Original subtitles

["Crime Of The Century" by Supertramp playing]

♪ Now they're planning The crime of the century ♪

♪ Well what will it be? ♪

♪ Read all about their schemes And adventuring ♪

♪ It's well worth the fee ♪

We are living in a glorious time,

a time of great conflict to be sure.

[male newsreader 1] Today, a nationwide crackdown was underway...

[male newsreader 2] ...eight men were arrested from...

[male newsreader 3] ...hardcore pornographic pictures.

[Gerard Damiano] On one side of the coin are those in favor

of absolutely no censorship.

[crowd clamoring]

On the other hand, there are those who advocate

the government dictating to us what we should see,

read, and hear.

[newsreader] ...they say it all started with the sex film Deep Throat.

["Spill the Wine" by Eric Burdon & WAR playing]

I saw Deep Throat in New York when it first came out.

[Larry Flynt] People were lined up

for at least three blocks.

♪ I was once out strolling One very hot summer's day ♪

Oh, yeah, there was a screening in some psychoanalyst's apartment

and everybody watched and smoked dope. Oh, yeah.

♪ I dreamed I was In a Hollywood movie ♪

♪ That I was the star Of the movie ♪

♪ This really blew my mind ♪

[Dr. Westheimer] I thought, "Fantastic.

This is going to change the climate

of talking about issues of sexuality

in these United States."

♪ Spill the wine And take that pearl ♪

[Dick Cavett] I'm one of the handful of people who never saw it.

I didn't intend to not see it.

[clattering]

Perhaps you could arrange for me to see it.

Now.

[machine humming]

[projector whirring]

[Camille Paglia] Deep Throat was an epochal moment

in the history of modern sexuality.

It was the first time that respectable middle-class women

went to porn theaters.

It really broke down,

uh, traditional codes of, of decorum.

[Hugh Hefner] 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.

[audience laughing]

[Hefner] I think the major thing that set, uh,

Deep Throat apart was,

it had a gimmick.

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.

[crying]

The clitoris hidden in the throat

was something you could talk about and laugh about.

It's better than having no clitoris at all.

[sobbing]

That's easy for you to say.

Suppose your balls were in your ear.

[Bill Maher] 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.

[sobbing] 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.

[projector whirring]

Have you been to the experience

of paying to go in a porno theater

[woman moaning]

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.

[Linda Lovelace] 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.

[female reporter] 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.

[birds chirping]

["Brand New Key" by Melanie playing]

♪ I rode my bicycle Past your window last night ♪

♪ I roller-skated To your door at daylight ♪

♪ It almost seems Like you're avoiding me ♪

These are some pictures

or posters from some of the films I've done.

♪ Well, I got a brand new pair Of roller-skates ♪

♪ You got a brand new key ♪

I don't know. They're kind of cute.

♪ I think that we should Get together ♪

A picture of Gerard, my son, when he was a lot younger,

and my daughter when she was younger.

[Dennis Hopper] Long before Deep Throat, Damiano was a family man.

He and his wife ran a beauty salon in Queens, New York.

♪ Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

[Damiano] 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 you 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 don't wanna say I was a priest,

but it was almost like-- It was almost like a confessor.

[Hopper] The confessions Damiano heard in his salon,

made him realize he was on the frontlines of a sexual revolution.

[Hefner] 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.

[Cavett] 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.

[Hopper] The facts of life and sexual morality in general

were forbidden topics.

But as all that changed, issues about sexuality

began to divide society.

[man] Artificial contraception is wrong.

Evil.

[Norman Mailer] People were experimenting.

They were looking for new kinds of lives.

They were looking to break out of all the old molds.

[Al Goldstein] 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.

[John Waters] 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,

the more interesting human emotions.

[Erica Jong] Sex was in movies. Sex was on TV.

Sex came out of the closet.

[Damiano] 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.

[Hopper] 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.

[Damiano] I loved film. 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."

[giggling]

Oh, my!

Oh!

[crowing]

It, it was the only choice we had.

It took... 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?

[Ron Wertheim] 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.

[laughing]

[Andrea True] 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.

[Damiano] All of sudden, there was a new word.

It was called "filmmaker."

You became an independent filmmaker.

We were actually doing it

[chuckling] and we couldn't believe it.

We couldn't believe it, and thank God there was,

there was such a thing as sex.

[Hopper] 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.

