, if subdued, performance as our hero buries his face between her thighs. Just as she hits her peak and cums, she flings her nearly spent cigarette toward a sink full of water and just as it lands….

Jump cut scene change to Dolly swimming in a pool.

It works. It’s not brilliant or anything, but the fact that someone gave a damn and made the decision to do that shows that they gave a damn at all. I’d also be amiss to not mention the background music, which has lyrics and features a trippy Hendrix feel to the song. It may sound strange that I’m talking about the music so much, but the fact is that it isn’t bad, even for a porno film. Heck, pop over to Amazon and you can buy and download the soundtrack. How many sex reels can boast a sell-able soundtrack among their accomplishments? The song, Bubbles if you’d like to sample it, has a Hendrix feel to it while the sound of bubbles plays through most of the song. And by “the sound of bubbles” I mean “the sound of a bong.” One of the lyrics is “blowing bubbles from a rainbow pipe.” Look, there may be some subtlety to Dolly Sharp’s sexual performance, but there’s none in that song.

At the close of the scene we find the two ladies, Dolly and Linda, at a pool discussing Linda’s sexual troubles. She’s getting plenty o’ tool, sure, but she’s not having orgasms. She enjoys sex, but shouldn’t there be rockets bursting and dams breaking, she asks. Dolly listens very intently and offers the kind of advice you only hear in porn films and rock and roll biographies.

Well, since you can’t seem to have an orgasm let’s have an orgy.

Sounds fair to Linda and the second sex scene isn’t far behind with Linda on all fours on the couch getting drilled from behind. In the living room, Dolly’s handing out numbers to guys who’ve arrived to attempt to provide Linda’s release, but that doesn’t last long as Dolly feels she needs to warm them up. After all, any good hostess would do the same for her guests, right?

They work something in, if you’ll pardon the pun, that was a little odd for the time. We soon find out that Linda is not only getting it from behind, but getting it in her behind. Anal sex wasn’t something you saw in many adult films at the time and the fact that we seem to have  gone straight for the ass is a little brazen, even for a porno. At least, it was brazen for an early 70s porno. The surprises don’t stop there, however, as something else happens that you don’t often see in today’s mainstream pornography.

As Dolly is playing with her friends in the living room; performing brilliantly in a two male, one female threesome; she too gets on all fours to receive some anal attention from behind. That’s not the surprise, but what happens soon after is. As one of the guys mounts her ass, the other slips underneath both of them to eat her pussy. In today’s films, it’s usually only in the bisexual realm where you’ll see a guy place is mouth so close to another man’s cock, especially when that cock is getting it in her rear.

For a woman who can’t orgasm, Linda seems to have at least couple of them before the scene ends. Oh well, you can’t fault them on continuity all that much I suppose.

Or can we?

After we’re done with the at-home orgy, and Linda still hasn’t had her rockets red glare, Dolly refers her to a specialist. One Dr. Young, hilariously played by Harry Reems. If there needed to be a comic relief in this movie, that’s what he’s there for. He’s supposed to be a psychiatrist and you can tell that whoever set up the character might have read about psychiatry in a magazine and then forgot most of it as they set up the scene that was to be his office.

It’s in this scene that Linda explains her problem to our good doctor as he flings bubbles in the air from a plastic bubble wand. A nurse, Carol Connors (more about her later), retrieves the bubble bottle at the doctor’s behest and he gives Linda a physical. Of course this means getting undressed and he soon discovers the source of her problem, no clitoris.

That’s why she hasn’t had an orgasm. No clitoris.

Funny, we saw quite a bit of it in the previous sex scene. I can forgive continuity errors in a porn movie, but jeez, when it’s the overarching plot point… I mean, what the hell, man?

After a closer examination — and that’s not a metaphor for anything, they’re still not having sex — he discovers her clit is in her throat. So to stimulate it, she’ll have to not only give a man head, but go all the way down.

When I say that this is “the blow job scene” and put it in quotes like that, you have to realize that I mean this is the blow job scene. This is the scene that caused the sensation all over America and gave the movie its title. Eager to find out if the doctor is right, Linda does the totally obvious thing and sucks his cock. After all, wouldn’t you?

That’s one of the many reasons I love pornography and porn films, they have a logical consistency in that everything that happens drives towards people having sex. In an action movie, everything that happens drives towards more action. In a comedy, everything that happens drives towards more laughter. In porn, everything is about fucking. While a porn movie may have a stellar plot line, that plot line revolves around sex and this opens up a state of affairs that we laugh about in the real world.

There’s a joke, “Porn movies start off like that.” A friend might say, hey I ordered pizza and another friend says, “porn movies start off like that you know.” Everyone has a good laugh. That’s weird, if you think about it. No one ever says “Hey, I need to go the bank,” and receives “Ha! Thrilling heist caper movies start off like that!” as a response. So yes, porn movies have odd logic that leads to sex in strange circumstances, just like action films have similar logic that leads to gunfights on rooftops.

Anyway, getting back to the story. This is the blow job scene and Linda was a pro, so much so that her name became synonymous with the act for years. While Linda was a hell of a sexual performer in all rights, she will forever be remembered for one thing, her oral sex. She delivers a blow job in the same way Shakespearean actors deliver dialog. She gets her rockets, dams breaking, and bells ringing… literally. The scene is inter-cut with fireworks, dam busting, and steel men ringing bells. It’s funny, and it’s meant to be, and dammit it works.

