Porn Valley- With the upcoming release release of the video Inside Deep Throat, [September 20] the video that tells the back story behind deep-throat and the controversy surrounding the film ~ Harry Reems is just as energetic and youthful and exuberant now as he was some thirty odd years ago when he played a major starring role in the film Deep Throat, www.xxxdeepthroat.com, the “first real pornographic film of our time,” he tells me. Before that, Reems tells me, “They were 8mm black and white ‘stag films’ that permeated American homes in the 50s and 60s.”
Harry Reems was hired by former hair-stylist turned porn producer Gerald Damiano and was hired to serve as Lighting Director for Deep Throat, www.xxxdeepthroat.com even though he had been on both sides of the camera as both actor and many other jobs one can think of for the making of a film. For his part, Damiano noted in the documentary that he already felt like he knew the dirt on everyone as a hair stylist an was in a way a kind of “confessor” and so all he did was take that information and put it out there. In short, listening to people talk about their lives, their love lives especially as they are often prone to do with hairdressers . Damiano says he knew what people did or thought about. And so in turn, what he did then was essentially “out” it. He went public with what he knew and without giving specifics, Damiano, this swinging stylist who was working with his wife in Queens became the Director of the largest grossing and first pornographic film of our time.
Harry Reems had featured in adult films before, had even worked on a few stag films with Linda Lovelace. Before Deep Throat, he tells me, he had already made some one to two hundred stag films and had a series of different names he used for various roles including Tim Long, Herb Bob Waters and a host of others. He has been in some of the most popular films of our time both before and after Deep Throat but it was Deep Throat that would put everyone, including pornography, both on the map and on trial, as it would turn out.
With Deep Throat things started out a little differently. Reems had been offered an altogether different role from the one that would make him famous. As he tells me, “[I] wasn’t even supposed to act in the film, but after a year or two of doing the films, my interest started to perk behind the camera and so I did lighting work, camera work, sound work and was then hired to be the lighting director on Deep Throat, So Jerry Damiano said ‘Do it one more time for me and have fun,’ and that’s how Deep Throat was born,” Reems says recalling his own involvement.
And fun they did have, making fun of establishment films that existed in which white-lab coated doctors directed a rather robotic couple through various love making positions, occasionally making such comments as this one, that appeared on the documentary that was just released about Deep Throat “Sometimes, a man likes to look at his wife’s buttocks during the sex act,” or some equally rigid and totally sexless comment.
This was the “porn” of the moment, if you could even call it that, and according to Reems and I and most others would agree, “True porn did not exist until Deep Throat which is what made it so ground-breaking,” adds Reems. “Prior to deep throat there was a special interest or genre/group of people,” Reems tells me, these must be the white coat films we spoke of earlier. He adds, “These movies belonged in the home, not in the theater, they were not a form of entertainment.” No question, Reems is absolutely bang on the money.
Reems tells me enthusiastically “Deep Throat was the first of its kind Deep throat was the first film like this that had no socially redeeming value. It was strictly a comedy and … celebrities such as Bob Hope and everyone including Johnny Carson were going to see it and talking about it. Pornography was brand new to America.” And Reems knows what he’s talking about, which takes us back to the dry, lab-coated films that were for “couples” or perhaps offered some “minor titillation.” It became, “as The New Times reported, ‘Porno Chic’ to have seen Deep Throat.
It’s easy to see where Reems is coming from of those early films of the fifties. These were not pornographic films. They were safe films of a set mentality. Deep Throat would poke fun at the safer films of other generations. There in Deep Throat is Reems in his white coat, just as the doctor should be, pointing out anatomical details, just as the doctors did do, only this time the physical inaccuracies made room for a full and fun bedroom romp and for Linda Lovelace to show off and demonstrate her fantastic fellatio skills and for Reems to feature in the role of a lifetime with some pretty nice fringe benefits at the time, no doubt but also some major problems down the road that nobody could have predicted.
For those who may have not seen the film, the conceit of Deep Throat is a woman who says she is unable to have an orgasm and submits to a doctor’s exam. After looking in her throat, Reems exclaims that her clitoris is in her throat. Hence, the method of getting off for Lovelace was to give blowjobs like nobody’s business. It was her ‘special talent’ and she does exactly what the title of the film suggests and incredibly well (note: the documentary has some pretty impressive scenes for those who may not have seen the actual film, though I highly recommend seeing both together if you can.)
As it turned out, Reems says, his early work would come in handy for Deep Throat. To make the film more complete and fill in some sequencing and make a smoother film, “scenes were spliced in” from Reems’ earlier work with Lovelace could be taken from the “loops” or “stag films,” notes Reems, filling in any blank spots that the original might have had or any additional scenes the Director wanted. “The film clocked in at a total of 61 minutes.”
