We are living in a glorious time,
a time of great conflict to be sure.
Today, a nationwide crackdown was underway...
... eight men were arrested from...
... hardcore pornographic pictures.
On one side of the coin are those in favor
of absolutely no censorship.
On the other hand, there are those who advocate
the government dictating to us what we should see,
read, and hear.
... they say it all started with the sex film Deep Throat.
I saw Deep Throat in New York
when it first came out.
People were lined up
for at least three blocks.
Oh, yeah, there was a screening in some psychoanalyst's apartment
and everybody watched and smoked dope. Oh, yeah.
I thought, "Fantastic. "
"This is going to change the climate
of talking about issues of sexuality
in these United States. "
I'm one of the handful of people who never saw it.
I didn't intend to not see it.
Perhaps you could arrange for me to see it.
Now.
Deep Throat was an epochal moment
in the history of modern sexuality.
It is the first time that respectable middle-class women
went to porn theaters.
It really broke down,
uh, traditional codes of... of decorum.
Linda Lovelace,
and conversations, and jokes about Deep Throat,
appeared on network television.
If the film became mainstream,
conversation about it became truly mainstream.
It's kind of a strange country, isn't it?
Judges can see Deep Throat, but they can't listen to those tapes.
I think the major thing that set, uh,
Deep Throat apart was,
it had a gimmick.
Ah! Ah... ah!
Well, there it is, you little bugger, there it is.
What?
Your clitoris, it's deep down in the bottom of your throat.
The clitoris hidden in the throat
was something you could talk about and laugh about.
It's better than having no clitoris at all.
That's easy for you to say.
Suppose your balls were in your ear.
I was 19 when I saw it.
I don't think I had found where the clitoris really was.
So I think the idea
that it was misplaced
on the human body was lost on me.
I... I was looking for the original site.
It was a giggle.
And the worst thing to be said about us, as Americans,
is that we'll sell our souls for a giggle.
Listen, uh, we have the problem solved.
All we have to do now is find the solution.
Like what?
Like deep throat.
Deep what?
Throat.
Have you ever taken a penis all the way down
to the bottom of your throat?
It was a badge of the new freedom.
Have you been to the experience
of paying to go in a porno theater
And see a woman give a blowjob
in a movie theater in your community?
That was very, very new.
Something that's hard for people today to imagine,
how liberating that was.
Or... or terrible, depending on what you believe in.
It's a floodtide of filth that's engulfed
the minds and hearts and souls
of America like nothing else ever has.
We have smut all over the face of this country now
because we are letting those immoral people
have their way in our country.
Deep Throat succeeded commercially at least in part
because the government went after it.
The government became the driving force
behind the public relations.
I just saw it and I liked it.
I liked it. I wanted to see a dirty picture and that's what I saw.
But I want the right to see that picture.
I don't want somebody telling me that I can't see a dirty picture.
Deep Throat attacks the very core of our being.
Every time someone watches that movie,
they're watching me being raped.
Do I belong in jail for five years for acting in Deep Throat?
Deep Throat now has had a phenomenal success
going on for two-and-a-half years,
and it's only because it's being hassled.
Do you think it's a good movie?
No, I don't think it's a good movie.
I'm takin' a walk, Mrs. Brown.
I am doing fine, dear, thank you.
These are some pictures
or posters from some of the films I've done.
Aren't they kind of cute?
A picture of Gerard, my son, when he was a lot younger,
and my daughter when she was younger.
Long before Deep Throat, Damiano was a family man.
He and his wife ran a beauty salon in Queens, New York.
I enjoyed being a hairdresser
because I always could relate to women.
After you got to know the woman,
especially when you worked on them weekly,
you start to get into history
about "we went to the movies" and "he did this and I did... "
And realize that most...
most of the women were very unhappy
in their relationship
with the person that they were married to
and supposedly in love with.
After 40 years of marriage, you know, you can get
tired of the good old in and out.
You... you got to be intimate. It was almost like a priest.
I mean, I... I don't wanna say I was a priest,
but it was almost like... it was almost like a confessor.
The confessions Damiano heard in his salon,
made him realize he was on the frontlines of a sexual revolution.
We grew up in a time
in which sex itself was largely taboo.
When I was a kid, young people didn't even know where babies came from.
I'd love to know.
If I watch the rest of this program, will I know the answer?
Gore Vidal would be very good on the subject.
You must take into account how ignorant people are.
Particularly our countrymen,
who have never taken a course in biology,
never read a book.
Do you know anything about the facts of life?
Not very much, I'm afraid.
The facts of life and sexual morality in general
were forbidden topics.
But as all that changed, issues about sexuality
began to divide society.
Artificial contraception is wrong.
Evil.
People were experimenting.
They were looking for new kinds of lives.
They were looking to break out of all the old molds.
And we knew the American public were tired
of words like "coitus. "
They wanted words, like "fuck,"
and "suck," and "eat my cunt. "
I think the more that filth is thrown at Americans
the less favored it becomes.
They're depicting sex in a very filthy way.
Jackie Kennedy went to see that.
The next week, the gross doubled.
I... I don't mind seeing sex in a... in a movie just for its own sake
because I think that's one of the, you know,
more interesting human emotions.
Sex was in movies. Sex was on TV.
Sex came out of the closet.
You had to be there. You had to be there.
I'm thrilled that I was there.
And thank God I had a camera with me.
As the sexual revolution swept through society,
people took sides in a culture war that was gathering steam.
Gerry Damiano joined the fray by swapping
his blow dryer for a movie camera.
I loved film. I... I always did.
The only thing you could make was sex films.
Uh, that was the only thing you were allowed to make
and you made them at a low budget.
Doing hardcore films in those days, the early '70s,
was very much like summer stock.
It was like,
"Daddy has a barn, let's do a show. "
Oh, my!
Oh!
Lt... it was the only choice we had.
Till 24 years old without,
you know, uh, uh,
what do you call it, uh, a track record, you know.
And these things were so inexpensive.
Okay, what I want now is some of your ass,
all right?
I meant business.
I approached those films as if
I was Luc Godard or somebody, you know.
And just wiggle it towards us.
I want to fill up 40 feet of screen with your ass.
You're always after my ass.
Keep wigglin'.
That's where I met half of the people
that I became acquainted with.
We were all working for nothing.
