#55: Deep Throat Prompts Obscenity Trial

Before the early 1970s, pornography was a strictly underground taboo, but the revolutionary adult film Deep Throat broke the mold, sending erotica from “smut” to “porno chic” almost overnight.

In 1972, the World Adult Theater in New York’s Times Square premiered the monumental film, which tells the story of a sexually frustrated woman, played by Linda Lovelace, who goes to the doctor only to learn that her clitoris is located in the back of her throat. Thankfully there is a very simple remedy, which the doctor and a variety of other men happily demonstrate. Director Gerard Damiano set his film apart from other pornos by including an actual storyline, superior cinematography, and witty dialogue–like a recipient of oral sex asking, “Do you mind if I smoke while you eat?” The movie even garnered a favorable review in Variety.

An NYC judge ruled that the film was “indisputably obscene by any measure,” and Deep Throat was banned in 23 states. After a lengthy, costly legal battle, lead actor Harry Reems and 11 others involved in the film were convicted of conspiracy to distribute obscenity across state lines. (In the years to follow, Reems’s career hit the rocks and he fell into alcohol and drug abuse.)

But the government proved to be Deep Throat’s best publicist. The controversy surrounding the flick pushed its worldwide gross into the stratosphere, with some estimates reaching $600 million.

Not even Batman or Spidey can touch Lovelace!