by SARAH ROWLAND

Fantasizing about sex-starved sirens of air service was nice while it lasted and that's exactly what the makers of The Stewardesses counted on. The '69 film strings together several titillating vignettes of airline kittens on their night off in various combinations of sexual activity. One girl drops acid and gets it on with her lamp. Another scene consists of two bi-curious jet bimbos frolicking in bed together.

While these particular scenarios sound as playful as a pillow fight, there is a dark undertone to the central story, which concentrates on a naïve model wannabe who dates an ad exec in hope of landing a make-up contract. But she soon realizes that whoring herself has made her life a living hell.

However, a plot surrounding flight attendants in heat was only one-third of the winning combination that catapulted the film to box-office success. Filmed in 3D and promoted with a triple-X rating (even thought it was actually softcore), the movie cost $150,000 (U.S.) to produce and ended up raking in more than $27-million (U.S.).

Dan Symmes, cameraman/ make-up artist/3D calculator/editor, worked on The Stewardesses - which will be showcased July 16–18 at 3-D Mania, as part of the eighth annual international comedy film festival, Comedia. He remembers how the trio of gimmicks drew in moviegoers.

"It was like a nexus," says Symmes from his L.A. office. "I remember being in Boulder, Colorado, a college town, and it was snowing and it was a cold opening night but people were lined up two-deep all the way down the street. You couldn't do that today. There is no way to make a movie like The Stewardesses. You will fail because it was at just the right time."

Softcore or bust

Peaking just before the 1972 breakthrough hardcore Deep Throat and right after the sensation of the pornographic pseudo-documentary Sexual Freedom in Denmark, The Stewardesses did have impeccable timing. But despite the growing demand for more on-screen penetration and extreme-close-ups, executive producer Louis K. Sher was resolute about sticking to the original plan.

"He drew a line in the sand to keep this softcore because he was hoping it would do what it did - that is ultimately open nation-wide," says Symmes. "The whole time I was involved, we went to great lengths to avoid pushing us in a hardcore direction."

Before it went coast-to-coast, the movie played for a year in LA and San Francisco. "You could go in on any given week and you'd see a slightly different version of the film, because as the movie would make more money, we'd go out and shoot some more scenes," he says. "So it was definitely a work in progress."

Filming economy class

Whenever the five-man crew would get called back into work, they would load up their handmade 3D lenses and scout for a location, which was usually the nearest cheap motel in Southern California.

"We'd quietly sneak in, bring lights and cameras and draw the drapes," says Symmes. "The girls would show up. I'd light the thing, aim the camera and start shooting. It was all a blur. And then money started pouring in at a ridiculous rate and nobody knew what to do with that."

So they decided, after nearly three years of shooting, to funnel some of the profits into a projection installation team that travelled through the States teaching projectionists how to properly play their 3D film.

"That was phenomenal," recalls Symmes. "I set up over 400 theatres myself. We'd fly into a town on any given night at like midnight and set it up. Then, early morning, back on a plane, get to another theatre and catch them before a noon performance. We'd been running around the country like chickens with our heads cut off. And the public benefited because even if the movie was questionable, at least it was shown right."

Flying solo

Symmes hasn't kept in touch with any of the film's cast and crew.

"The girls were very transient," he says. "They were just rent-a-models from modelling agencies that no longer exist. It was relatively easy to find people to work because it was softcore. They came and they went. It would be like, ‘Oh she's back and she's pregnant. We'll shoot her sitting behind a bar.'"

Symmes went on to direct the first 3D hardcore film, The Starlets in 1976. Since then he has made all things three dimensional his life's work, an obsession that started at the age of 10. He remembers seeing a 3D comic that inspired him to purchase some cellophane wrapped candies.

"I used up the rest of my money and I bought a red one and a green one," he says. "I went home, unravelled those things and looked through them and boom - it was like a sympathetic vibration with my genetics."

Today he's the CEO of his own stereoscopic film company, Dimension 3 (D3), which takes him all over the world making 3D television programs and movies.

As for director Al Silliman Jr., according to Symmes, he sunk his earnings from The Stewardesses into his own airline. However, shortly after Silliman invested in his airborne venture, the company took a nosedive and he sold his company for parts.

"Al is an ideas guy," says Symmes. "If you talk to him for 10 minutes, he'll come up with 100 ideas and out of 100, maybe one is actually good. The Stewardesses was one of them."

The Stewardesses plays as part of Comedia at the
Imperial Theatre Saturday, July 17 at
midnight and Sunday, July 18 at 10pm

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