Deep Throat (1972)

Linda Lovelace (pictured above) received plenty of notoriety for her performance in Deep Throat, the first hardcore porn film to be released in commercial movie houses in the USA.

Directed by Gérard Damanio and filmed in a Florida hotel, the movie follows the erotic adventures of a young woman (Lovelace) who is disappointed to find herself surprisingly indifferent to sex – until an examination by her doctor solves the mystery: because of an eccentricity of her anatomy, she finds oral sex more satisfying than conventional intercourse.

This unique medical condition leads to a feast of fellatio.

In fact, the 62-minute film depicts 15 sex acts, including seven of fellatio and four of cunnilingus. The sex acts are clearly, clinically, shown, in contrast to the deep-breathing simulations of softcore sex movies.

Deep Throat enjoyed such phenomenal success when it screened in a Times Square cinema that it transferred to an East Side art house.

The movie became a kind of kinky-wink-wink-let’s-check-it-out entertainment for heterosexual couples, and it played all over America.

The clampdown – Deep Throat was banned in certain parts of the US – only fueled the phenomenon. Shot for $25,500 (of mob money), it made an estimated $500 million at the box office. It also spawned five sequels . . .

It also became a premier topic of cocktail party and dinner table conversation in Manhattan drawing rooms, Long Island beach cottages and ski country A-frames. In short, it engendered a kind of porno chic.

In August 1972, everyone involved in the making of the movie was charged with violating the law prohibiting the movement of pornographic material from one state to another.

Lovelace – in reality, a 21-year-old party girl from Bryan, Texas, named Linda Boreman – cheerfully made the rounds on the talk-show circuit (and even showed up at the Academy Awards) to promote the film, which ushered in a brief period where porn flicks were treated with the same curiosity and respect afforded to French Art films.

In 1980, Lovelace published her autobiography (Ordeal) in which she claimed she was actually forced into the porn business at gunpoint by her abusive first husband Chuck Traynor (they divorced in 1973), although many credible witnesses disputed her tales of forced participation.

Later in her life, she endured a double mastectomy, apparently necessitated by the breast implants she received in her porn star days. She had a liver transplant in 1987 and required expensive medication thereafter.

She died following a car accident in April 2002. She was 53.

Linda 
Linda Lovelace
Dr Young
Harry Reems
Helen
Dolly Sharp (Helen Wood)
Mr Maltz
Bill Harrison
Wilber Wang
William Love
Mr Fenster
Bob Phillips

Director
Gérard Damanio