Well, one of Gerry's motivations
was to get laid.
Really. And he did.
You could make a living
if you were a filmmaker, making these films.
Quite a number of people became legitimate Hollywood directors
out of the porn industry.
I mean, for a while there, it was kinda like the entry level job
that you would do.
Uh, you would work on... on porn.
I'm... I... I certainly worked on them.
I'm not gonna say which ones, but I... I was around it.
All of sudden, there was a new word.
It was called "filmmaker. "
You became an independent filmmaker.
We were actually doing it
And we couldn't believe it.
We couldn't believe it, and thank God there was,
there was such a thing as sex.
There was sex, but at the time,
the only way to put hardcore sex on the screen legally,
was in sex education films.
My name is Dr. Morris Rosengarden.
They would show sexual scenes,
but they couldn't be accused of pornography
because it had an educational value.
Some men find their wives' buttocks
very stimulating visually.
We needed a father figure for almost everything.
This may be uncomfortable
for the obese or older couples.
Why did you need a doctor to tell you it was okay?
And I said,
"Hey, instead of discussing not doing it,
let's do it and don't even discuss it. "
There's nothing to be ashamed of.
But there was plenty to be afraid of.
In addition to running the risk of arrest and incarceration,
the criminal underworld virtually controlled
the production of pornography.
There was something exciting about it.
It... it lived in some, uh, mid-world
between crime and art
and it was adventurous.
Young people today would be in it for the money
whereas in the old days, it was for the rebellion.
Frankly, everybody in one way or another
was connected to that business
because psychologically, socially, it was happening.
You know, it was part of a social movement
at the time.
Anybody who took chances
in breaking the social mores of the time,
was considered a hero.
I believed in it.
I believed that it was about time to say
that sex is a beautiful thing,
the human body is a beautiful thing,
and you really shouldn't be ashamed of it.
Securing financial backing from partners
with underworld connections,
Damiano raised enough money to shoot a hardcore sex feature.
It was going to be called The Doctor Makes a House Call.
Then Damiano met his muse,
Linda Lovelace, and everything changed.
To me, I always looked at her as the girl next door.
Before she became world-famous as Linda Lovelace,
Linda Boreman dreamt of opening a clothing boutique
until she met Chuck Traynor.
I guess he was an escape for her.
She was not comfortable living in her parents' home.
And he took her away from that.
But things started getting strange.
Linda told me that she had quit smoking,
and I said, "Well, how did you do it, how did you quit?"
She said that Chuck had hypnotized her.
She said every time she tried to have a cigarette,
that she would hiccup.
I'm like, "Oh, well, okay. "
Within a year, they were married.
I curse the day that she ever met
Chuck Traynor.
Unfortunately, he died before I could kill him,
so lucky for him.
Then I lost contact and her mother told me that
uh, they're living in New York and he's doing
documentary films,
and I thought, "How nice, how exciting. "
Chuck had come to my office
and I needed a scene for another film.
He says, "Well, Linda can do something. "
You know, she... There was no name for it.
He says, "She gives head very well. "
I said, "Well, that's wonderful. "
So we set up with her and an actor
to do a... a bit for another film.
And when I saw what she could do,
I says, "Stop the cameras. "
All I could think about was what she was doing
was so unique
that I could build a whole film around it.
Making a motion picture specifically about that sexual act,
I... I found very daring and very courageous.
The first thing that came to my mind was... was the title
of Deep, Deep Throat.
Because something happened deep down in... in her throat.
What? The clitoris is in her throat?
Gerry, you can't do this.
You can't do this. It's absurd, it's silly.
Nobody will believe it.
I thought it was,
You know,
absurd. I did.
Believe it or not, some people said, "What is this, a medical film?
What are you gonna do? With doctors?"
I said, "No. No. "
Somebody said it should be The Sword Swallower.
I said, "No, no. Deep Throat, believe me, it'll work. It'll work. "
And, uh,
I'm glad I didn't change it to The Sword Swallower.
I, kind of, had the whole thing
in... in my head driving over the 59th Street Bridge.
That weekend, I wrote the script
and we... we were ready to do it.
And I spoke to my production manager,
Ronnie Wertheim.
The phone rang. It was Gerry. All excited.
And I told him to bring all our cast and crew
down to Florida. We're going to make the film.
I just called, uh, Harry Reems.
He came as a production assistant.
He wasn't even supposed to be in the film.
When we got to Florida, we all checked into
this, uh, motel, I think it was called The Voyager.
As we pulled in, we saw Linda Lovelace
lying on the lawn with her...
You know what her pussycat's name was?
Adolf Hitler. He had a mustache like that.
We came from New York
with the promise of having locations.
To me, it was nothing.
I thought nothing of it. I thought it was just a... a piece of shit film.
Probably one of the worst porno movies ever made.
He's nuts. Lenny Camp was nuts.
He was one of the guys that were lining up everything for us.
And, uh, we got nothing.
If it wasn't for us,
this guy would look like a piece of shit,
which he really is.
The only thing that saved us, I said, "Wait a minute,
"we're at The Voyager Motel, let's go back and shoot
what we were supposed to do here in the pool. "
From that moment on, everybody was location hunting.
One of the locations that we shot at down in Florida,
was at this, uh, home in Coconut Grove
that was owned by a guy who called himself a count.
He's not a count. He's a horseshit count.
He is no count, he's fucking Sepy Dobronyi.
And God knows if that's his real name.
When we came, they had this elaborate,
elaborate, elaborate wine cellar.
Should we go to the wine cellar?
Yes.
If it was planned, it would not have been as exciting,
'cause we were just rushing from one place to another.
You all right?
Yeah, I'm fine, what makes you say that?
You, the way you're acting.
In the very beginning, there were no
porno actors and actresses.
So everybody had to be taught.
The actors are all shit.
Not... not taught in the sense of taught.
Taught how to be natural.
Sex,
it makes me feel sort of tingly all over.
And then...
And then what?
Nothing.
I mean, there should be more to sex than a lot of little tingles.
There should be bells ringing,
dams bursting, bombs going off, something.
Do you want to get off or do you want to wreck a city?
Helen, please, be serious.
Gerry knew nothing about it.
He knew nothing about acting, he knew nothing about, um...
He knew nothing. He knew nothing.