[Wes Craven] They would show sexual scenes,

but they couldn't be accused of pornography

because it had an educational value.

[doctor] Some men find their wives' buttocks

very stimulating visually.

We needed a father figure for almost everything.

[doctor] This may be uncomfortable

for the obese or older couples.

[Damiano] 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.

[siren blaring]

[Hopper] 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.

[Mailer] There was something exciting about it.

It, it lived in some, uh, mid-world

between crime and art

and it was adventurous.

[True] Young people today would be in it for the money

whereas in the old days, it was for the rebellion.

[Craven] Frankly, everybody in one way or another

was connected to that business

because psychologically, socially, it was happening.

[Harry Reems] 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.

[Damiano] 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.

[Hopper] 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.

[Hopper] Before she became world-famous as Linda Lovelace,

Linda Boreman dreamt of opening a clothing boutique

until she met Chuck Traynor.

[Patsy Carroll] 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."

[Hopper] 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."

[camera whirring]

[Damiano] 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."

[camera whirring]

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.

[Damiano] 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.

[chuckling]

You can't do this. It's absurd, it's silly.

Nobody will believe it.

I thought it was,

[stammering] 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,

[chuckling] I'm glad I didn't change it to The Sword Swallower.

I, kind of, had the whole thing

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.

[Wertheim] I just called, uh, Harry Reems.

He came as a production assistant.

He wasn't even supposed to be in the film.

[Reems] When we got to Florida, we all checked into

this, uh, motel, I think it was called The Voyager.

[Wertheim] 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.

[Lenny Camp] 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.

Will we go to the wine cellar?

[interviewer] Yes.

♪ Yeah, oh, yeah, Oh, yeah ♪

♪ Yeah, oh, yeah, Oh, yeah ♪

♪ Yeah, oh, yeah... ♪

[Sepy speaking]

If it was planned, it would not have been as exciting,

'cause we were just rushing from one place to another.

[Helen] You all right?

Yeah, I'm fine, what makes you say that?

You, the way you're acting.

[Damiano] 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...

[Helen] 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.

♪ Do you wanna touch me? ♪

♪ Do you wanna touch me? Do you wanna touch me? Yeah ♪

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,

[chuckling]

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 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.

♪ Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there ♪

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.

♪ Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, Oh, yeah ♪

[Damiano] 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 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.

[Sepy speaking]

[Linda Williams] 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.

[Hefner] 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.

[chuckling] It's full of babies, it's, 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.

[Hopper] 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

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.

[Williams] 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.

[Damiano] 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 Linda, back and forth.

[rocket engines roaring]

[Jong] This is a male fantasy that says:

"I like to have my cock sucked.

I really get off on it, therefore she must, too."

[rocket engines roaring]

[bell tolling]

[rocket engines roaring]

I think that was a hell of a shot.

[roaring]

[fireworks exploding]

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, uh, a can of worms.

♪ Get down, get down, Get down, get down ♪

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.

[crowd applauding]

[Hopper] 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.

♪ Jungle Boogie ♪

♪ Jungle Boogie Get it on ♪

[machine beeping]

[moaning]

♪ Get it on ♪

[Howard Smith] 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.

[Georgina Spelvin] For one brief, shining moment, it did look like

society was going to become

a little more adult about their sexuality.

[Hopper] But committee member Charles Keating,

appointed by President Nixon,

fought to dismiss the findings.

Obscenity does indeed affect.

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."

[Hopper] 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.

[Gore Vidal] He knew all the buttons to press.

Sodomy...

[crowd clamoring]

[exclaiming]

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.

[Hopper] 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.

[Judge Tyler] A good many of the so-called perverts

are attracted to the 42nd Street area,

and we've had complaints.

♪ Superfly ♪

[siren blaring]

[Goldstein] 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.

[Hopper] Deep Throat was the perfect target

for New York's campaign to clean up porn

and the police moved in.

[projector whirring]

[John Gorman] 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."

[Gorman] 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.

♪ Love, love is strange ♪

[Hefner] 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.

[Hopper] Not once, not twice, but three times

the police raided Deep Throat,

staging their final raid for the cameras.

[people chattering]

[Herb Kassner] 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.

[gavel pounding]

[Hopper] Deep Throat's defense produced expert witnesses

to argue that the film was more enlightening than merely obscene.

