Infamous porn movie starring Linda Lovelace, who claims to her friend that she doesn't enjoy sex very much, that it doesn't set bells a-ringing or bombs exploding; just a slight tingly feeling. So her friend encourages her to experiment...with fourteen different guys...in one session! They arrive at the house and are allocated a number, being called up in pairs.
But that still doesn't quite do it for Linda Lovelace, so she goes to see Dr Young (Harry Reems), the horny sexual therapist. He gives her a physical examination and finds that she has no clitoris, which would explain why she fails to reach orgasm. He asks her how she enjoys sex the most. She replies, "Giving head." Dr Young is intrigued and examines her throat as a normal doctor would when he puts a lollipop stick on your tongue and asks you to open wide and say "Ahh." Freakishly, he spots her clitoris way down at the back of her throat.
Kindly, he offers to let Ms Lovelace give him a blow job to practise the "deep throat" technique, when the penis is taken deep inside the mouth, relaxing the throat muscles, as far as it will go. She obliges and shows off her remarkable new skill. Sure enough, bells ring, rockets blast off and fireworks explode.
Ms Lovelace becomes Dr Young's assistant, giving many other physical therapies to his patients. Meanwhile, Dr Young bangs his other nurse while dictating case notes.
Eventually, Linda Lovelace finds the perfect man for her - or at least he would be perfect if he weren't "4 inches away from happiness" (the man she wants to marry must have a 9-inch cock). Will Dr Young be able to save the day again?
I saw this movie at 11.30pm on a Friday night in an almost deserted cinema. The ambience was spot-on: they even had sleazy jazz playing before the film started. I wanted to see it before the documentary Inside Deep Throat, so that I could form my own opinions on the original film first.
Written, directed and edited by Gerry Damiano, it's from the old days of porn, shot on film (before the video era). Many of the takes (especially at the beginning) are very long, while the credits roll. The soundtrack is funky and highly comical. It's more of a comedy than an erotic movie. One of the best lines comes right at the beginning. Linda's friend is enjoying cunnilingus on the kitchen table when Linda comes home. The friend hands her a cereal packet from the shopping she's just done to put away in the cupboard. Then she asks her lover, "Do you mind if I spoke while you're eating?"
Some of the verbal soundtrack is awful, especially in the outdoor scene beside the pool (it's barely audible). I did actually find myself caring about the plot. When the sex is so explicit (and, oh boy! it is), it's not always that arousing. My tastes find it more erotic when I have to use my imagination at least a little bit.
I'm sure if you wanted to, you could find some deeper meaning in this film. A funk version of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" (from Symphony No. 9 in D minor) plays over the opening credits when Lovelace is in the car - perhaps glorifying the liberties of the American Constitution and the First Amendment right to free speech; or the freedom of the mass-produced motor car. '72 was, of course, the year of Watergate; and there is indeed a connection between Linda Lovelace's Deep Throat and the "Deep Throat" (W. Mark Felt) who leaked the Watergate scandal to Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, according to page 4 of this Washington Post article. It will be interesting to see how this connection is explored in the documentary, which I'm going to see tomorrow night.
I gather from the trailer of Inside Deep Throat that the film caused outrage when it broke into the mainstream as a major commercial success (adjudged the most profitable motion picture of all time: made for $25,000, making $600 million), causing a conservative backlash. The cynical xenophobe within me wonders whether this might be less about the sex and more about the outrageous scene in which one of Dr Young's patients fulfils a fetish by drinking Coke (Coca-Cola, not a solution of cocaine...or aren't they one and the same?) out of Ms Lovelace's pussy using a test tube and a long, curving straw (a homage, also, to the bong?), accompanied by a new version of "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing", which was itself pastiched in an ancient Coke advert, "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke", rated by Channel 4 last week as the top TV ad tune later to hit the charts.
There also seem to be more symbolic shots at the end, when Lovelace fucks her hubby-to-be and the bells ring out like never before - cue more clockwork brass animals and images of reminiscent of the star-spangled banner and Independence Day. One thing you might notice, which may or may not be deliberate, is a hair on the frame during the opening credit roll, on one of the shots looking through the car windscreen. I couldn't help wondering if this was pubic.
This movie doesn't take itself too seriously; nor should you (or society) it. As a porn film I'm not sure if it works (not that I've seen much to compare it with); but as entertainment it surely does. I giggled like a schoolboy in parts; wideeyedinamazement in others; and found myself waiting for the action to stop and the plot to progress (quite the opposite to the boring musical inbetweens in 9 Songs). At least the bangin' and grindin' scenes in Deep Throat have some kiddyshow musical accompaniment. It's almost like Benny Hill.
There is some attempt at artistic mis-en-scene with a nice geometrical balance of a man's chin and neck between Lovelace's legs while another shoots to pooper. (I wonder, do modern porn DVDs take advantage of the multi-angle function?) And there's some rather jolly jump-cutting when Linda's bells ring.
So again, this is not one to watch with your folks, but worth a look if you want an hour or so of good, not-so-clean fun and a bit of an anatomy lesson (although I wouldn't go looking for your girlfriend's clitoris in her throat, unless you're called Huey and she's called Ruth).
Nugget: I wonder, could these guys have made a non-X-rated comedy movie? The acting may be filched, but they certainly play it for laughs.
Just a quick hello...:)
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