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Released by: Jezebel Films
Released on: December 13th, 2016.
Director: Al Silliman Jr.
Cast: Christina Hart, Angelique de Moulin, Ronald South, William Condos, Paula Erickson
Year: 1969
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The Movie:
The biggest 3-D sex film of all time (and reportedly the highest grossing 3-D film of all time until Avatar came long!), The Stewardesses may not be high on plot or character development but it definitely delivers exactly what you'd expect a 3-D softcore sex film to provide - titillation!
The film follows a group of pretty, young flight attendants as they go about their work. When the flights are over, they spend their layover time doing drugs and screwing anything and everything in sight, from a pilot to a lamp to one another! While all of this is going on around her, a stewardess named Samantha (Christina Hart) starts to feel it for a passenger named Colin Winthrop (Michael Garrett) who makes a healthy living as an advertising guru. Samantha's not as innocent as she might want Colin to believe, however, as she figures he's just what she needs to land her first big break as an actress. But of course, there are repercussions for all of this naughty behavior and some of these girls are going to have to learn their lessons the hard way…
And that's about it, as far as the storyline is concerned. As mentioned, there isn't much here in that regard, what plot development there is exists for the sole purpose of stringing together the film's copious amount of sex scenes. On that level, it all works fairly well. This is a cheap exploitation film after all, one that was created for the singular purpose of cashing in on the potential that 3-D filmmaking gave skin flicks like this one - and it worked! The Stewardesses did huge box office numbers when it played theaters in the late sixties and has gone on to become one of the biggest 3-D money makers of all time. Sex definitely sells, and late sixties/early seventies America was definitely buying.
Of course, the film was shot to make the most of its 3-D process. All manner of objects and body parts thrust at you from the screen, from a pool cue and a guitar to feet and breasts. It's all in good fun even if the intent is obvious and completely unnecessary outside of the 3-D context. The cast, made up of a few recognizable drive-on starlets like Suzanne Fields, Monica Gayle and a bunch of actors and actresses you've never seen before or since, do a fine job with the material. The script isn't demanding of any intense acting but the girls all play their perky parts quite well. Likewise, the male cast members seem to be having a good time playing macho archetypes like pilots and soldiers and having their way with the willing women.
The film is well shot and moves along at a good pace. It contains enough fun 3-D effects to ensure that the picture is never dull. It's a fun relic of a film that still entertains and which will certainly appeal to exploitation film fans or 3-D fanatics. This Blu-ray release from Jezebel Films includes the both the 3-D and 2-D versions of the film, both presented uncut.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The Stewardesses arrives on Blu-ray from Jezebel Films on a 50GB disc. Colors are well produced and black levels reasonably deep but there are some mild compression artifacts evident here and there. The absence of any obvious noise reduction or edge enhancement is certainly a plus but a little bit more cleanup work might have helped here as there are occasional spots where print damage is obvious (though to be fair, most of the time it is pretty mild). Having said that, there's a good increase in detail, clarity, depth and texture compared to the older DVD release from Shout! Factory. The movie's grainy, gritty look is nicely maintained here and skin tones look nice and natural.
An English language DTS-HD Mono track is the only audio option on the disc the quality is on par with the video presentation in that imperfections are obvious. There are a few spots where the dialogue is a bit muffled and flat, though the score generally sounds pretty good. The movie is light on sound effects but when they are used they sound a bit canned. The audio here is serviceable, just unremarkable. There are no subtitles or alternate language options offered on this disc.
Extras are limited to the inclusion of a twenty-eight minute softcore short from 1977 entitled Experiments In Love, the film's original theatrical trailer (in 2-D only), menus and chapter selection. In the short film, we follow two women (Linda Gordon and Mariwin Roberts) as they play around with a 3-D camera, get fondled by a smart mouthed computer and make out with a gardener (Mike Ranger). It's pretty goofy stuff but the ladies look good here and spend most of their screen time strutting about in their birthday suits.
Unfortunately none of the extra features included on the Shout! Factory two-disc DVD release (which included a few featurettes, an SCTV sketch that parodied the film, a black and white 3-D version of the movie and more) have been ported over to this Blu-ray release.
The Final Word:
The Stewardesses is pretty dopey stuff, a film made to cash in on all that 3-D filmmaking can bring to the sex film market of its time with little regard to storytelling or substance. Having said that, it's an amusing and entertaining piece of sexploitation with an interesting cast that rightly owns its place in exploitation film history. Jezebel's Blu-ray offers a decent upgrade in quality over the past DVD release but loses points for missing out on the copious extras we've seen in the past.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