But as a swinger himself,
he had a feel for how to get people
in a sexual mood.
The really important thing was Harry Reems.
I couldn't find anybody in Florida
that could even come close to doing the role.
So at one point, I fired him off the crew,
And hired him as the lead, and thank God he was there,
because I... I don't know of anybody
that could have even come close to doing
the job that he did,
as... as the wacky doctor.
I want to hear bells.
Bells?
Bombs. Bombs?
And dams bursting.
The rockets' red glare.
No, he's not an actor, he knows that.
Bombs bursting in air.
He... he would get an erection
at the sound of the camera motor.
That explains a lot.
You know, I... I, uh, I never had a problem
um, getting an erection.
Linda had the hots for Harry Reems.
And the morning we were gonna do
the deep throat scene,
she came to me and she was very upset,
and she says,
"Chuck is... is... is so jealous of Harry Reems
that I don't think I can do a good job. "
Chuck was a member of our crew.
Production manager sent him to...
Uh, we said we're running out of film.
So he went to Miami to buy film
when we shot the scene,
Linda was completely relaxed, and she did a marvelous job.
Uh, when I saw her do that, yes, it is kind of amazing.
Kind of amazing. It really is.
Surprised? I was flabbergasted.
I had no idea.
This was the moment that heterosexual film
became interested in blowjobs.
I mean, it's not that fellatio didn't exist.
Certainly, you see fellatio in stag films.
Um, but you don't get this fellatio
as figured as
the be-all and end-all,
as the absolute pleasure.
The thing that you have to remember
about fellatio is,
historically, it had been considered illegal
and referred to as the abominable,
detestable crimes against nature.
Deep throat was not a term
that my girlfriends and I really knew anything about.
Most of us had never even heard of oral sex or how to perform it.
And people who wouldn't have dreamed
of going near that sort of matter
in the '40s and '50s, and certainly in the '30s,
because that was dirty, that was low sex, that was dreadful,
began to see it as an enrichment.
And I'll just mention that ejaculate,
I've always known, was good for the complexion.
It's full of babies, its... it's full of protein,
it's full of, uh, plasma.
And to rub it all over your face and neck and chest,
a lot of women know that that's a good thing to do,
not for him but for you.
Gerry returned to New York to edit his film.
But there was still one thing he needed.
A mind-blowing cinematic female orgasm:
Proof of the success of Linda's quest
for sexual satisfaction.
People didn't understand that women,
uh, could have as much...
feel as much pleasure as men did.
Somehow, nobody ever acknowledged
there was such a thing as an orgasm for a woman.
That was all male stuff.
It is harder to show female pleasure.
It's harder to show female pleasure,
and to believe that it's actually happening.
That's why I wanted to show it.
I went to the film archives
in... in Washington
and got footage of a rocket
and then did subliminal cutting with... with the rocket
and... and Linda, back and forth.
This is a male fantasy that says:
"I like to have my cock sucked.
I really get off on it, therefore she must, too. "
I think that was a hell of a shot.
Look, men want to believe
that the clitoris is in a woman's throat.
Because if they believe that the clitoris is in a woman's throat,
then they can believe that by thrusting
their penis into a woman's mouth,
she gets as much pleasure as they do.
Guess what? It's not true.
Uh, you know, I... I guess, uh,
Deep Throat opened up a... a, uh, a can of worms.
When hardcore pornography is permitted
to corrupt the minds of children,
then the time has come for new moral leadership
to make itself felt in America.
Before Deep Throat was even shot,
politics and pornography were on a collision course.
In 1968, the government launched a scientific commission
to determine if pornography really was harmful.
Well, today, the final results were published.
The presidential commission recommended doing away
with most of the laws that cover pornography,
because they don't seem to be doing much good,
and because pornography doesn't seem to do much harm to the adult mind.
For one brief shining moment, it did look like
society was going to become
a little more adult about their sexuality.
But committee member Charles Keating,
appointed by President Nixon,
fought to dismiss the findings.
Obscenity does indeed effect.
The effect it has is detrimental to society.
Charles Keating was a notorious censorship bug.
Later on, of course, we discovered he was a good deal more.
He was a swindler and went to prison.
The president said today, "So long as I am in the White House,
"there will be no relaxation of the national effort
to control and eliminate smut. "
Then Nixon persuaded the Senate
to reject the report, suppressing its findings.
Everybody forgot about
the President's commission on pornography,
because they... they didn't come out
with the answer they were looking for.
Instead, Nixon got reelected,
after being declared politically dead,
and the forces of repression came in,
in a huge, huge way.
He knew all the buttons to press.
Sodomy...
I mean, everybody starts to vibrate like a gong.
We lie about human sexuality, because we're taught to lie about everything.
When you have a nation that totally lies,
then you have no reality.
The message was clear:
Cleaning up porn was good politics.
And what better place to start than Times Square,
the nation's capital of sleaze
and the site of Deep Throat's premiere
in June 1972.
A good many of the so-called perverts
are attracted to 42nd Street
and we've had complaints.
Suddenly, I see a movie that knocks my socks off.
And here's the wonderful thing:
This film, Deep Throat, is funny.
And Linda's a wonderful, wonderful cocksucker.
God, I wish my wives could suck dick like that.
And I give it 100 points on the Peter-Meter.
"Peter" means how many hard-ons do I get.
Now it would take 5,000 Viagra
to get me hard,
but then I'm virile and young and I get many hard-ons.
New Yorkers greet it with the same enthusiasm as I did.
It was a joy.
As we say in Israel, it was a mitzvah.
I have the privilege of announcing
the formation of the Times Square Development Council.
Deep Throat was the perfect target
for New York's campaign to clean up porn
and the police moved in.
I first became aware of Deep Throat
when it was, uh, it was advertised in the papers.
It was the talk of the office, you know, "Look at this. "
Being in the industry, so to speak,
we all ran out to see it.
It was stunning.
The cinematography, for a porno movie, was very good.
The movie was funny.
It had the kind of lines in it, uh, that were amusing.
Mind if I smoke while you're eating?
No, not at all.
It was definitely a change of pace,
definitely a change of pace.
We knew that this was, uh, this was something different.
I think they picked on Deep Throat
because it was the highest profile.
If they could, uh, successfully prosecute Deep Throat,
uh, then they felt that
the other prosecutions would be easier.
