A 1979 hardcore pornographic film with a sci-fi theme directed by Akira Kurosawa (with input from Bob Guccione and Phil Prince) and loosely adapted from the 1968 Philip K. Dick novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and starred John Holmes as hard-boiled detective Dick Deckard and Linda Wong as Major Molly Caliburn, the violet-haired leader of the Replicants. The film was a bizarre massive budget spectacle that blended intricate and thrilling plot with cutting-edge special effects techniques gleaned from the then-recent Star Wars alongside extreme violence and gore as well as hardcore nudity and sex scenes, both simulated and unsimulated.
It was bankrolled by Bob Guccione and Howard Hughes, who worked on the film together beginning in 1975 before the latter's death in 1976 and Hughes even allotted a portion of the money in his will to go to the budgeting and distribution of the film.
Despite the weird premise, Stand Alone Complex turned out to be a massive success and spawned two different cuts to help capitalize even further on the success and reach to a wider audience. The first cut was an R-rated softcore cut that toned a lot of the violence and gore down and removed the hardcore unsimulated sex. This was an even bigger hit since it was able to reach a wider audience and was the first version to get a home video release on VHS and later DVD, to the point that it's the most well-known version of the film.
The second cut was a heavily neutered cut meant for TV but was shelved until 1983, shortly after the MPAA introduced the new PG-13 rating. The sanitized cut Stand Alone Complex was the first film to get a PG-13 rating with a limited release but did poorly in theaters, though it did make the rounds on both network and cable TV throughout the 80's and early 90's.
HBO and Cinemax began the practice that would eventually become the late-night "Skinemax" block in the late 80's when they would air the R-rated softcore cut of Stand Alone Complex frequently aired as a midnight movie but would only air the PG-13/TV edit during the daytime hours.
Chicago By Night
