The most financially successful adult film of all time, this hardcore comedy from director Gerard Damiano used farcical humor and curiosity value to usher in a brief age of so-called "porno chic" in the 1970s. The story concerns Linda (Linda Lovelace), a young woman terribly distressed because she doesn't "hear bells" when she makes love. A visit to the doctor (Harry Reems) reveals that the cause of her woes is that her clitoris is actually located deep in her throat. Linda adjusts to this biological anomaly by practicing oral sex and working as a sexual surrogate. Despite its tremendous success and a nicely done comic performance by Reems (also known as Herbert Streicher),
Deep Throat
is really not a very good film. The cinematography and sound quality are dreadful, and the sex scenes are staged more like those in an amateur stag film than a professional feature. The film nonetheless made a star of Lovelace, who later wrote a book claiming that the film's production manager, her then-boyfriend Chuck Traynor, had forced her to participate with threats and violence. Traynor later entered a lengthy affair with porn star Marilyn Chambers, while Damiano went on to make much better adult films starting with
The Devil in Miss Jones
(1973).