Not once, not twice, but three times
the police raided Deep Throat,
staging their final raid for the cameras.
This was political.
If nobody records the arrest,
then nobody will know
that they are doing their job in fighting sin.
Do you... you consider what you're running pornographic, sir?
If it was pornographic,
they could prosecute in a diligent, proper manner.
They wouldn't have to come around in hoards of 50
and take signs out of windows
and act like the Gestapo of old.
This theater that had not done $5,000 a week in 20 years,
was running virtually 20 hours a day.
It never stopped running.
The owners really couldn't afford to shut it down.
They didn't want to shut it down.
And so, uh, there... there was going to be a trial.
Deep Throat's defense produced expert witnesses
to argue that the film was more enlightening than merely obscene.
But the prosecution countered
that this sexual satisfaction was dangerous to women
because Deep Throat emphasized the wrong kind of orgasm:
The clitoral orgasm.
I remember that the judge hadn't heard the term.
And, uh, so he expressed surprise
and asked the question, "What's that?"
Here, just outside and above the vaginal opening
Is the clitoris.
The clitoris.
He should have been sitting in my classes
because he would have heard me say loud and clear
that let's get away from that idea,
which still some people have,
that, uh, a vaginal orgasm
is, um, more satisfying for a woman
than a clitoral orgasm. No such thing.
At that time, a real orgasm could only happen
if you were with a man
and his penis was inside of you
and that was total, utter nonsense, of course.
Sex is not only for penises.
Uh, sex is something for women.
The clitoris.
This tiny organ,
about the size and shape of a garden pea,
is the seat of sexuality in women.
I think the judge learned a lot during the trial
as I... Look, I... I certainly did myself.
As the judge retired to consider his verdict,
ticket sales almost doubled,
prompting a young reporter from the New York Times to write an article
that would give the film mainstream legitimacy.
I remember writing the article.
Uh, the... the headline was "Porno chic. "
I wrote it on a typewriter.
People look at the Times as a validator.
And they see, if... if the Times can write about Deep Throat,
well, then it must be safe in some way.
The week the article hit the stands,
the film's box office soared
as people rushed to see the film in record numbers.
Approximately how many people have seen Deep Throat?
Approximately 1,700 people a day have been in to see the film.
Are you looking forward to this movie?
Yes, I am.
People from Central Park West and Fifth Avenue and Park Avenue
wanted to go down and see it and go slumming.
There was a private showing. Before I knew what happened,
there was, like, group sex happening, left, right, and center.
Since this is supposed to be it of its genre,
and since it's had this piece in the New York Times,
I might as well see it if it's going.
What are you expecting to see?
Well, uh,
you might close me down if I said what I was going to say.
It took porn out of the realm of the forbidden.
Why, there's nothing wrong with a normal man
going to a pornographic movie.
Normal, all right, but why were you there?
You would see movie stars there.
You would see society people there.
I went to see Deep Throat because I'm fond of animal pictures.
I thought it was about giraffes.
90 percent of the people there are asthmatics.
What do you mean, asthmatics?
'Cause all I could hear was...
People weren't jerking off
when, you know, I don't know who's sitting next to Angela Lansbury.
Oh, I'm just picking her out, but... but basically,
because she'd just put a damper on things.
What did you say the name of that movie was?
Uh, Deep Threat.
You'd better hurry up before you miss the opening
'cause you don't wanna miss the opening.
In the opening, Linda...
Deep Throat was so successful
that it turned Linda Lovelace from an unknown
into a celebrity and poster-child for the new porn chic.
I made $1,200 for Deep Throat.
And that's all?
Yeah.
What about...
I'm, you know, now I'm known, so it's okay.
It was about 11:00 at night
and we were watching television.
And we saw this theater and it said,
you know, Linda Lovelace, Deep Throat or whatever it was.
And, uh, I said, "Oh, disgusting.
Absolutely disgusting. "
A girlfriend of mine called and said,
"Pick up Playboy Magazine.
If that's not Linda, I'll eat the magazine. "
So I stopped, I picked it up,
'cause it wasn't allowed in my house.
And I opened it up and I read it
and I said, "Oh, my God. "
And I knew then, it was... it was our Linda.
That was difficult for me, to see the movie.
When we got home, I threw myself across the bed and started bawling.
I was crying like, I'd, um,
like I just found out someone I loved had died.
And, uh,
and it wasn't, um...
It wasn't just, uh, you know,
a sleazy little film on a... on a small screen
with a bunch of guys in trench coats there.
I mean, there were, society was there.
I didn't know how Linda was going to be able to deal with that.
The next time I spoke to her, she said, "I'm sorry,
"I didn't want you to know,
'cause I knew you'd be upset or you'd be angry. "
I said, "I'm not angry 'cause I don't know who Linda Lovelace is.
I only know who you are. "
The pornographic film Deep Throat
has become one of the most popular
and profitable blue movies of all time.
Today, a Manhattan criminal court judge ruled the film obscene,
and ordered it removed from theaters in New York City.
A Sodom and Gomorrah gone wild before the fire.
He believed he was writing for posterity.
Now you and I know, in retrospect,
that he accomplished absolutely nothing.
I readily perform the operation
by finding the defendant guilty as charged.
I still think what the World Theatre did on its marquee
was better than what he wrote in his opinion.
"Throat cut, world mourns. "
It's a picture that'll never die.
I mean, we'll all die, but Deep Throat won't die.
Shutting Deep Throat down in New York
only spurred audiences' interest across the country.
Wherever it opened, authorities scrambled to shut it down.
This trash that's being shown on our movie screens
across the country.
There isn't any question in my mind that it's obscene.
By the mid '70s, Deep Throat had been tried
in more than 32 cities...
... and was ultimately banned in 23 states.
Violation of the law. It's a simple thing.
It's obscene as hell to me.
Hmm.
Ordered to stop the spread of Deep Throat,
the FBI stepped in.
They began with the arrest of Gerry Damiano.
The first question the prosecutor asked me:
Did I know what...
what affiliation m- my partners had?
And I said as far as I know, he's a Roman Catholic.
All of a sudden, I'm... I'm part of the mob.
No. I was... I was never a mob.
There were originally three partners
who made the movie.
His two partners came to him, Damiano told me,
and told him they were buying him out.