[witness speaking]

[Hopper] But the prosecution countered

that this sexual satisfaction was dangerous to women

because Deep Throat emphasized the wrong kind of orgasm:

the clitoral orgasm.

[William Purcell] I remember that the judge hadn't heard the term.

And, uh, so he expressed surprise

and asked the question, "What's that?"

[doctor] Here, just outside and above the vaginal opening

[echoing] is the clitoris.

[prosecution speaking]

[doctor's voice echoing] 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.

[Helen Brown] 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.

[doctor's voice echoing] The clitoris.

[doctor] 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.

[Hopper] 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.

[Ralph Blumenthal] I remember writing the article.

Uh, the--the headline was "Porno chic."

[chuckling] 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.

[Hopper] The week the article hit the stands,

the film's box office soared

as people rushed to see the film in record numbers.

[male reporter] Approximately how many people have seen Deep Throat?

Approximately 1,700 people a day have been in to see the film.

[reporter] 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.

[Xaviera Hollander] There was a private showing. Before I knew what happened,

there was, like, group sex happening, left, right, and center.

[patron] 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.

[reporter] 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.

[audience laughing]

I thought it was about giraffes.

90% of the people there are asthmatics.

What do you mean, asthmatics?

'Cause all I could hear was...

[panting]

[audience laughing]

People weren't jerking off

when, you know... I don't know who's sitting next to you, Angela Lansbury or...

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...

[screaming]

[audience laughing]

[Hopper] 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.

[reporter] And that's all?

[chuckling] Yeah.

What about...

I'm, you know, now I'm known, so it's okay.

[Barbara Boreman] 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.

[clicking]

[crowd cheering]

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.

[Boreman] 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."

[camera clicking]

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.

[Judge Tyler reading]

A Sodom and Gomorrah gone wild before the fire.

[Kassner] He believed he was writing for posterity.

Now you and I know, in retrospect,

that he accomplished absolutely nothing.

[Judge Tyler reading]

I readily perform the operation

by finding the defendant guilty as charged.

[bell tolling]

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.

[chuckling]

[Hopper] Shutting Deep Throat down in New York

only spurred audiences' interest across the country.

Wherever it opened, authorities scrambled to shut it down.

[man] 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.

[woman reading]

[Hopper] By the mid '70s, Deep Throat had been tried

in more than 32 cities...

[woman reading]

and was ultimately banned in 23 states.

Violation of the law. It's a simple thing.

[siren wailing]

It's obscene as hell to me.

Mmm.

[Hopper] 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 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.

[Blumenthal] 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.

[Hopper] 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.

[Terry] 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 enough. -It's almost over.

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.

[Terry] Come on, Artie, don't be stupid.

You're a grown man.

Cut.

Terry...

["Dragging the Line" by Tommy James playing]

♪ Making a living The old, hard way ♪

♪ Taking and giving My day by day ♪

♪ I dig the snow and rain And bright sunshine ♪

[Bill Kelly] My name is Bill Kelly.

♪ Draggin' the line ♪

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.

[Kelly] 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."

[Kelly] Not only was it a violation

of the obscenity law of the United States,

it was also a highly organized crime enterprise.

[Kelly] 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 wanna make sure 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'd like it to be that way.

[Terry] 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.

[Hopper] 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.

[Hopper] 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.

[Peter Bart] 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?

[Lovelace] 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.

[Lovelace] Thank you for making me

[Lovelace] Thank you for making me

[Bart] 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.

[reporter] Do you see yourself as a pioneer?

[Damiano] 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.

[Hopper] But the merger of hardcore and movies never happened.

Instead, the Supreme Court, packed with four 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.

[male announcer] 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.

[police siren wailing]

[Mudd] Here in New York City today,

vice squad police began cracking down on pornography.

[police sirens wailing]

[reporter] 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.

[Hopper] 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.

[Kelly] 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."

[Hopper] 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%,

and we want it now, in cash.

Give us the money now, or else."

[Peter Manouse] 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.

♪ Goo Goo, chew it, Taste it, sweet milk ♪

[Manouse] I was gonna buy a bunch of them

[Manouse] I was gonna buy a bunch of 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.

♪ I gotta have a Goo Goo, How 'bout you? Goo Goo ♪

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.

[Manouse] 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.

[Shipley] 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

[stammers] a criminal?

Is every Italian a gangster? I don't think so.

