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Deep T
By LINDA DEUTSCH
Associated Press Writer
L 0 S A N G E L E S -
"Deep Throat," the movie that
made pornography "chic" and
pushed permissiveness to new ex-
tremes, is being strangled by leg-
al problems, one of the first no-
ticeable victim of a tough U. S.
Supreme Court ruling on obscen-
ity.
Distributors of the movie say
they have ceased peddling it to
theaters. In towns where the
film is still playing, exhibitors
are being urged by their attor-
neys to tone down advertising
and assume a low profile.
IN AT LEAST 12 American
cities "Deep Throat" has been
seized on obscenity charges.
Judges in New York City, Cleve-
land and Miami Beach have
ruled that the movie is obscene.
Court tests are pending else-
where.
At the Pussycat Theater here,
where "Deep Throat" has been
playing since last November,
the show goes on. The theater
owner and manager are awaiting
resumption of their obscenity
trial. It was halted while they
appealed, unsuccessfully, to have
the charges dropped.
There is no hint that theater
owner Vince Miranda will close
the show voluntarilly. Its recent
gross receipts have topped $60,-
000 a week, although a theater
spokesman notes that the take
has declined considerably from
the $98,000 a week it was reap-
ing early in the run. Tickets to
"Deep Throat" cost $5 apiece.
THE FILM'S national gross re-
ceipts already have climbed past
$3.5 million, an enviable return
on a production that cost $25,000
to make in six days in Miami.

PORNO CHIC
hroat: Not strangled yet

But litigation costs money and
the price rises when fines are
imposed, as the exhibitors found
out in New York when Judge
Joel J. Tyler fined them $100,-
000 and banned the movie.
In New York, a spokesman
for Damiano Productions says
the company has stopped distri-
bution of "Deep Throat" because
of "the law." A subdistributor,
Aquarius Films, has also halted
distribution because of the litiga-
tion.
THE SPOKESMEN declined
further comment "on advice of
counsel."

who became a freakish cult hero-
ine, and its content, which fea-
tures 15 sex acts inculding seven
of fellatio and four of cunnilin-
gus. The 62-minute production
is a tale of a young woman
whose clitoris is located in her
throat.
THE SEX IN the movie is ex-
plicitly real, classifying it as
hard core pornography, the kind
of film that once was confined to
stag gatherings, whispered about
but not discussed openly and cer-
tainly not shown in the company
of "decent women."
Times have changed indeed.

toward pornography by loosen-
ing restrictions on explicit lan-
guage and nudity in respectable
films.
Motion P i c t u r e Associa-
tion of America President Jack
Valenti puts no blame on legiti-
mate film makers. But he wor-
ried for a long time that the
emergence of pornography from
the underworld would worry the
public so much it would lead to
censorship.
"THE PUBLIC'S discomfort
over what it thinks is the prolif-
eration of pornography," Valenti
noted, "is as important as whe-

"Deep Throat has become a household word only b e c a u s e the
country is in a lot of trouble. Because basically the movie's success has
proven to me that there is such a void, such a need for sexual aware-
ness, that the movie was accepted as something people can grab onto
and discuss openly because of its humorous aspects."
-Gerard Damiano, Throat producer
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Although "Deep Throat's" days
may be numbered, questions
arising now are less about its fu-
ture and more about its past.
How could a film like "Deep
Throat" have become such a hit
and -why?
The film's main attractions
were its star Linda Lovelace,

Storm: A throwback
tte good old day

BOSTON (UPI) - In this age
of complete nudity and explicit
sex on stage and screen, burles-
que queen Tempest Storm is a
refreshing breeze of modesty.
"I still believe something
should be left to the imagina-
tion," said Storm, one of the
few "queens of the runway" who
survived the demise of burlesque
houses across the country over
the past decade.
WITH THE advent of topless
and bottomless night clubs and
hard-core pornographic movies,
burlesque was pushed aside and
most of the top name exotics
have quietly retired as a show
business era came to an end.
Storm, however, has remained
active on the supper club cir-
cuit and recently completed a
seven-week tour of college cam-
puses. Although she's in her mid-
40s, she shows little sign of age,
maintaining her y o u t h f u 1-
ness with regular trips to physi-
cal health centers.
She r e t u r n e d to Boston
recently - she used to be a
regular performer at the Casino
before it was demolished by ur-
ban renewal a dozen years ago
- as the featured attraction at
the Pilgrim Theater, a former
X-rated movie house that owner
Joe Savino hopes will be a fore-
runner of the return of burles-
que.
THE PILGRIM is the
only house in the country now
showing burlesque in the format
popular until recent years, com-
plete with chorus girls, blackout
skits and comedians.
S t o r m, incidentally, isn't
overjoyed at the return of thea-
ter burlesque because of the 12-
hour days, seven-day weeks that
performers must put in. "I pre-
fer supper clubs," she said, add-
ing that this was the first thea-