And I said to him that didn't sound like a very good, uh, deal,
uh, when you're a one-third partner of a project
that is just, you know, bringing in bucket-loads of money
and you're suddenly cut out of the deal.
Uh, why didn't he object?
And he rolled his eyes and he wouldn't say anymore.
And the... the only thing he told me was he didn't want his legs broken.
No, it was easier for me to... to say:
"I... I don't, I don't want to have anything to do with it. "
It was easier. It was a lot easier.
It was, kind of a... it was, kind of a...
a thing I could not have won.
That's about as far as I could go with it.
Damiano wasn't alone.
Across the country, theater owners discovered
exhibiting Deep Throat also meant
running with the mob.
One day, I pick up the New York Times,
and in it, it says it is very chic
to see Deep Throat.
So that gave me an idea
to see if I can get the picture for Florida.
Luckily, I knew one of the men
that was connected with the picture.
And I didn't think it could run in Florida.
And so, I was given the picture for a very reasonable amount.
I never would have dreamt of opening that picture anywheres
if it wasn't for that article.
If we don't get sued, it will be a miracle.
Terry, please, Terry. It's almost over.
I think it's enough. Cut. Finished.
It's almost over. It's enough.
It's almost over.
I... I think it's enough already.
You don't realize how people pick up on things.
What are they picking up on, Terry?
They're picking up on things in Miami Beach.
You... you just said they do bad things.
They could call you up on this.
Come on, Artie, don't be stupid.
You're a grown man.
Cut.
Terry.
My name is Bill Kelly.
The reason there were so many more
obscenity cases
after 1972
was because I went out and looked for 'em.
I knew it was a gamble
because of New York having problems with the city,
that it was on trial.
I opened the picture and the next thing I knew
we had lines around the corner.
There must have been,
I'm guessing 100 or 150 people in line when they opened.
Every fucking FBI agent in the country was sitting in the audience.
Kelly was there and everything else.
You walked into the theater.
There's just a, sort of a bent-nosed,
middle-aged guy with a very rough voice.
He says, "$5."
So I gave him $5 and said: "Where is the ticket?"
He said, "No tickets, just go on in. "
The movie started
and about 50 of them got up and said:
"It's a sex picture, get me out! Get me out!
It's a sex picture, I can't stand it. "
Not only was it a violation
of the obscenity law of the United States,
it was also a highly organized crime enterprise.
I didn't know
who the Peraino gang was at that time.
But I soon found out when I started investigating
that they were heavyweights out of New York.
They were part of the Colombo family operation
who had moved to Fort Lauderdale area.
I haven't seen them since I... I left.
And I want to make sure I... I don't get a phone call
or get a knock on the door that they want to talk to me.
Because I've been away from them for 30 years.
And I... I... I'd like it to be that way.
This is... this is shit as far as I'm concerned.
Excuse my language but I can't stand it.
He can tell you things, your hair would stand up on your heads.
I didn't mention any of those things, Terry.
What? I didn't mention any of them.
I don't... I don't want you to.
I didn't.
We haven't heard in 32 years.
Thank God.
So, how do you know?
I don't know if they're living.
They could be dead, Terry.
In its second year of release,
Deep Throat was still number 11 on the charts.
It's a dirty movie.
Look, try to look at it as a satire of contemporary sexual mores
with lots of redeeming social values.
Porn chic was all the rage.
Films like Damiano's The Devil in Miss Jones
and Behind the Green Door
followed on the heels of Deep Throat's unprecedented success,
giving Hollywood films a run for their money.
The studios were in shambles in the early '70s.
There's this movie out there, everyone's going to see it.
How does that affect you and the pictures you should be making?
I've been the first one to go down the path.
I'd like to see, uh, legitimate films
and so-called pornographic films merge together.
I think the two industries have got to merge together.
Thank you for making me
the first woman president to go down in history.
They were shooting porn films on the lot at Paramount.
This is a little known fact.
So Paramount became sort of confiscated by the porn industry.
Do you see yourself as a pioneer?
No.
If it's left alone, within a year,
sex will just blend itself into film.
It's inevitable.
The only thing that's uncertain is... is the time it will take.
But the merger of hardcore and movies never happened.
Instead, the Supreme Court, packed with 4 Nixon appointees,
made a radical change to the obscenity law
in June 1973.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court authorized wider restrictions
on the exhibition and sale of obscenity.
The recent Supreme Court decision
gave local officials the right to decide for themselves what is pornographic
without having to be guided by a national standard.
Here in New York City today,
vice squad police began cracking down on pornography.
Linda, as you may know, the Supreme Court recently,
uh, handed down a, uh, decision on pornography.
I don't think anybody should regulate anything.
I think it should be, uh,
I don't believe in censorship. I don't believe in anything that they are doing.
But how far can you extend individual rights
before you hit, uh, the state of anarchy?
Uh, I really... I don't know.
Have you ever thought about that?
No. I don't know what's the state of ana-anarchy.
Well, it's... That's when everyone does precisely what he pleases
and, uh, society has no rules.
At that point, you've reached anarchy.
Uh, I don't know about that, to be honest with you.
I just don't believe in censorship.
I don't... That's taking away your freedom.
That's taking away your individual right
to make up your own mind for things.
The last person that started censorship was Adolf Hitler.
And look what happened there.
Meanwhile, the FBI was closing in
on Deep Throat and its distribution.
They pinpointed the Perainos' headquarters in Fort Lauderdale
and placed them under surveillance.
One day, I get a telephone call
from a confidential source
who will remain anonymous.
And he says to me, uh:
"We've got so much cash that we are having trouble
"physically moving about the office
because the money is gettin' in the way. "
I said, "How much you got?" He said, "I don't know.
We don't even count it anymore. "
I said, "You don't count it?" He said, "No. "
I said, "What do you do?" He said, "We weigh it. "
To get around the law
the mob set up its own distribution system
of checkers and sweepers
who traveled the country delivering prints
and collecting the money from theaters.
At a certain time every day, the checker or the sweeper
would go to the manager of the particular theater,
and he would say, "Our take is 50 percent.
"And we want it now, in cash.
Give us the money now, or else. "
I was on my way down to Nashville.
And the reason I went to Nashville
was I wanted to buy these Goo Goo candy bars.