You know, some Italians have actually opened up Italian restaurants

[laughing] and done very well with them.

[laughing] and done very well with them.

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.

[interviewer] So why did you walk away from it yourself?

Because I was told to.

Rather, my wife was told that I should...

Rather, my wife was told that I should...

And no money in the world is worth

just worrying about something.

[door opening]

-That's my wife. -[Terry] Artie, again?

[Sommer] Now, Terry.

Are you enjoying this?

[footsteps approaching]

Damn it. You're some kind of nut.

[Sommer] Okay. They're finished, Terry, all right?

[Hopper] 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.

[Bruce Kramer] I think this case was a case, a prosecution

that was directed, orchestrated,

uh, from Washington, D.C.

[Hopper] 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.

[Kramer] 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.

[reporter] 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.

[Kelly] Fine guy.

And on top of that he's, uh, he's movie star quality.

[Damiano] 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 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.

[Hopper] 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.

[blows whistle]

[Kramer] 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.

[Reems] Maybe I'm disgusting in some peoples' eyes.

Maybe others are bored by me.

But there are no laws against acting in these films.

[Parrish] And the actors and the actresses,

I really hesitate to call them that.

They are prostitutes and whoremongers

[laughing] 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?

[Kramer] 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'm, I'm a regular, red-blooded American male.

And, uh,

and those images I wish were not there.

[Kramer] 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.

[Parrish] 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.

[sighs]

I felt as though my life was being taken away from me.

And that I was being depicted, characterized

as something evil, a demon.

[Hopper] After a two-month trial,

the jury took just five hours

to return a unanimously guilty verdict.

[Roy Cohn] 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.

[Tony Bill] 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.

[Dershowitz] 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.

[Hopper] In response,

Hollywood was quick to mobilize and defend Harry Reems,

positioning itself as an opposing cultural force.

[all chattering]

[reporter] 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."

[Hopper] 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.

["More More More" by Andrea True playing]

["More More More" by Andrea True playing]

the nickname for the secret Watergate source.

[Bernstein] There's an expression in journalism

called "deep background" which means that

called "deep background" which means that

with any kind of hint of attribution.

Deep Throat, deep background. You know, it's sort of a...

♪ But if you want to know How I really feel ♪

[Hopper] Its national nightmare over, the nation got down.

♪ Get the action goin' ♪

♪ How do you like it? How do you like it? ♪

The time was right for a porno star to be a pop star.

Who would have ever thought?

♪ How do you like it? ♪

[True] More, more, more.

How do you like it, how do you like it?

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.

["Keep It Coming Love" by K.C. and The Sunshine Band playing]

♪ Keep it coming, love ♪

♪ Don't stop it now Don't stop it, no ♪

♪ Don't stop it now Don't stop ♪

♪ Keep it coming, love Keep it coming, love ♪

♪ Don't stop it now Don't stop it, no ♪

♪ Don't stop it now Don't stop it ♪

♪ Don't let your well run dry ♪

♪ Don't stop it now ♪

♪ Keep it coming, love ♪

[Walter Cronkite] 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.

[Reems] 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

That they didn't feel as though I belonged

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.

[Reems] 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.

[Hopper] Harry's personal defeat

in the face of his First Amendment triumph

reflected the way society was changing.

[woman] Get lost!

[all] Freedom! Freedom!

[Paglia] 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.

[all chanting]

[Dershowitz] In the 1970s,

the worst censors in the country

suddenly became the feminists.

[all shouting]

[woman 1] The so-called sexual revolution

in this country has not been liberating for women.

[woman 2] It's the way that pornography invades the popular culture...

[woman 3] It's becoming increasingly socially acceptable.

[all chattering]

[Susan Brownmiller] 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--

[audience applauding]

-Obviously-- -I haven't finished.

The day that you are willing to come out here

with a cottontail attached to your rear end...

[audience applauding]

[Hefner] When the women's movement began to attack sex in general

and men in general,

[laughs] I was--

I was at a loss for words

because these were our partners

in a revolution to really change

uh, sexual values.

[Hefner] I'm more in sympathy

than perhaps, uh, you know, the girls realize--

[Brownmiller] Women.

I'm sorry.

Yes. I'm 35.

[Hefner] Than the ladies realize.

I use "girls" referring to women of all ages.

[Brownmiller] You should stop.