Oh yes, this is where the film’s title musical track kicks in.

No, I’m not making that up and, yes, you read that correctly. Deep Throat has a title track that was written specifically for and geared to Linda Lovelace sucking a cock down her throat. It has lyrics, and they’re horrible. Actually the song is the worst one on the soundtrack but, because of what’s going on, and the fact that this is a classic scene of adult film history, you’ll remember the damn song. I do, and it keeps me awake some nights.

After they wrap things up, Linda wants to marry the Doctor but the Doctor won’t have it because, according to him, his nurse won’t let him. However he takes Linda on as a “physiotherapist” which is as good a reason as any to dress her in the standard “sexy nurse” outfit and send her around to have sex with patients.

It’s at this point things start to go a little sideways with the film. It’s not that the entire thing derails or the quality of the sexual performance starts to wane, but it’s like the writers hit this point in their process and then had no idea where to go. I picture someone sitting back, looking at the typewriter, re-reading the last bits of the blow job scene and thinking “Well… shit. I just solved the problem but I’ve still got to fill about 25 minutes of time.” May as well have some random fuck scenes.

And so they do. That’s not to say the scenes are bad, either. They just feel added in at the end. Yet there is one thing completely worth mentioning because, damn, I’ve never seen anything like it before or since. Remember, the doctor is a psychiatrist. So these patients he’s sending Linda out to service have some weird mental hangup. One guy, he’s obsessed with seeing if, indeed, everything goes better with Coke. Yes, Coca Cola. The doctor himself tells us this as he’s speaking to a Dictaphone and fucking his nurse, the lovely Carol Connors. (She also happens to be the mother of Thora Birch.)

Linda arrives at his place, they get undressed, and she blows him. Fine. Then he puts her on the table for some of the old in-and-out. Fine. Everything going according to tradition.

Then he takes a small, glass drinking vessel and gently inserts it into her vagina while, I presume, he takes her ass. Uhhhhhh… fine? I, um, well…. Then he pours some Coca Cola into the glass, inserts a bit of clear surgical tubing, and starts drinking it as he’s fucking her. The background suddenly switches to, I swear to god I’m not making this up, the famous Hilltop Song from the Coca Cola commercials. You know the one, the “I’d like to teach the world to sing” song.

At this point, the rational world imploded for a little bit. Then he passes her the tubing so she could enjoy the tasty beverage as well.

So there’s that, then. It’s a testament to the changing times that Coca Cola or a songwriter didn’t try to sue the distributors out of existence for pirating their song. Then again, that would’ve meant someone at the company had to admit to watching porno. Actually, this is the first of two small acts of musical advertising piracy in this film. The other shows up near the end.

Throughout the rest of the film, the doc slowly starts to go a tad crazy because he’s getting oversexed, both from Linda and Nurse Carol. However, it’s never really clear if that’s what’s going on because there are times he’s going crazy where otherwise he’s acting okay, speaking to his Dictaphone, and fucking Carol. So who knows? I’m sure someone looked at this and figured, look, do the people want more, plot or pussy?

Then they answered their own question and moved on.

Frankly, I’d love to have seen more of Carol Connors because she’s stunning and has this quiet sexuality about her. She plays well with Reems as the doctor and adds a little more comedy to the movie.

Wrapping up the movie is a scene with Linda doing something quite risqué for the times – shaving her pussy. Keep in mind that this is the early 70s. If a woman has massive breasts, you can safely assume that they’re real. There wasn’t the big push towards Barbie doll style body images that you see far too much of in modern porn. So throughout this entire film, Linda Lovelace is the only woman with a shaved pussy. Every other woman is completely au natural. Here’s where our second bit of advertising piracy occurs because, as she’s lathering up and shaving off, you can clearly hear the Old Spice whistling jingle tune worked into the background music.

This scene sets up the final bit where the doctor explain to his recorder that she’s meeting with Wilbur, a man who likes to pretend to be a rapist/burglar. Linda flubs her part of the role, but they manage to come to an agreement that they could still have some fun together. Wilbur confesses his love for Linda and asks her to marry him. Sadly, she turns him down. Because of her own condition, she explains, the only a man with a nine inch cock could make her happy.

He sadly lopes off toward the bed bemoaning that he’s only four inches away from happiness. Linda suggests he calls the Doctor and see if there’s anything he could do. After a brief conversation, Wilbur is delighted to find out that yes, the doctor can fix his problem and cut him down to nine inches. He pulls down his pants and we find out he’s better endowed than some large forest mammals.

I suppose we’re to assume he’s got a 13 inch dick, but I’m of the belief that’s wishful thinking. Either way, the movie ends with a bang, or at least with oral sex, and everyone comes away satisfied.

After 40 years, the movie holds up surprisingly well. It’s still sexy, still hot, and would still get you and your partner going if you popped it in before sexy times. The controversy surrounding the movie and the use of its title to bring down a President gave it more fame than it was probably due, but then again, it’s controversy makes the mundane into a the classical.

In the end, Throat keeps up its end of the deal. It’s hot, steamy, and just a little funny. It’s the kind of light-hearted fuck flick that’s perfect for couples and the humour makes it so that you too can have a playful sexual experience during or after the movie.