Paul Interlandi has encountered some adversity as he works to get the original Deep Throat ready for theatrical release.
Arrow Productions owner Raymond Pistol, who owns the rights, hired Interlandi to upgrade the video masters of the 1972 release and then turn them into film prints for distribution to theaters that want to include it on a double-bill with the new NC-17 documentary, Inside Deep Throat.
"We're having the master transferred to HD," Interlandi explained. "We're then going to use a special motion picture camera that shoots a very high resolution monitor, and converts the video, then, to film. They use that a lot to convert entries in the Sundance Film Festival for screening at the festival. It's a very expensive process."
But some unforeseen obstacles have hampered the process.
"I just got thrown out of another lab," Interlandi said Friday. "Somebody, a vice-president, found out that they were working on the show, pulled the film, had it on his desk, and told me to come get it; said that they have an agreement with Disney, and that Disney prohibits anybody from working on anything NC-17 or above [i.e., XXX]. Just to verify that they had the right to throw us out, they actually called the MPAA to check our rating, and I guess it was rated X by them way back when. So The Mouse fucked me. And, you know, that's funny, coming from a company that's mostly staffed by gay people."
It wasn't Interlandi's first disappointment. Those started about two weeks ago, when theater owners from around the country started calling Arrow to see if prints of Deep Throat were available for theatrical showing along with the new documentary. They weren't, so Pistol put Interlandi on the job.
"I called probably 20 facilities in Los Angeles before I got somebody to do it, and now they've crapped out on me too," Interlandi told AVN.com a week ago. "This one place [which Interlandi asked not to be named] asked for volunteers to work on it, so nobody who was working on it cared, but somebody just walked by the production area and happened to see it, and they went all the way to the top, created a huge drama down there. They scrapped all the work they had already done, and told me to pick up my stuff and get out. I've been totally up-front with everybody, and there's a whole list of other companies I contacted that wouldn't touch our product."
"Now I know what a black person in the South in the '50s felt like, wanting to go and eat at a restaurant that says 'Whites Only,’" he added ruefully.
So even though Arrow had plans to re-open Deep Throat in theaters to coincide with the Feb. 11 release of Inside Deep Throat, that schedule could not be kept.
"So now I've got to start all over again," Interlandi said. "I'm not even going to mention where I'm at right now, but they're charging me double – 100 percent more than the place I got thrown out of – just to shoot five prints of the film, so porn gets a penalty of 100 percent."
But with 15 orders from theaters already, five prints won't make the cut, so Interlandi has been forced to go outside of California to find a company that will dupe enough prints.
"I'm moving the whole thing to another state – I can't even say which state; I'm afraid to. I have to leave this state to even work on this film."
But at least, now, he's satisfied that he'll be able to have enough prints to supply any theater that wants it – and plenty do.
"We'll be opening Deep Throat in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Philadelphia," announced Mark Borde of Innovation Film Group, which is the exclusive U.S. theatrical distributor for the film. "We're one of the largest independent film distributors in the country, and we normally wouldn't carry a product like this, but Deep Throat is just such an icon. We consider it to be very different from the type of porn produced today; it's a piece of history, and we're proud to be able to help a new generation of adults see what all the furor was about 30 years ago.
In Los Angeles, Deep Throat will have its new premiere at 10 p.m., Thursday night, Feb. 24, at the Laemmle Sunset 5 Theaters on Sunset Boulevard. Attendees will be able to see the original, uncut version of the film, along with a mini-documentary created by Interlandi, Days of Deep Throat, which is also available on the Special Edition DVD of the film.
"I did this little documentary with Eric Edwards," Interlandi said. "He's one of the few people around who did a sex scene with Linda Lovelace, and he was around during the era when Deep Throat was made, and I have parts of that sex scene in the documentary. I also found some stills from the first scene that he ever did, and one of Linda's early scenes – it was within a few days of the scene with the dog [in a now-banned hardcore loop], and Eric says he was there when she had sex with the dog, and I have his story on tape, but I didn't put it in the documentary because, frankly, I didn't want to go down that path."
Inside Deep Throat will also be playing at the Laemmle Sunset 5, but not on a double-bill with Deep Throat, so those wanting to see both should arrive earlier and expect to pay a second admission price. Check local listings for show times.
Although for the past two weeks Interlandi has been totally immersed in getting the films produced, let him talk and he begins to wax philosophical about the significance of the movie.
"If you're an archeologist," he analogizes, "and you find a plate from Greek times or from ancient Rome, with Spartans and everybody, all these guys sucking each other's dicks and butt-fucking 'em, you preserve it; you photograph it, put it in a museum, whatever. We shine a light on it; we say, 'Look at this art that these people did 2000 years ago,' right? How is Deep Throat different? It's more important than a fuckin' plate with guys butt-fuckin' each other. It's the film that opened up the adult industry to the world. It's as important as any of that stuff, and the fact that nobody wants to work on it, to help me preserve it, it's a fuckin' crime against humanity."
"I think that Deep Throat, as crude as it is, is art," he continues. "The first person that drew something on the wall of a cave did a crappy job, but it was an attempt at art. Has porn gotten better since Deep Throat? Sure. But there wasn't anything then. Deep Throat is a goofy movie, but it was done in 1972. Things were pretty crude back then."
And Interlandi is a dreamer as well.
"This is my fantasy, but seeing Gerry Damiano in [Inside Deep Throat], he's obviously coherent and still sharp – I dream that we could get him to direct a brand-new Deep Throat with the exact original script; to have him re-do it and have him do a good job."
Interlandi won't say whether he's been in contact with Damiano, but he hopes one day to interview both him and star Harry Reems for a possible Deep Throat DVD box set.
Theater owners – and only theater owners – who wish to arrange to show Deep Throat in their theaters can contact Mark Borde at Innovation Film Group in Santa Monica, Calif., at 310-656-6333. Cable, satellite and foreign theatrical rights to the film are being arranged through Cable Entertainment Distributors (C.E.D.) at 310-829-0033.
