Fenton Baily, the maker of the documentary, Inside Deep Throat posts: “There’s a huge row going on in The Netherlands about what one article calls “a stale old porn movie.” BNN – the PBS of the Netherlands – is planning to air Deep Throat, www.xxxdeepthroat.com [February 23rd] and everyone’s freaking out.

“The fabulously named Arie Slob has denounced the film for ruining the life of a human being (um, don’t most movies ruin the lives of those who appear in them?). Dutch public television has fought back saying the whole experience will be contextualized by showing Inside Deep Throat. The article observes ‘Dutch public television – government-funded, but editorially independent – is trying desperately to win back younger viewers who generally prefer the commercial channels.’ Maybe PBS here should try showing some stale old porn movies.”

…………

The debate will never end about Deep Throat. But one thing’s certain, Linda Lovelace the star of the movie sold herself on the cheap.

According to the Book, The Other Side of Hollywood, Lovelace was paid $1200 for doing the movie which, if you do the math, comes out to something like $100 a day for 12 days. Whereas Deep Throat is supposed to have grossed something like $600 million, imagine if Lovelace had asked for points? But that wasn’t going to happen on a porn shoot and for other reasons, besides.

Because Lovelace, in her own words, admits she was never the apple of Butchie Peraino’s eye, Peraino being the owner of Arrow Productions and the financier of the picture. Peraino wanted a trashy looking blond with big tits in the starring role; and one look at Lovelace in her combat boots and wool cap hardly sold Peraino on her prospects.

Lovelace had to admit one thing about Butchie- he never talked behind her back.

“Anything he had to say about me, he said right to my face and generally at the top of his voice,” says Lovelace who would often hear Peraino and director Gerard Damiano going at one another in battle mode. Damiano fought for Lovelace whereas Peraino thought she was totally wrong for the project and that their entire futures hinged on it.

“Big tits sell tickets!” Peraino would insist.

“Linda stays,” Damiano would fire back.

“We’ve never seen this broad talk!” argued Peraino.

That’s when Damiano came up with the idea of giving Lovelace a “test” by having her recite Mary Had a Little Lamb- first as a straight reading, and then with her laughing.

“I guess they were testing my dramatic range,” muses Lovelace. After this pointless charade, it was then that Damiano suggested Lovelace just give Butchie a blowjob to change his mind. Lovelace walked into Peraino’s office and he told her lock the door.

“C’mon,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.” Loverlace got down on her knees.

“I was doing what I had to do,” she relates. “He went on fussing with the papers on his desk. Then he suddenly stopped, leaned back on his chair and looked up at the ceiling. His whole body stiffened, relaxed, then stiffened again.

“All right,” Peraino said. “Get out of here now.”

Chuck Traynor, Lovelace’s husband, notes that Peraino was casual enough to be eating pizza the times Lovelace would be giving him blowjobs.

“There was no love lost between ‘em,” observes Traynor.

Lovelace, in candor, said she never liked Peraino, either.

“All he was interested in was ‘experiencing the product.’ He wanted to see what it was like having deep throat done to him.”

Harry Reems, who co-starred in the movie, says he was dying to work with Lovelace but was told the movie was being shot in Florida and that it would be too expensive to take him.

“I was crushed,” recalls Reems who wanted to be involved in the project so bad he offered to be on crew for $20 a day. Damiano had second thoughts and told him maybe he could be a gaffer or a grip. Reems, driving Damiano’s blue and white Cadillac which is featured in the movie, left for Florida January 11, 1972.

Traynor had apparently lined up the locations. At least that’s his story. Lenny Camp, described as “The Pied Piper of photographic pornography in South Florida,” by FBI agent Bill Kelly, disputes that idea and calls Traynor “a nuthin.”

“He couldn’t get anybody. He couldn’t get locations. So they called me,” insists Camp.

Traynor tells the story about him and Lovelace driving down to Florida with Anthony Peraino Sr.

“This came up later in the Deep Throat trial,” relates Traynor. “That he transported us across state lines for illegal bullshit.”

According to Lovelace, Traynor kept egging her on to blow Anthony Sr. and would yell at her about it.

“But he wasn’t the least bit into it,” Lovelace says. “He was too nice to embarrass me like that.”

Traynor tells a story about how Lovelace was wearing a sheepskin coat when they started out on the trip.

“It got rained on someplace in New Jersey, and it smelled terrible,” he describes. “So old Mr. Perraino stopped the car and said, ‘Chuck, if you do me a favor, I’ll do you a favor.’”

Perraino told him that if they ditched the coat, he’d buy Lovelace a new one.

Eric Edwards, who had been featured with Lovelace in some loops, feels he could have had Reems’ role in the picture if not for the fact that he was doing summer stock at the time.

Interesting that Edwards has always used the term “summer stock” to relate that story because it was January.