Movie Blog: When I Got in Deep With DEEP THROAT

By Stephen Hanks, BWW NY Cabaret Reviewer

As I read the pre-publicity and then the first reviews of the new film, Lovelace, which chronicles the disturbing story of the woman who in 1972 starred in the highest-grossing porn film of all time, it reminded me of a time in college when I really got myself in deep because of Deep Throat.

It all started in the Spring of 1976, when I was in the second semester of my junior year at Herbert H. Lehman College in the Bronx (City University of New York). During the fall semester I had been the Editor-in-Chief of the school newspaper and our staff was regularly reporting on the ineffectual nature of our student government, made up largely of Hispanic students who were very well-meaning, but who seemed much more interested in staging political protests than in providing activities for the student body. I thought the school's student government could be both political and practical so I decided to run for President for the following year and put together a melting-pot coalition of a ticket called "Independent Students for Services," made up of people from a variety of Lehman's social clubs.

By all accounts it was going to be a very tight race, but my anxiety quickly turned to glee when I arrived on campus (and Lehman was one of the few colleges in the city with an actual semblance of a campus) the morning of the election and realized that members of the opposition ticket were orchestrating another one of their protests. For years, Lehman and all of CUNY had been an open admissions/free tuition system, but these were the "Bronx Is Burning," years, when the city was in the midst of a financial crisis and Lehman's administration was making noises about raising student activities fees and the cost of some other programs that would be a burden for students, especially those from working class Hispanic families. While I completely sympathized with and supported their struggle--hell, my family wasn't exactly raking in the bucks, either--camping in front of the various campus entrances and militantly urging fellow students to boycott classes was not a well thought out Election Day tactic. Hundreds of Lehmanites who probably had no intention of voting in a student government election, if it was even on their radar at all, stormed into the booths and voted for me and my coalition and we won in a mini-landslide.

Over that summer, the Dean of Students gave me a look at what the student activity budget would be for the 1976-77 school year and I immediately felt that perhaps my senior year would be better spent making up all my course incompletes, campaigning for Jimmy Carter for President, and getting ready for baseball season. Outside of bringing in some classic films for Friday and Saturday nights and a few minor comedians and guest speakers, there wouldn't be much money for doing anything for my fellow students that might be really special or memorable. As soon as the school year began, I made a plea to the college administration for additional funds which fell on deaf ears. They didn't exactly tell me to "Drop Dead," the way the New York Daily News characterized President Gerald Ford's attitude towards helping the city's financial crisis, but when Lehman's President pointed to all the construction of new campus buildings that had come to a halt going on three years, I got the picture. I was going to have to devise some very creative ways to generate revenue.

We were scraping along for the first semester when I talked our 15-member Board into spending a large chunk of our entertainment budget to stage a show featuring two of the hottest young comedians from the hottest variety show on television--John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd from Saturday Night Live, which was in its second season. Aykoyd fell ill that week so writer Michael O'Donoghue had to fill in, but they still packed one of our larger school auditoriums. The audience helped Belushi and O'Donoghue remember all the words to "Let's Kill Gary Gilmore For Christmas," an outrageous skit the show had performed just a week before about the impending execution of the infamous serial killer. For the finale, Belushi came to the stage as his famous Samarai character and destroyed a park bench with a electric chain saw.

But the nice box office take from that event wasn't going to carry us for the whole upcoming Spring semester so I needed one more big idea. I found it right before the Winter holiday break while thumbing through the film rental catalog supplied to college student governments. While I knew One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Woody Allen's Love and Death, Taxi Driver, and Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles would generate nice crowds at $2 per ticket, I needed a film that would scream SRO. So I practically had an org*sm when the catalog listed the 1972 porn classic, Deep Throat. I quickly did the calculations--a filled 300-seat auditorium at $2 a head and two showings of the film on a Friday night after classes would bring in about $1,200, which would more than finance our activities for the rest of the year even if our other movie nights totally bombed. And, of course, having just turned 21 and never seeing a porn film, it would be a major win-win for moi. (Please click on Page 2 below to continue.)

I knew the Lehman College administration would be aghast at my plan but they didn't have the power to stop us. To their credit, Lehman's President Leonard Lief and Dean of Students Glen Nygreen respected our freedom of speech rights and I don't remember them ever putting pressure on me not to show the film. They probably knew Deep Throat would rake in the bucks for student goverment and I could stop hounding them for money. But the real surprise came on movie night. We not only packed the Davis Hall auditorium for both showings, but the audience included psychology, sociology, and anthropology faculty that brought large groups of students with them for some kind of lesson in human sexuality, if not a study of oral sex techniques. At the very least they'd get to hear one of the most hilarious lines, given the context, in film history: "Mind if I smoke while you're eating?"

At the end of the second sold-out showing, I was laughing all the way to the accounting office. I had been too caught up in my Presidential and hosting duties during the evening to catch much of the porn film that night (believe me, I've made up for it over the last 35 years), but was so satisfied with the audience response and the box office take, I felt like I was having a symbolic cigarette after great sex. Not to mention the fact that having the cajones to show a porn film made me a total hero among my fellow Lehmanites. As student government president I may have hosted Senator George McGovern's visit to Lehman and led a contingent of students to lobby Albany for more state assistance for CUNY (that's me getting ready to board the bus in photo above), but I would always be remembered by Lehmanites of 1976-77 as the guy who showed Deep Throat on campus.

I spent the weekend reveling in my success--and practicing what I managed to learn from the film with my then fiance--and couldn't wait to get back to campus on Monday to hear the post-Deep Throat buzz. As my habit, I bought the Daily News to read on the long bus ride from Co-op City in the Northeast Bronx to Lehman in the West Bronx. After first scanning the sports section, of course, I flipped to the front pages and flipped out when on page 5 or 7 or 9, screamed a headline to the effect that the religous community and the neighborhood around the college had gone ballistic when they heard a porn film, especially with the notoriety of Deep Throat, had been shown on campus. With my heart racing, I headed straight for the Dean of Students office and Dean Nygreen, with whom I had a great relationship because I had brought some order to student government chaos, greeted me smiling with a "Hellllooooo, Steveeeee" and a look that said, "You've made a fine mess and you've got to get yourself out of it."

After consulting with the Dean, I decided that I'd write a letter of apology to the Reverend of the Church that seemed to be the most offended at the showing of the film (even though the only people who could attend needed college ID cards) and also sent a copy of the letter to some local politicians, community leaders, the Lehman administration, the CUNY Chancellor, and the local and college media. I also explained the practical and financial motivations behind the showing of the film, how nobody was forced to attend, how our entertainment program throughout the year strived for the highest cultural standards (Blazing Saddles not withstanding) blah, blah, blah. But I also stood my ground on what I thought was the most important issue, expressed in that way only an earnest 21-year-old can do it; that obscentity, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder and that if college students could vote and be drafted, they were also adults capable of making judgements on morality and that the moral judgements of some should not be forced on others. There was little to no response to my letter, the bruhaha abated, I didn't get expelled, and in May the Student Government showed the film A Clockwork Orange, which may be a classic to some but others could make the case it is more pornographic than even Deep Throat.

So 36 years after I got in deep with Deep Throat, what subject is by far the most popular in cyberspace? Porn. I guess I was just ahead of my time.