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The Killing Technology


This was initially released to theaters, but quickly pulled and cut by 15 minutes, then released to television as a 75-minute movie. It’s a cautionary techno-thriller with bits of horror ahead of its time, predicting a world of computer fraud and identity theft at least 25 years before they came into vogue.

The inspiration for the story was likely taken from the 1969 episode of Journey to the Unknown “The Madison Equation” and maybe "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968). But it’s different enough to stand on its own and no doubt influenced the future “Demon Seed” (1977). There’s a Hitchcockian plot twist that I didn’t see coming and Dean Stockwell’s character is interesting, as are James Stacy’s fiery Vietnam vet and James Olson’s concerned tech.

On the female front, Stefanie Powers appears as a redhead and sure was a looker back then. William Shatner’s beautiful raven-haired wife, Marcy Lafferty, also shows up for a brief bit as a secretary in the last act (they were married from 1973-1996).

The film runs 1 hour, 30 minutes, with the television cut being 1 hour, 15 minutes (I advise seeing the longer version as it fleshes out the characters more). It was shot in Los Angeles.

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Watch on Youtube 1:29:45 runtime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdDhi1uEyEE

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