I was gonna buy a bunch of them
and just, you know, market them
and see if I could get it going.
Well, on Saturday night, I decided I'd just go out.
And I met a couple of guys from New Jersey.
They were a couple of Italian guys.
I happen to be a Greek,
so Italians and Greeks are like cousins.
They wanted me to go to work for 'em
uh, baby-sitting Deep Throat.
And they sent me over to the Lamar Theater in Memphis.
And that's where it all began.
And as people walked in, I would count 'em in.
Then I would go down through the theater crowd
and I would count the number of people in the theater with a little clicker.
You know, those little things.
A checker. That's what I was.
I... I was just a simple checker. I had no power
I had no rank, nothing. I was just an employee.
Nobody was hurt.
And, uh, the only ones that got hurt
was, uh, one of our checkers in New Orleans.
Uh, he had $60,000 and he disappeared.
The money disappeared and they found his body in the back of a pickup truck.
A theater manager refused to pay.
And the next thing I know, I heard the theater burned down.
I'm not saying they would do somethin'.
But I did have a Colt. 45 with the hammer back
in my belt.
They had people that... that would do things.
Was it any kind of, uh, an organized crime?
Well, is every Italian
A criminal?
Is every Italian a gangster? I don't think so.
You know, some Italians have actually opened up Italian restaurants
And done very well with them.
I've met some mafia men in my life.
They won't threaten you in any way.
But if you do something dishonest,
most of the times,
they don't give you a second chance.
So why did you walk away from it yourself?
Because I was told to.
Rather, my wife was told that I should
leave.
And no money in the world is worth
just worrying about something.
That's my wife.
Artie, again?
Now, Terry.
Are you enjoying this?
Damn it. You're some kind of nut.
Okay. They're finished, Terry, all right?
Finally, after three years of FBI investigation,
the government launched one of the most ambitious obscenity trials ever mounted.
Designed to nail Deep Throat and all pornographic films
once and for all.
I think this case was a case of prosecution
that was directed, orchestrated,
uh, from Washington, D.C.
All told, 117 people were charged with conspiracy:
From the distributor to the projectionist.
And one man,
the government intended to make an example of.
The director had immunity.
The star had immunity,
but the actor did not.
The theory was, if you prosecuted the star
then nobody would ever wanna make a film like this.
And you could drive the industry out of business.
Harry Reems was paid $250 to appear in Deep Throat.
He had no control,
no say, no input
with what the final version of this film was gonna be
or whether it was gonna be distributed interstate,
intrastate, intergalactic.
It's impressive, for the first time
in the history of the United States
an artist has ever been brought to trial by the government.
All of the trials have been prosecuted
by a young assistant US attorney named Larry Parrish,
a lay Protestant preacher who has been quoted as saying
he'd rather get smut off the streets of Memphis than dope.
Larry Parrish is the... About one of the finest people
I've ever known in my entire life.
Fine guy.
And on top of that he's, uh, he's movie star quality.
First of all, he was very tall.
And I hate tall people.
Uh...
But he was also very arrogant.
If you're gonna dance, you need to pay the piper.
And, uh, I'm the piper.
You've got to be accountable under the law.
It was like when some people know
that they have the answer to everything
and everybody else is... is... is... is totally wrong.
It was purely and simply a matter of law enforcement.
And I guess if there was any passion in it for me,
it was that, um,
these are laws that had not been enforced.
And I knew of no reason
why they should not be enforced.
To make his case,
Larry Parrish invoked a highly unusual use
of the conspiracy laws.
The government explained their conspiracy theory
in the terms of a train.
That if the train starts in Los Angeles
and you get on in Los Angeles,
and you ride to Denver and get off,
but the train continues on to Memphis,
you are legally responsible for the entire journey.
And if you're responsible for everything that takes place,
you have unlimited liability.
This was a very creative use of the law of conspiracy
and prosecutors should never be creative.
That's not their job.
If my mother had been involved,
she would have been indicted.
I will promise you that. Uh, she wasn't.
When you tell artists, bad artists or good artists,
that they cannot experiment in certain avenues,
you are taking away the basic freedoms of every American.
For some reason, though,
it was as if he is involved in art.
And so art is protected.
Well, not by the definition of the Supreme Court.
Maybe I'm disgusting in some peoples' eyes.
Maybe others are bored by me.
But there are no laws against acting in these films.
And the actors and the actresses,
I really hesitate to call them that.
They are prostitutes and whoremongers
On the screen.
I'm sorry, that's just all they are.
And, uh...
Uh, they...
They don't even believe that there is any law.
How do you communicate to those persons
that this is against the law?
I face five years in jail.
Do I belong in jail for five years for acting in Deep Throat,
which is not in violation of the law?
If seeing this motion picture
as many times as Larry Parrish has seen it
has not corrupted him, or made him into a sex addict,
than I think that's, uh, proof positive
that these films do not have a deleterious effect on the human being.
I'm sitting here right now
trying to draw some images up from Deep Throat.
To be honest about it, uh,
do I feel that I'm worse off because of it?
Yes, I do.
Uh, I can't get images out of my mind
that I have seen.
I have told people I'm not a eunuch.
I- I'm a regular red-blooded American male.
And, uh,
and those images I wish were not there.
We had a lot of eye contact with the jury.
I think the jury was very sympathetic to Harry.
And there was a palpable change
in the jury's reaction
to Harry after seeing him in the film.
That was one of the amusing times in the trial.
He sat over in a, uh,
in a corner by himself, sort of hoverin'
and wouldn't look at the jurors,
and they were all staring at him.
I felt as though my life was being taken away from me.
And that I was being depicted, characterized
as something evil, a demon.
After a two-month trial,
the jury took just five hours
to return a unanimously guilty verdict.
The substance of what you say,
in effect, is you were the little man who wasn't there.
But the fact of the matter is,
you deliberately and knowingly
committed a long series
of immoral, revolting, obscene acts.
You might have found it obscene, and immoral,
and distasteful, and disgusting.
Others don't.
The acts you performed on film are acts that would be crimes
if they were performed on the street or someplace else.
No. They are wonderful celebrations of life.
They're called sex, Mr. Cohn.
You just can't cloak yourself with the American flag
because you don't fit the image.
You talk as though the Bill of Rights was created just for you.
For the first time in US history,
an actor had been convicted for merely playing a part.
