FBI files show wide 'Deep Throat' (film) investigation

[villager]

Source: AP


FBI files show wide 'Deep Throat' investigation

By MATT SEDENSKY, Associated Press Writer

MIAMI – Newly released FBI files show agents across the country and at the highest level of the agency investigated "Deep Throat" — the 1972 porn movie, not the shadowy Watergate figure — in a vain attempt to roll back what became a cultural shift toward more permissive entertainment.

The documents released to The Associated Press show the expanse of agents' investigation into the film: seizing copies of the movie, having negatives analyzed in labs and interviewing everyone from actors and producers to messengers who delivered reels to theaters.

All of it in a failed attempt to stop the spread of a movie that some saw as the victory of a cultural and sexual revolution and others saw as simply decadent.

"Today we can't imagine authorities at any level of government — local, state or federal — being involved in obscenity prosecutions of this kind," said Mark Weiner, a constitutional law professor and legal historian at Rutgers-Newark School of Law. "The story of 'Deep Throat' is the story of the last gasp of the forces lined up against the cultural and sexual revolution and it is the advent of the entry of pornography into the mainstream."

The papers are among 498 pages from the FBI file on Gerard Damiano, who directed the movie and died in October. Released this month following a Freedom of Information Act request by the AP, they are just a glimpse into Damiano's roughly 4,800-page file. More than 1,000 additional pages were withheld under FOIA exemptions and because they duplicated other material; the balance of the file has not yet been reviewed and released.

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Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090619/ap_on_en_mo/us_fbi_deep_throat

[davepc]

1. No mention of the fact that the mob was involved in the production and distribution of porno?

[villager]

4. later in the article -- used as a theory to launch the investigation, but no mention in the file

In the end, the culture war angle seemed more important to the Bureau than actually investigating the mob...

[caseymoz]

5. Doesn't mean the movie itself was a criminal act.

The mob was also involved in a lot of entertainment then. Bars, night clubs, casinos . . . even Hollywood to a degree. None of that was illegal.

It's when they dealt drugs, ran extortion and gambling rackets (using harsh collection methods), fenced stolen goods and murdered people that they were committing crimes. Let's not even mention evading taxes . . .

The main reason why the mob was in porn was because nobody else wanted to handle it, even though there was demand, repressed and beleaguered though it was. It appears they are not in it so much any more, because non-criminals will handle it. Same with gambling.

[zazen]

6. and no mention that it's 90 minutes documenting Linda Marciano's being raped?

[Seeking Serenity]

16. Do what?

[zazen]

17. the late Linda Marciano (Lovelace) had her life threatened by Chuck Traynor to make film

Chuck was her "husband," whom she married under duress (like, he threatened her life). She was brutally battered by him and forced into grueling prostitution, which he filmed--he threatened to kill her parents if she left, watched her even when she went to the bathroom, and brutally beat her twice near death the first few times she left, including anally raping her with an object so fiercely that she ended up in emergency bleeding profusely. When she finally did escape, he finally left her alone because he had managed to get ahold of Marilyn Chambers, whom he apparently battered thereafter. Linda remarried and her died Linda Marciano a few years back.

It's all widely documented.

[Hoopla Phil]

2. Oh, dear Gia! I thought this was about something real.

[rcrush]

3. I did my own extensive research of that movie when I was a kid.

Yeah research...

[jmondine]

7. This was a good use of taxpayer money but universal health care isn't?

Gods, but our culture has its priorities messed up.

[RedCloud]

8. When will the FBI learn that "Power to the Penis!" is tough to stop?

I guess they are now investigating "Extense" with that claim "for erections lasting more than four hours, consult your doctor..." or more likely, consult your local orgy party.

I would imagine the Bureau does not want for volunteers on such assignments. But it does look like the FBI was into intimidating more than fact finding...

[Bucky]

9. I find this a little bit hard to...

...believe.

:shrug: What did you think I was gonna type?

[No Elephants]

11. LOLOL!

[No Elephants]

10. Last gasp? Don't bet on it.

[corpseratemedia]

12. a 4,800 page file...wow

I bet they were analyzing..slowly...deeeply...trying to take the hardest stand they could against this cultural ..abyss

[mikeargo]

13. Nixon watched it dozens of times...

He wanted to get it down Pat

[Stump]

15. Nice...

Dude, that's funny right there. ;-)

[stlsaxman]

18. Good one!

[mitchum]

14. The most profitable movie ever made

[Blandocyte]

19. They can suck it

Jerks.