Inside Deep Throat - R-Rated Edition

It was banned in 23 states. The government didn't want you to see it. Deep Throat was more than just a titillating curiosity, it was the sexually explicit film that ignited a social and political firestorm. Inside Deep Throat examines the politics and the payoffs, the porn stars and persecution of the cultural phenomenon that remains just as highly controversial today. From Oscar-winning producer Brian Grazer comes this probing look at the sensational adult film that launched a sexual and cultural revolution.

While Boogie Nights showed pornography's transition from sleazy cinemas to home-video dominance, Inside Deep Throat looks back to the film that introduced porn to a curious mainstream public. Released in 1972 and starring 23-year-old Linda Lovelace as sexpot whose oral sex skills (performed on well-endowed costar Harry Reems) gave the film its title (and, subsequently, the nickname of Watergate's secret informant), Deep Throat set a cultural milestone as a source of controversy, outrageous profit (mostly for its Colombo mob family financiers), and irrevocable social change. With equal parts nostalgia and historical hindsight, this briskly-paced documentary places Deep Throat in pivotal context, when Vietnam was an acknowledged disaster and American innocence was peeling away one layer at a time. Produced by Hollywood honcho Brian Grazer and catering to viewers who were too young to witness Deep Throat's impact firsthand, the film includes the legendary fellatio scene that made Lovelace an overnight sensation (hence the NC-17 rating), but it's the interviews with pop-culture VIP's like Norman Mailer, Dick Cavett, Hugh Hefner and (most amusingly) Helen Gurley Brown that add necessary perspective to what is, for better and worse, an engaging but somewhat shallow examination of a culture war that never really ended. --Jeff Shannon