Shot at various locations in Coconut Grove, Florida , one known and fabulous location was the home and estate of a self-professed swinger and count, Count Sepe. Count or not, Sepe provided the perfect set-up for various scenes in the film. It was, says Reems, “Perfectly private, lots of vegetation, and he was a swinger and so was Jerry Damiano.” The two men got along and the deal was struck. Count Sepe and his estate became a part of film history and Deep Throat, and stars Harry Reems and Linda Lovelace along with Damiano became indelibly etched in the collective consciousness ~ or for certain, in the minds of the many thousands upon thousands of who have seen and continue to see the most famous and first real pornographic film ever to be made.
Harry, Damiano, Lovelace and the whole crew “were pioneers,” says Reems. They were, he notes, “The first of a new generation. Deep Throat made fun of socially redeeming values. It became a phenomenon. This one was ground breaking, and it made over 600 million dollars,” (almost none of which the actual actors saw.). Deep Throat took the first real pornography in America and sent it literally sky-rocketing to the top of American culture and consciousness. In fact, Deep Throat, as Reems tells me, became, was and remains a “cultural phenomenon.” Reems explains, “It was a time of great flux… JFK was president…and executed because of it. [it was] a volatile, colorful and exotic decade in America and pornography was just one small part of it and Deep Throat was just one small part of that contribution.”
More and not generally known, the documentary of Deep Throat was financed by Universal Studios and HBO and directed by two award winning documentary film makers. It was,” Reems tells me, “an interesting cultural essay on the sixties through the present.”
As for the original Deep Throat, it has “Sold 50 million tickets,” and remains if not the largest then one of the “The largest grossing films in the history of the motion picture industry. It costs 25,000 thousand dollars and grossed 600 million dollars…The documentary of the film Deep Throat was featured at Sun Dance film festival and met with wonderful acclaim,” says Reems (which, by the way, Roger Ebert & Richard Roeper gave it two thumbs up)”and went on to many other film festivals.” “It’s an interesting cultural essay from the sixties through the present,” he notes and he’s undoubtedly, Reems’ observations are right on the money. .
“It [the sixties] was a time of great social revolution. black rights, women’s rights, the freedom of information act, really the biggest social revolution in American history. Couples who had never been out to the movies [this kind of movie] grew curious and so it became a curiosity. It [Deep Throat] gave husbands and wives the freedom to go to a movie not to get sexually titillated ~ how could they not be though… people who had never gone to a porno movie were now going with their wives. People who went to see Deep Throat maybe never went to another porno movie again,” notes Reems, pointing out the incredible spin and curiosity that surrounded this ground-breaking film.
America had never seen anything like it. “Johnny Carson was talking about it, Bob Hope was joking about it…the New York Times ran a headline that said Porno Chic,” which only added yet more fuel to the fire. Notes Reems, “But Deep Throat got a lot of attention because of the legal issues involved.”
Meanwhile, Reems had a life of his own. He wasn’t a swinger like Damiano and some of the others involved. He was hanging out in the village and was seeing performers like Bob Dylan at clubs; “believing make love not war and being a living part of the social revolution.”
It seemed inevitable then that as the film became more and more successful, and since it was such a pioneer effort, that the authorities would take note and see this as yet another form of social malevolence or in the very least, a threat to a so-called “civilized” society. “Police had raided World Theatre on West 49th and it was busted and taken off the screen.” A judge had Deep Throat removed from the theatre. “The film was banned in Banned in over 23 states and yes it was controversial . . . there were the “white coat” films before this and they always had this pretense,” by which Reems means the so-called white-coat with a doctor narrating various sex act films and the stag films (also known as ‘the loops,’ in which Reems had also starred) before Deep Throat was released. There was one film in Denmark – Curious Yellow – which challenged existing obscenity laws, but that’s it,” says Reems about anything before Deep Throat.
None of this stopped the swift progression of Deep Throat as it moved quickly across the country from theatre to theatre taking each town by storm and giving married couples a new-found freedom. “Even if they went only to see it once, they saw a porno together for the first time.” There was titillation and there was information and there was, just as the New York Times reported, Porno Chic. There was a certain something to going to see Deep Throat that made a social statement. “People who had never gone to a porno before were now going with their wives,” says Reems excitedly and quickly.
Reems, by the way, if you haven’t noticed already, is a fast-talking man with about a hundred-thousand facts at his fingertips ready to go. He’s quick as a whip, keen and importantly, “cleaned up.” After the making of Deep Throat, Harry Reems was in for the shock of his life when the great controversy surrounding Deep Throat landed squarely on his doorstep. As he tells me, he was “Tried in Memphis, Tennessee and tried to the Columbo family conspiracy to transport obscene materials… It was absurd. The authorities were trying to hold an actor responsible for the distribution of a film…. It was the first time an artist was prosecuted for a film.” This, without question, ruined Reems’ life. He tells of how he began drinking “just to get through the trial” initially, and eventually, was drinking every day.
Now, twelve steps later, Reems, a self-professed “former alcoholic” is a settled and energetic Methodist who is clean and sober. He no longer makes porn flicks and doubtless, the industry misses him, but the rest of the world now can welcome him with open arms to receive his endless charm and his fast, often razor-sharp wit.
Reems is a warm man, one feels, but tough too and with God on his side now, one senses there is nothing this man can’t do.