and producer Stirling Silliphant. Co-producer and cinematographer Chris Condon, who had founded Century Precision Optics, built innovative, relatively lightweight and portable single-strip 3D cameras. Theater owner Louis Sher was the executive producer, and used his Art Theater Guild theaters to display the film coast to coast. Specially trained 3D technicians would be sent to each and every theater to install the special equipment, and to teach the projectionists how to keep it running. 3D stereo technology The film was shot in 35 mm color and projected in a new, single-strip, side-by-side polarized format called StereoVision. The image was compressed horizontally in printing, then expanded with an integrated anamorphic "unsqueezing" lens for projection. Unlike some prior technologies it was impossible for the two film images to go out of sync, because they were side by side on the same strip of film. All showings used sturdier plastic-framed polarized glasses, rather than the familiar paper ones of the 1950s. Silliphant was the original president of StereoVision International Inc., and was the co-inventor of the basic process. In 1972, the film was blown up to side-by-side 70 mm 3D, which removed the requirement for anamorphics due to the wider frame. Marketing history The film was uniquely marketed in that it never used a promotional trailer, but with many billboards, radio spots, and always an impressive "road show" treatment on the marquee of the theater. In several cases, the film ran for over a year in the same theater. The ad campaign would state "47th great week," or whatever was the local "hold-over" figure. It was the number-one film in the United States for three weeks in September and October 1971. By 1976 it had earned a theatrical rentals in the United States and Canada of $6,878,450. In 2010-adjusted dollars, the domestic film rentals exceeded $141 million. Having grossed around 260 times its budget, it is, in relative terms, one of the all-time film financial successes. Home video In the early days of video, Caballero Control Corporation released a re-edited version of The Stewardesses on VHS and Betamax tape formats, which are now out of print. In creating this XXX version, Caballero edited hardcore insert shots into the film and re-released it, with the tagline "From 3D to 3XXX" on the tape cover. Although being a non-official XXX version of the film, the original theatrical release credits for The Stewardesses remained intact for this