ter show she's worked in. in two
years.
Prior to. her opening night per-
formance at the Pilgrim, Storm
talked about the changes that
have occurred in the entertain-
ment world over the past few
years, and there are things she
doesn't quite agree with, such
as hard-core pornography.
"WHAT TWO PEOPLE do in
their own privacy is their busi-
ness," she said, "but I don't
think it should be exploited up
on the screen." Sex movies and
total nudity on the stage go be-
yond the bounds of good taste,
she said.
"Topless is fine, but bottom-
less is tasteless," she said, which
she later demonstrated in her act
as she uncovered her 41-inch
bust but retained her G-string,
although other performers in the
show took it all off.
. Storm, a 5-foot-6 inch tall flam-
ing redhead, emphasized that the
strip tease, done properly and in
good taste, is an art form and
that "women can really learn
something" by watching it.
"ANYBODY CAN just take off
their clothes and jump into bed
with their husbands," she said,
"but that's not really doing it
with finesse. I demonstrate how
it's done."
And that she intends to keep
on doing on an upcoming lec-
ture tour of colleges. The title
of her talk will be "Boudoir
Techniques that E v e r y House-
wife Should Know."
She applies these domestic at-
titudes to her stage perform-
ance, being the forever alluring
female by not stripping complete-
ly.
"YOU HAVE to leave some-
thing for the imagination," she
said. "Otherwise, you take away
the mystery."

Outside the Pussycat Theater,
women gamely line up for the
show along with their husbands
or boyfriends. No one hides be-
hind dark glasses and the crowd
is decidedlly upper middle class.
In a recent four-day period the
University Research Group, com-
missioned by a defense attorney
in the local "Deep Throat" trial,
conducted a survey of 2,600 of
the movie's patrons, providing
some hint of who goes to see
"Deep Throat."
THE SURVEY found that al-
most half of the viewers were be-
tween 20 and 29 with another 29
per cent between 30 and 39. The
show's $5 ticket price seemed
to attract thosetwell able to af-
ford it - 47 per cent of the
g r o u p earned between $10,-
000 and $25,000 per year.
The researchers established
that 51 per cent of the sample
were married and 31 per cent
brought their spouses. Another
16 per cent came on dates and
most of the balance of viewers
visited the theater with friends.
In New York, where the film
grossed $1.3 million in a 39-week
run before it was closed down,
mink - coated ladies regularly
braved the winter chill to stand
in line for the show.
IT WAS A sight that worried
some - oddly including the pro-
ducer of "Deep Throat," 44-year-
old Gerald Damiano a former
h a i r d r e a s e r who has
been stunned by the film's suc-
cess.
"'Deep Throat' has become a
household word," he said, "only
because the country is in a lot
of trouble . . . Because basically
the movie's success has proven,
to me that there is such a void,
such a need for sexual aware-
ness, that the movie was accept-
ed as something that people can
grab onto and discuss openly be-
cause of its humorous aspects."
Some critics lauded "Deep
Throat" for its technical slick-
ness and attempt at telling a
story which elevated it above the
usual run of porno movies with
their emphasis on athletics rath-
er than script.
DAMIANO'S latest effort, "The
Devil in Miss Jones," a porno-
graphic morality tale about a vir-
gin spinster who commits suicide
and finds an orgy in the afterlife,
has won even more favorable no-
tices.
Some industry watchers have
claimed that the "legitimate"
movie industry lured audiences

ther it is actually proliferating."
He predicted last April that "the
N i x o n administration sees that
discomfort and is prepared to do
something about it."
Now, the U. S. Supreme Court
has done something about it with
a decision that delegrates broad-
er power to states to define and
prosecute against obscenity.
The first target in many states
in their use of this new decision
has been "Deep Throat." The
film has been the subject of seiz-
ures and prosecution in Tucson,
Ariz., San Jose, Fresno and Bev-
erly Hills, Calif.; 'Miami Beach;
Cleveland; Dallas, Fort Worth
and Houston, Texas; New York
City and Binghamton, N.Y.
THE LATTER two cases were
decided before the high court de-
cision with a jury in Binghamton
ruling the film not obscene and
the New York judge banning it
as obscene.
The New York City ruling
seemed to indicate that with or
without the Supreme Court deci-
sion, "Deep Throat" would have
been subject to repeated legal at-
tacks. The problem was not that
it was a dirty movie; there had
been many before and a few had
even made more money than
"Deep Throat." The problem
was the film's respectability.
For the first time, a pornogra-
phic movie star, Linda Lovelace,
was being interviewed on TV talk
shows.
SHE WAS FEATURED on the
cover of national magazines and
invited to lecture at the Na-
t i o n a l Booksellers convention
when she published a quickie au-
tobiography.
But Judge Tyler, in his New
York decision banning the film,
expressed anger when he said of
the film, "It is hard core pornog-
raphy with a vengeance ..., This
is one throat that deserves to be
cut. I readily perform the opera-
tion in finding the defendant
guilty as charged."
WASHINGTON (UPI) - Com-
muters in New York, Seattle,
San Francisco and Washington,
D.C. have found a way to get
around rush hour traffic, says
Donald S. Knight, director of the
Road Information Program. It's
the busway, where buses use ex-
clusive highway lanes to bypass
traffic. This saves transit time
and eliminates the need for
thousands of cars, he says. The
experimental, federally aided
busway projects use a selected
route in each city.


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