Inside Deep Throat

(Herald rating * * * )

In its opening moments, as Supertramp's Crime of the Century plays on the soundtrack, this film seems as though it might have a sense of both humour and detachment sufficient to provide a useful perspective on its subject.

But the solemn and gravelly tones of narrator Dennis Hopper serve notice that, the double entendre of the title notwithstanding, this is going to be a Serious Examination of a Cultural Phenomenon.

The Deep Throat of the title is not the Watergate informant but the landmark 1972 porn movie about a young woman whose clitoris was behind her tonsils and for whom fellatio was thus the preferred form of sexual activity.

The film, bankrolled by associates of the Columbo crime family, returned an estimated $914 million on a budget of $38,000 - making it the most profitable film of all time. It also helped to spawn the "adult entertainment" industry, which in present-day America releases about 25 titles for every Hollywood film.

Inside Deep Throat is full of such factoids. But as a documentary, it is frustratingly incoherent.

At its most entertaining when it introduces the rogues gallery of kooks behind the making of the film, it shows you enough about the film to realise that you have missed nothing by not having seen it. But for much of its running time it seeks to cast the furore over Deep Throat as both an epic battle over First Amendment rights and a landmark event of the 70s sexual revolution.

That seems a heavy burden for a cheap little film with an improbable gimmick to bear and it vastly and disingenuously overstates the film's importance in the scheme of things.

Inside Deep Throat is a slight and slightly entertaining look at a sliver of cultural history.

DIRECTORS: Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato
RUNNING TIME: 90 mins
RATING: R18, explicit sex scenes
SCREENING: Rialto from Thursday