The Stewardesses/Fun Facts

• A general story outline was written by the filmmakers, who began shooting without a real script. Typically, scenes weren't finalized until the camera was ready to roll. Shot with a minimal crew, scenes were filmed all over Los Angeles, including some at LAX (L.A. International Airport) and on an actual passenger plane.

• With a shooting budget of just over $100,000 (approximately $531,000 in 2005 dollars, when factoring in inflation) and a worldwide gross of between $25 million and $30 million, this ranks as one of the most profitable films ever made.

• Chris J. Condon, founder of Century Precision Optics, in collaboration with director Al Silliman Jr., developed a single-camera 3-D system that was simple and economical to use. In the 1950s 3-D films had been shot with two cameras, and showing a 3-D film in a theater had required two projectors which often went out of sync. The new single-camera system put the two images side-by-side in a normal 35mm film frame, thus allowing the use of a very portable camera. Condon's camera and technology created to make this film, which was manufactured by Stereovision International Co., were eventually used to shoot many movies like Jaws 3-D (1983) during the 1980s' three-dimensional boom.

• It may be the only notable film to be reshot, edited and updated as it played in theaters, according to Allan Silliphant, the Producer-Director. Early on, it was a simple softcore "skin-flick" with minimal production value during the first months of distribution. Since it was grossing extremely well, in specialty "adult theaters", Louis Sher and Silliphant decided that the film should be transformed into a regular R rated feature film with a more complex storyline and reduced nudity and sex simulation. These changes were added as the film continued to hold on in theaters. Probably four versions of the evolving film were played over the two years that the film was in active distribution. The story line, which did in fact receive the sought after MPAA "R" rating, is about a single eventful night in the lives of a crew of L.A. based, trans-Pacific stewardesses. The leading female character is killed in a 30-story suicide leap. The others simply "party": use drugs and have various sexual encounters. One of the girls befriends and beds a returning Vietnam combat soldier.