And Harry Reems faced five years in jail.
It did not bode well for the future
of any kind of aesthetic or artistic expression
in this country, in any of the arts,
much less this poor guy
who, you know, suddenly finds himself being made a scapegoat.
All in the interest of
a basically moral crusade.
What was behind the case in Memphis
was the religious right.
This is the first real incarnation
of trying to apply their conception of morality
to all of America.
In response,
Hollywood was quick to mobilize and defend Harry Reems,
positioning itself as an opposing cultural force.
Professionals in the arts
may not find Deep Throat, as such,
a piece of art worth defending.
But they are worried about
the threat of being arrested later on
for what they write or act in today.
It's a censorship issue.
My overall concern is the basic, uh, infringement
on the rights of the First Amendment.
That's probably why I came to his defense,
knowing that Beatty and Nicholson did.
That's how I make all my decisions.
I said, "Alan, am... am... am I gonna be convicted?
"Am I going to do prison time?"
And his response was:
"If the Republicans are reelected,
you're going to jail.
If the Democrats are elected, you're going to be set free. "
While Harry fought for his freedom,
the architect of the moral crusade in the first place
was no longer in office to savor his triumph.
I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow.
And his undoing had also been Deep Throat,
the nickname for the secret Watergate source.
There's an expression in journalism
called "deep background" which means that
the information cannot be used in the newspaper
with any kind of hint of attribution.
Deep Throat, deep background. You know, it's sort of a...
Its national nightmare over, the nation got down.
The time was right for a porno star to be a pop star.
Who would have ever thought?
More, more, more.
How do you like it, how do you like it?
That's it. That's all of it.
It gets repeated and repeated and repeated.
It means nothing.
A year ago,
a Memphis federal court convicted actor Harry Reems
on obscenity charges in connection with his role
in the film Deep Throat.
Today, a US District Judge in Memphis overturned that conviction,
saying that the actor's activities took place before
the 1973 Supreme Court obscenity ruling.
Now that my name was... was pretty recognizable,
I moved to LA,
thinking that certainly somebody would come along and say:
"Well, there's a sellable name. "
Allan Carr had produced and directed films,
uh, for Paramount.
And he called me one day and said,
"I'd like you to play the role
of the high school coach in the movie Grease. "
I was excited that I was given an opportunity.
Then about two or three weeks
before principal photography began,
Paramount Pictures removed me from the cast.
That they didn't feel as though I belonged
in a mainstream motion picture.
And the lights went on for me.
I had branded myself
and, uh, given myself a certain stigma.
I just started to drink every night,
looking for an escape,
looking for a little bit of lightheartedness.
And, you know,
it just led me into a terrible, terrible disease
of alcoholism and drug addiction.
What are you doin'?
An antidote. I'm mixing an antidote.
I remember the last movies I was on,
I couldn't even walk.
I mean, literally, they had to carry me to a seat
and I'd shoot the whole motion picture sitting in a seat,
delivering lines, drunk.
I was so drunk and so drugged up at the time
that I couldn't do sex scenes.
Oh, my head.
They'd carry me off the set
and somebody would get me home and I'd drink some more
and they'd pick me up and take me back the next day.
It's all a blur. It's all a blur.
I lost my home.
I lost my career.
I lost my friends,
and ended up, literally,
panhandling in the streets on Sunset Boulevard.
Harry's personal defeat
in the face of his First Amendment triumph
reflected the way society was changing.
Get lost!
Freedom! Freedom!
Culture took a reactionary turn
after what seemed like we were on, uh, heading
toward a climax of the sexual revolution
that we never actually, uh, attained.
In the 1970s,
the worst censors in the country
suddenly became the feminists.
The so-called sexual revolution
in this country has not been liberating for women.
It's the way that pornography invades the popular culture...
It's becoming increasingly socially acceptable.
The role that you have selected for women
is degrading to women
because you choose to see women as sex objects
not as full human beings.
Well, obviously... Hold on. The day that...
Obviously... I haven't finished.
The day that you are willing to come out here
with a cottontail attached to your rear end...
When the women's movement began to attack sex in general
and men in general,
I was...
I was at a loss for words
because these were our partners
in a revolution to really change
uh, sexual values.
I'm more in sympathy
than perhaps, uh, you know, the girls realize...
Women.
I'm sorry.
Yes. I'm 35.
Than the ladies realize.
I use "girls" referring to women of all ages.
You should stop.
If you want to be called a boy.
I see. Okay. Um...
The idea was to convince people
that there were good, sound, feminist, humanitarian reasons
to be against pornography.
Women Against Pornography found a surprising ally
in America's most famous porn star: Linda Lovelace,
who had retired from the spotlight
and was now a mother and housewife.
Linda Lovelace is, uh, here.
The book is titled, uh, Ordeal.
And I'll tell you, this book is a very, uh,
explicit recounting of what happened to you.
I felt it was important to let
everything out that happened to me.
I literally became a prisoner of Mr. Traynor's.
I wasn't permitted to go to the bathroom by myself.
I was never allowed out of his eyesight.
If he took a shower, I had to take a shower with him.
If I did have any kind of communication with my friends or my family,
he was on the extension with a. 45
or an M-16 semi-automatic machine gun pointed at me.
And there are those who say you can see the bruises on her in the film.
You tell me if the bruises are visible in the film.
How did Linda Lovelace and Gloria Steinem join forces?
How did the two of you get together?
I saw Linda on the Phil Donahue Show.
And she was being questioned by Phil,
who I think is usually a more sensitive questioner
than he was this time,
uh, and by the audience, with enormous disbelief.
And I still find it very hard to believe
that you have become a changed person.
I had always heard that to be hypnotized, you had to be willing.
Is there something about the way you were raised, in your view,
that made you vulnerable to this?
And yet she was still being asked,
uh, what in her background
had led her to become essentially a hostage.
What did lead you to become a hostage,
if we can... if we can now ask the question?
Does it go back beyond that to your childhood,
that you were a susceptible person?
No.
See now what you're doing, you're doing what... what made me so angry.
You know, because we don't say to the hostages in Iran:
"What in your... what in your background led you
to... to be in that embassy?" Yeah.
The situations are not nearly comparable.
They are. It's force.
Linda needed somebody to tell her what to do.
