Porn DVD Review: Deep Throat

I FINALLY got a chance to see Deep Throat (at http://ww3.sextoysex.com/sex/start/view.html?a=buyad&pnum=CLA96012), since its documentary, Inside Deep Throat, recently came out on DVD video. Wow. Lots of hair. Not only with the women being unshaven, but also with the men and their sideburns and heavy mustaches. That's my prevailing image of porn in the 70s, follicular excess. Don't get me wrong, I like watching "hairy" girls in adult videos. To me, there's just something primitive and real about a woman with a hairy snatch making love. I guess part of my fascination with bushes harkens back to my younger days. The porn magazines I used to sneak and look at back in the early 80s featured women with hair. Everywhere. One of the downsides to 70s porn? Too many hairy, man-ass shots. (And by the way, could someone tell me if that is the legendary John Holmes in one of the scenes? I'm referring to when Linda Lovelace and friend are at home "entertaining" several men.) Incidentally, the late Ms. Lovelace seems to be the only one in the film without any superfluous body hair. There's a scene that expressly points that out. She has a pretty, fresh, young look. She shows great enthusiasm, which is usually the number one thing I look for when evaluating an adult actresses performance. Nothing ruins a movie like a lackluster performance. Those two or three scenes that the movie is especially known for come better than advertised. In those scenes, she is focused, she is eager, she is fast, she is furious. And just when you think she can't go any further...

Those handful of scenes are truly mesmerizing: you see where the legend of Deep Throat is born.

I would have preferred to hear her natural love-making sounds. And that brings me to another point. One of the issues I had with 70s porn (along with hairy man-ass) was the music they used to blare during the sex scenes. Again, only in my opinion, I prefer to hear flesh slapping against flesh, women moaning, oral sucking sounds, etc. And that's when the music is decent. Maybe I'm out of touch with how some of the music was in the early 70s; but all that circus march music (that's the only way I can describe it) in the movie, unghh! And what is with all the bubble sounds? I'm not ordering the sound track anytime soon.

Some aspects of the movie are funny or just plain weird. The doctor (played by Harry Reems) is hilarious in an over-the-top, campy kind of way. His diagnosis of Ms Lovelace's "condition", which is the central concept of the film, is different. The movie is rife with your typical porn bad-acting. How bad is the acting, you say? In a scene where her character is actually play-acting, I initially thought she was playing it straight! And the thing with the Coke and the straw, I don't know what to make of it. I don't know whether I should go out and try it, or totally banish that image from the recesses of my mind. My enjoyment of the film was tempered, however, by the fact that Ms Lovelace could, figuratively speaking, have had a gun to her head whilst doing the film. So she alleged in her autobiography: that her husband/manager forced her into her pornographic lifestyle. All in all, I liked the film, and you can certainly root for Ms Lovelace. That's good because her presence dominates the film, in a good way. I did hear the bombs bursting, rockets launching, and bells ringing.