INSIDE Deep Throat: Critic Reviews

Nimble, engrossing, and journalistically eye-opening.

This lively, if maddeningly reductive documentary examines the influence of the low-budget 1972 film Deep Throat.

This trip down memory lane seems to have no agenda and treats principals on both sides of the conflict with respect.

Makes a diverting case for Deep Throat as more than just a shadowy cinematic footnote.

It's a fascinating story but not so fascinatingly told.

The documentary has no great overriding argument it wants to make -- neither about the politicians-turned-censors who thought the world was coming to an end nor about those who saw Deep Throat as the apotheosis of American liberty.

Beneath these cartoon floats marches a parade of greedy goodfellas, scheming exhibitors, idiot politicians, swanning celebs, and frothing religious fundamentalists.

What's lacking here is a clear point of view.

Above all, the film is a lively, music-filled social history.

A better film than its subject.

The movie will set off a slew of new questions.

[A] valuable document of a cultural shift.

Deep Throat bore an X certificate. Inside Deep Throat is an NC-17. Neither is suitable for grownups.

The movie uses new and old interviews and newsreel footage to remember a time when porn was brand-new.

A fast and loose documentary that grabs you in the moment but leaves a distinct emptiness the morning after.

The free-speech agenda is so entrenched that the concept of pornography exploiting women seems to catch the directors flat-footed.

Offers a diverting tale of erstwhile indie filmmaking and the power of porn to generate change -- both at the box office and in the bedroom.

A history lesson that challenges many preconceptions.

The film leaves no doubt that the movie was an important cultural lynchpin in the '70s, but its import beyond those crazy, heady days may have been swept away by the home video revolution.

It just doesn't go deep enough.

The absorption of Deep Throat into the political melodrama that was Watergate seems to have led to some grandiose statements in Messrs. Bailey and Barbato's documentary.

A fascinating look back both at a time when sex wasn't discussed in polite circles, and at Deep Throat itself.

Tracking down everyone possible involved in making the film, a raft of intellectual commentators and key participants in the lengthy legal battles, the filmmakers successfully place Deep Throat in the context of its time.

A thorough but highly entertaining documentary.

Fascinating social criticism and a witty and relevant take on American sexual history.