If you want to be called a boy...

[Hefner] I see. Okay. Um...

[audience laughing]

The idea was to convince people

that there were good, sound, feminist, humanitarian reasons

to be against pornography.

[Hopper] 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.

[Donahue] 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 M16 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.

[Tom Snyder] How did Linda Lovelace and Gloria Steinem join forces?

How did the two of you get together?

[Gloria Steinem] 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.

[Snyder] 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.

[Snyder] The situations are not nearly comparable, Gloria.

[Steinem] They are. It's force.

[Damiano] 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.

She was very happy about making the movie.

culminated with her testimony before the Meese Commission in 1986.

[Lovelace] 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.

[Hopper] 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?"

[Jon Lewis] 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.

[reporter] In its most controversial finding,

the commission concludes

there is a relationship between violence and pornography.

The commission conducted no scientific studies.

[Hopper] 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% 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.

[Annie Sprinkle] 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 into a mediocre commodity.

[Damiano] With the advent of the video camera,

it got to be so easy to, to shoot X-rated video

that 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.

[Damiano] They were-- They were nothing.

[Damiano] They were 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.

[seagulls cawing]

[Hopper] 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.

[Lindsay] 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.

[Lovelace] 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.

[Hopper] Broke and out of work,

Linda returned to the world she had once condemned.

[Lovelace] You know, I think it's kind of nice looking sexy

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.

She died penniless. Didn't have a dime.

And they all got rich.

They all got their hands in the pocket.

[woman] Fuck me harder, harder, harder!

[Mailer] 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.

Did I ever see the movie Deep Throat? No.

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.

[Waters] 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.

[Bart] 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.

[Jong] 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.

[Mailer] 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.

[cars honking]

[Cavett] 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.

[Charles Keating] 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.

[Hopper] 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.

[Hopper] Deep Throat was less about the joys of oral sex

than it was about the freedom to speak out against shame

and hypocrisy.

[reporter 1] The FCC has fined 169 stations to pay...

[reporter 2] Congress is also cracking down...

[reporter 3] Three Supreme Court justices

are expected to retire over the next four years.

[reporter 1] Each of these 169...

[reporters chattering]

[Parrish] 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

[Parrish laughs]

and quit taking up so much time of the,

uh, of the Department of Justice...

All right?

[interviewer] Thank you.

You're welcome.

["Reflections of My Life" by Marmalade playing]

♪ The changing of sunlight ♪

♪ To moonlight ♪

♪ Reflections of my life ♪

♪ Oh, how they fill my eyes ♪

♪ The greetings ♪

♪ Of people in trouble ♪

♪ Reflections of my life ♪

♪ Oh, how they fill my mind ♪

♪ All my sorrows ♪

♪ Sad tomorrows ♪

♪ Take me back ♪

♪ To my own home ♪

♪ All my cryings All my cryings ♪

♪ Feel I'm dying, dying ♪

♪ Take me back ♪

♪ To my own home ♪

♪ All my sorrows ♪

♪ Sad tomorrows ♪

[Sommer] 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." [chuck]

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?

[laughing] Hey...

♪ All my sorrows ♪

♪ Sad tomorrows ♪

♪ Take me back ♪

♪ To my own home ♪

Okay. Are we finished?

♪ All my sorrows... ♪

♪ Now I'm gonna tell you ♪

♪ The way it has to be ♪

♪ And if you pay attention ♪

♪ I'm sure that you will see ♪

♪ Just relax your muscles ♪

♪ And once you've hit that spot ♪

♪ Keep right on pushin' ♪

♪ Then give it all you've got ♪

♪ Now we've found your tinkler ♪

♪ The solution is quite clear ♪

♪ For if we both can hit it now ♪

♪ The bells you'll surely hear ♪

[Lovelace] Helen, there's got to be more to life

[echoing] than screwing around.

I mean, there should be more to sex

[echoing] than a lot of little tingles.

There should be bells ringing,

dams bursting, bombs going off, something.

[Dr. Young] Find the solution.

[Lovelace] Like what?

[Dr. Young] Like deep throat.

[echoing] Deep throat.

[echoing] Deep throat.

[Lovelace] Dr. Young.

[echoing] Deep throat.

[Lovelace] Dr. Young

[echoing] Deep throat.

[echoing] Deep throat.

[Lovelace echoing] Oh, Dr. Young.