The sole film foray by oft-eulogized Playboy model Dorothy Stratten, Galaxina is a low budget sci-fi farce that is to space operas what Steven Wright once was to stand-up comedy—which is to say, it presents the absurd with an utterly straight face. If not for Stratten it’s safe to say this film would be entirely forgotten by now. She plays the icy android caretaker of a deep space cruiser who reprograms herself so she can experience physical love. But this is no Just Jaeckin or Jesús Franco sex romp—director William Sachs plays it coy, and Stratten’s form-fitting jumpsuit stays firmly zipped throughout. Perhaps that is a sign of how seriously people took her talent—though she had already been nude for all the world to see, her handlers didn’t want to make the sexploitation flick everyone expected. How much of Stratten’s star potential is spun from thin air by Playboy’s aggressive self-promotional machine is difficult to say, because Galaxina is itself too thin to offer much evidence either way. But if we imagine for a moment that she had not been shotgunned to death and this film had been followed by a successful Hollywood career, Galaxina wouldn’t have been an embarrassment for Stratten to look back upon. Some of the greatest actors of all time can’t claim the same. Galaxina opened in the U.S. today in 1980.

Canadian centerfold, actress and cult celebrity Dorothy Stratten in four publicity stills from the film Galaxina. She was born today in 1960, and murdered by her estranged husband in 1980.