By Aparna John
The documentary Inside Deep Throat was more than anything
else instrumental in voicing the story of Harry Reems, the one man who was arbitrarily
and untenably painted as a social outcast for acting in the cult adult film,
Deep Throat. With the DVD release of the documentary, Harry
was once again present in New York to share his views on the sixties and the
huge impact this film had on his life and career. When one meets Harry Reems,
now 58, they are reminded of what Alan M. Dershowitz thought of him when he
first met him in Harvard University: a lawyer. And it is not just Harry’s
appearance, but his well-thought out and crisply articulated comments that reinforce
the fact that it was his conviction and intelligence that made Hollywood take
notice of his trial almost three decades ago.
THE CHANGED MAN AND ANDY WARHOL
In many interviews following the release of the documentary at Sundance, Harry
Reems has made it his mission to spread his ‘tale of redemption’-
a tale that begins in the sixties with the unprecedented success of an adult
film and ends in the religious hysteria of courtrooms in Memphis, Tennessee.
Three decades later, Harry Reems is a changed man; the immediate aftermath of
Deep Throat that resulted in his arrest and subsequent alcoholism
has led to the long-term espousal of Christianity, stability and charity in
Harry’s life. Yet, as he reminisced for DVDFanatic.com, Harry
was not cynical of the sixties and its utopian zeitgeist. He mentions that the
sexual revolution that Deep Throat unleashed and promised continues to be a
positive phenomenon for society. Curiously, Deep Throat also
brought Andy Warhol to Harry. It appears that Warhol was interested in making
a sculpture of Harry’s penis and that Harry refused the offer because
it seemed “distasteful.” In this context, Harry adds that even though
he was actively making adult films in the sixties, he did not “take on
the lifestyle” of Warhol and the Chelsea group.
While admitting that the hippiedom of the sixties was a “crazy time,”
he also adds that it was a period when pornography greatly enabled sexual liberation
and women’s rights movements. When asked if he would do it all over again,
he admits that he would, albeit as this “Harry Reems” who is more
prudent when it comes to his excesses. If it weren’t for the twelve-step
AA program he claims, he would not have found God, love and peace in his life.
And he attributes God’s presence in him to the charity work he does for
Tibetan students and children in India.
ON PORN
On asked about his views on pornography, he believes that it has come to be
a question of individual and personal choice, with the increasing distribution
of porn as videos and DVDs and the complete disappearance of adult films in
film theaters and multiplexes. Pornography, he says, has become increasingly
voyeuristic and privatized- a tool and aid for which he finds little use.
DEEP THROAT AND BEYOND
During the harrowing trial at Memphis, Tennessee, Harry mentions that Gerry
Damiano, the director of Deep Throat, “felt awful”
taking the stand against him and later apologized for the unjustified accusations.
He emphasizes that there is no anger or animosity between them and that they
are still good friends. As for Linda Lovelace, who went on to claim that she
was brutally coerced to make Deep Throat, Harry strongly evinces
that in his presence, not only as the star but also as the lighting director
of the film, no one had forced Lovelace to do the film.
Reems also starred in the French version of Deep Throat, George
Profunde, with a Lovelace-look alike who was shot from behind for a completely
different script. He describes his days in Europe as extremely rich and enlightening,
and one observes that a chance to have migrated there was stumped by the FBI
confiscating his passport between the years 1974-76.
ON THE HARRY REEMS' ATHLETIC CLUB
Harry was contacted almost four years ago by the Harry Reem’s club that
playfully adopted his name for a convention of elder marathon-runners and motorcyclists.
This was a request to send an autographed picture as a birthday present for
the President of the club, and it was the first time that Harry came to know
of its existence. With 44,000 members and more enlisting from all over the world
under his rubric, Harry Reems is now graced by the visit of motorcyclists who
travel all the way to Park City, Utah!
SOME THINGS HAVE('NT) CHANGED
As a hard-core democrat and firm believer of the Christian faith, Harry regrets
to state that the contemporary political situation sadly reminds him of the
Nixon administration and the deleterious effect it played on his career. For
one thing, he believes that the administration cleverly converted and obscured
an organized crime trial to a trial on obscenity and pornography. He rightly
locates the misfortune that plagued him for playing a “fun” role
in a film in the regressive politics of his time. Nonetheless he admits that
things have changed: in a video store of one of the finest hotels in Memphis,
Tennessee, where he was arraigned for playing a comic-doc in an adult film,
Harry finds thirty years later, an original copy of Deep Throat.
This is a good sign, because it does come as a shock when he says that he has
never seen Deep Throat “from beginning to end!”
