Gerard Damiano
Gola Profonda

Linda Deep & Gola Lovelace

Now it is known that as soon as someone dares to talk about a porn film, half of the Debaser crowd is ready to attack out of disgust, and the other half is ready to spurt at them the fruit of their excessive amount of wanking.
Well, I will instead tackle here the arduous question of “Porn Films and Auteur Films” discussed from various sides in hundreds of round tables (plus an oval one at the White House) but never as in this case with due reason!.
This film “Deep Throat” (1972) directed by Gerard Damiano, although being 70% pornographic, represented something more for the Common Sense of Decency of that prudish and puritanical America of the time, which came out with its bones bruised from the aftermath of the protest of '68: that is the unlocking and legalization of porn as an auteur genre. From here, in fact, with the new wave of sexual liberalism, the mythical Red Light cinemas spread all over the world but now, with the advent of DVDs and the internet, they are practically out of use and visited by drooling old nostalgics (don’t think of me!).

This film made and produced by a handful of indomitable slacker and freak friends, with just $25,000 (practically the weekly allowance of Madonna's daughter), managed to rake in a good $1,300,000 in just one week of programming (and I dare not think what it earned in subsequent years up to the present day… )! It was finally a film with a good idea as the basis of the project.
It tells the story of a woman – the debutante and very ordinary Linda Lovelace – who, not understanding why she can't reach an orgasm and confiding in her best friend, visits the sexologist Freudus – an ironic citation of the famous psychoanalyst – who diagnoses her with an unusual pathology: Linda has her clitoris at the bottom of her throat and to have her sacred right to an orgasm, she will be almost “forced” into some mind-blowing fellatio sessions with various bizarre and well-endowed characters!

But the nice thing in itself (aside from the cultural and historical aspect and beyond the purely cinematic aspect of not much) is the testimony of the vitality, customs, the dialogues and the settings… all rigorously '70s!
A dive into a past laden with nostalgia and truly enviable “Free Power & Love.”

Of course, the pure sex parts, which are abundant, seem almost laughable today but there is no doubt that the palate of young Linda (who launched from a perfect nobody to a real Diva of the International Olympus) was then much more capacious. Only 20 years later, in fact, the girl who caused such a sensation at the time, denounced the film and accused her husband of forcing her to act under threat. Later she will become an extreme supporter of the Fight Against Pornography on an international scale. Today, now that all that prudery has passed, the term “Deep Throat” is used to refer to a spy or an anonymous informant who knows inconvenient truths.

In short: this is an Absolute Classic of hard cinema, with a more incredible Linda Lovelace than ever, and who, even seeking different paths, could not shed the image of the rebellious and uncomfortable character she portrayed.
A pioneer of world pornography, not to mention the only True Masterpiece of the entire Hard filmography worthy of being saved and handed down to History.

P.S. I also recommend watching the DVD “Inside Deep Throat”, the splendid documentary on the making of the film and the era with rare interviews with the director and the "actors" involved. An unmissable gem!