The Stewardesses

I had previously considered the insipid pseudo-striptease trash flick Orgy of the Dead to be the pinnacle of lifelessness and asexuality in the realm of exploitation movies and superficial trash. Now, however, the top spot has been taken by The Stewardesses, which is legendary among fans in the western world, which can perhaps be explained only by the fact that it is one of the few Z-movies shot in 3D that has been preserved or, more precisely, remastered and subsequently re-released on DVD. The barely tolerable ninety-minute runtime can be divided into thirds. The first introduces the various characters of the stewardesses (I suppose); in the second, we see how they spend a free evening indulging in physical pleasures; and in the final third, the narrative focuses on just one of them. So far, the concept is generally unobjectionable, but its actual execution is so lame and anti-dramatic that there’s no reason to wonder why the director never made another film under his own name. The only hint of any contribution on the part of the film’s creators is the preference for women with perky breasts and, in the camerawork, the apparent inspiration of ancient statues or, more precisely, what is left of them today – most of the shots frame the actresses from the shoulders down. In the hands of a more capable crew, The Stewardesses could have been made into something watchable. As it stands, however, it is merely an asexual work (despite its numerous “erotic” sequences, which don’t come until after the fortieth minute) with radically stiff performances by everyone involved (it’s not even worth mentioning the actors and actresses), elevator music and avantgarde-style intuitive camerawork (a number of shots give the impression that someone shoved the camera or that it didn’t have a viewfinder). There are a few mitigating passages, such as the expressively conceived masturbation on LSD and a few bizarre shots made for the 3D effect – in this respect, the shot of a guy sprawled out on a chair with his legs stretched out toward the camera and the passage with a folding coat rack reign supreme. A separate segment comprises the purely nonsensical final part of the film, where for the first time, after roughly 70 minutes, there is some indication that the film actually has a screenplay, and yet it results in a desperate attempt to imitate exploitation tales with a cautionary would-be message. Nevertheless, even the momentary flashes suggesting that the film’s creators may have known what they were doing, even though it made no sense, don't make up for the all-encompassing and all-consuming triviality and lifelessness of this monstrously overrated dud. (2013-01-12)