Back in 1972, Bob Hope inserted this unlikely joke into an opening monologue for one of his television specials: \u201cI went to see \u2018Deep Throat\u2019 because I\u2019m fond of animal pictures. I thought it was about giraffes.\u201d <\/p>\n
For those of you who were not around in the early 1970s, it might be difficult to comprehend the pop culture sensation created by \u201cDeep Throat,\u201d a cheaply-made ($25,000) little X-rated movie. It wasn\u2019t the first pornographic film to gain mainstream attention, and Lord knows it wasn\u2019t the best of the skin flick orbit. But \u201cDeep Throat\u201d was the ultimate anomaly \u2013 a charming porn flick with a silly sense of humor, and its off-beat personality enabled the film\u2019s reputation to grow so quickly that even Bob Hope referenced it.
\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThere should be more to sex than a lot of little tingles,\u201d says Linda Lovelace when complaining about her unsatisfactory sexual experiences. A medical examination locates her problem \u2013 her clitoris is not where it is supposed to be but instead is based in her throat. While Lovelace is distraught to learn this, her doctor helpfully explains, \u201cHaving a clitoris deep down in the bottom of your throat is better than having no clitoris at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
And since this was made in the women\u2019s lib environment of 1972, the film\u2019s heroine doesn\u2019t wallow in self-pity. Instead, she accepts a job as a physiotherapist in the doctor\u2019s office \u2013 she makes house calls for male patients (wink wink) while searching for a lover who can sexually fulfill her.<\/p>\n
\u201cDeep Throat\u201d is roughly one hour in running time, and it doesn\u2019t wear out its welcome (although the six-minute title sequence of Lovelace driving endlessly is a bit much). The medical examination sequence in \u201cDeep Throat\u201d is, arguably, one of the most wonderfully subversive comedy segments ever put on film. Harry Reems\u2019 wacky doctor embodies the anarchy of old-school burlesque, whether by gingerly dipping his fingertips in a water bowl as part of his hand sterilization process or taking a telescope to his patient\u2019s vagina to search for her missing clitoris. Reems\u2019 sense of absurdity brings out the best Lovelace, who was no great shakes as an actress \u2013 and to be frank, she wasn’t particularly sexy \u2013 but who nonetheless played along gamely with the giddy foolishness of the scene.<\/p>\n
And then there’s that music score which permeates the action. One of the joys of “Deep Throat” is watching Lovelace earn her stardom with throbbing porno-funk blaring on the soundtrack.<\/p>\n
In terms of pornographic content, \u201cDeep Throat\u201d is relatively tame \u2013 but the watered-down nature of the sex scenes, coupled with director Gerard Damiano\u2019s jokey framing of the material, made the presentation more palatable to mainstream audiences in 1972 that were seeing an X-rated film for the first time. Viewed today, \u201cDeep Throat\u201d is a mild experience in terms of adult content, but it is a jolly relic from the Decade That Good Taste Forgot. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Back in 1972, Bob Hope inserted this unlikely joke into an opening monologue for one of his television specials: \u201cI went to see \u2018Deep Throat\u2019 because I\u2019m fond of animal pictures. I thought it was about giraffes.\u201d For those of you who were not around in the early 1970s, it might be difficult to comprehend […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":46067,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1369],"tags":[3581,3583,3582,3155],"class_list":["post-46066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-retro-cinema","tag-deep-throat","tag-harry-reems","tag-linda-lovelace","tag-pornography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46066"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46071,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46066\/revisions\/46071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}