And as long as she had somebody telling her what to do,
she... she was happy.
So when she made the movie,
she was happy making the movie.
After the movie, somebody said,
"Hey, you shouldn't have made that movie. "
So she became unhappy about making the movie,
which wasn't true.
She was very happy about making the movie.
Linda's new fame as a crusader against pornography
culminated with her testimony before the Meese Commission in 1986.
My ordeal still goes on.
The film Deep Throat still shows
and virtually every time someone watches that movie,
they're watching me being raped.
Once again, the government had set out
to determine the effect of pornography.
This time, instead of relying on scientific data,
they relied on personal testimony
to prove that pornography was a social evil.
Well, the other day my 8-year-old son said to me:
"Mommy, if this country is so great,
how come people are still hurting you?"
It's sort of like the Oprah Show.
It's, um, much more anecdotal. Much less professional.
So what Nixon starts in the '60s and '70s
by stacking the court,
Reagan finishes with the Meese report.
In its most controversial finding,
the commission concludes
there is a relationship between violence and pornography.
The commission conducted no scientific studies.
Finally, after decades of struggle,
politics triumphed over pornography.
But the victory was hollow.
The success of Deep Throat
created enormous demand for hardcore,
that new technology could now satisfy
and avoid all regulation.
The phenomenal sales of home videocassette machines
have opened up a new market for erotic films.
It's a market that barely existed a couple of years ago.
But today, 30 to 50 percent of the tapes
available for play in these machines
are hardcore pornography.
Gerry Damiano, I think, really thought
that porn was going to merge into, kind of, Hollywood films.
That porn movies
were gonna just get bigger and bigger budgets
and become more like feature films with hardcore sex.
Looked like it was going to burst itself into something, into an art form.
That didn't happen.
In fact, just the opposite happened.
Instead, it dwindled in-into a mediocre commodity.
With the advent of the video camera,
it got to be so easy to... to shoot X-rated video
that ev-everybody could do it.
And then, the only ones that did it
were the ones that could do it cheaper and cheaper,
for less and less and less money.
They were... they were nothing.
It was just one sex scene after another.
And it... it sort of killed itself.
I couldn't make that kind of film.
Because there was... there was no reason to.
It became a... it became a factory.
It was over.
You didn't need filmmakers anymore.
As the adult industry grew,
it neither needed the rebel filmmaker
who had pioneered it
nor heeded the feminist protest against it.
So finding herself redundant,
Linda Lovelace moved with her family to Denver
to try and start a new life.
Um, that's Mom at her desk.
Uh, she was the manager of the mailroom.
She was proud of her new desk.
Um...
They fired her when they found out about LL.
It happened a lot.
You know, I've lost two jobs
because of the name Linda Lovelace.
And, uh, that-that's kind of...
That hurts.
You know, I was always defending myself
after, what, 25 years.
I don't have to do that too much anymore.
So I've decided it's time for me to do what I can
to earn an income
from, uh, the abuse that I went through from the name.
Broke and out of work,
Linda returned to the world she had once condemned.
You know, I think it's kind of nice looking sexy
and... and still looking attractive at 51.
So, I didn't feel there was anything wrong with doing it.
Many feminists who have written,
you know, books...
And they're always using the name Linda Lovelace, and what happened to me.
I don't get any royalties from that.
And it doesn't take much to keep me happy.
You know? I get to be with my grandchildren,
around my children, and that's my joy.
She died penniless. Didn't have a dime.
And they all got rich.
They all got their hands in the pocket.
Fuck me harder, harder, harder.
Sex is a force, it's a force like lava.
And there haven't been too many successful engineering projects
about diverting the flow of lava.
Did I ever see the movie Deep Throat? No.
Should I?
No. That's with, um, that lady who died.
What's her name?
No, I have not seen it.
Deep Throat forged the sexual revolution
for good or bad.
It led to the porno business.
Linda Lovelace turned it, and Deep Throat turned it, into an industry.
And like it or hate it,
that's what she's gonna be remembered for, forever.
Porn really does have a yucky feel to it today.
Part of it, I think, that was lost is this, a certain innocence.
For that brief moment, porn was part of
discovery, curiosity,
change.
Today it's different.
What happened
was that a very cynical pornography industry
came in on the heels of the First Amendment
and began coining money hand over fist.
So, it changed the nature of... of pornographic sex,
from art to money.
Money is not interested in the little alleys
of endeavor... of artistic endeavor.
It wants the main highway.
It's a really dramatic fact
that we have gone from people staring up at a marquee
and thinking "What can deep throat mean?
Surely not what I'm thinking"
to kids who don't consider it sex.
They perverted it instead of improving it.
They took a beautiful thing that God gave mankind,
and they perverted it. And the results are obvious.
All you have to do is look around.
Deep Throat's legacy goes beyond
the sexually saturated culture that surrounds us today
and reaches back to the beginnings of a culture war
that divides us as never before.
Deep Throat was less about the joys of oral sex
than it was about the freedom to speak out against shame
and hypocrisy.
The FCC has fined 169 stations to pay...
Congress is also cracking down...
Three Supreme Court justices
are expected to retire over the next four years.
Each of these 169...
Today, there are people in the Department of Justice
in high places, sympathetic with obscenity laws.
I think today
the climate is even more ripe
for vigorous enforcement of obscenity laws.
Now if we could get these terrorists to go away
And quit taking up so much time of the,
uh, of the Department of Justice...
All right?
Thank you.
You're welcome.
To this day,
people ask me to see Deep Throat.
And they all, you know...
When they refer to Artie, you know,
he has a deep throat, so.
They say, "You know the guy with the deep throat, you know?
"He's the one that did Deep Throat. "
We always have to emphasize that we didn't do it, you know.
We just distributed it. Because, he wouldn't...
I don't think he would... Would you ever do that?
I wouldn't know how. I knew it!
But if you did know how, would you do it?
You have to think about that?
Hey.
Okay. Are we finished?
Helen, there's got to be more to life
Than screwing around.
I mean, there should be more to sex
Than a lot of little tingles.
There should be bells ringing,
dams bursting, bombs going off, something.
Find the solution.
Like what?
Like deep throat.
Deep throat.
Dr. Young.
Deep throat.
Dr. Young
Deep throat.
Oh, Dr. Young.
Ripped by: SkyFury