The Stepford Wives

The image of beautiful, not necessarily sexy, women parading through the aisles of a grocery story in picturesque, almost Victorian summer dresses and wide white broad brimmed hats is one of the most lasting of this effective thriller based on the work by Ira Levin. Katherine Ross engagingly plays a women being moved with family in tow from the hustle and bustle of New York City to the serene suburbs of old Connetticut. Ross soon discovers that life for the gentle sex is anything but normal. All the women of Stepford seem to be concerned with is housecleaning and pleasing their husbands. This is a good, high energy film that shocks more from looks and what you do not see rather than what you do see. Helping greatly is a solid acting cast working with a pliable script. Though shot with an almost static effect at times, The Stepford Wives packs a few good punches. The scene in the grocery store and the scene with the empty eyes are just two of the highlights for me. Patrick O' Neal, lovely Tina Louise, and the ever loquacious Paula Prentiss costar. At the heart of the film is human identity and the worth it has/should have. There are aspects of social commentary abounding: the relationship of men and women in marriage, the effects of Suburban living, and the dangers of technology.

Katharine Ross gives her best performance in this modern day horror / science fiction masterpiece. For odd, but explainable reasons, the Stepford Wives looks a little like Suspiria and I Spit on Your Grave. Since it was shot in the 1970's, the movie is somewhat of a time machine that allows us to look back at a different time. The ending's climax makes the movie a true horror movie as the hallway's of the Men's Association looks a lot like the Girl's Dance Conservatory in Suspiria. The look of the movie seems low budget at times, but this simple use of direction and story telling adds to the setting of Stepford. Ross is perfect for the role. It is a giant slap in the face when Ross sees her robot-like self with bigger breasts that her. This adds to the idea of Men wanting to control their wives and wanting certain things from them. Even for the 1970's, this is a giant push back to the 1950's with human / women's rights. Scary and utterly horrific by the end, the Stepford Wives is a success as the movie makes its audience think.

It's just that good.... and, it is proof that you don't need a big budget to make a great movie. It is a very original and complete movie, in my mind (in other words, I can't think of a way to improve upon it). OK; so why didn't I give it ten stars? I'm not sure, to be honest, I guess I'm just stingy with my ratings.

I like movies that stick with me, make me think about the story afterwards, and want to watch it again some day, which this clearly does.

She is a meticulous housekeeper, flawless cook, thrifty shopper, adoring mother, perfect wife, always well groomed, always ready to please. But not, of course, a career woman, particularly if her success makes her husband feel belittled. Even today, more than thirty years after Ira Levin's bestseller startled the reading public, we are likely to refer to such a woman as "a Stepford wife"--a creature who seems both perfect and perfectly shallow.

The 1974 film version follows the Levin novel quite closely. Joanna Eberhart is a beautiful young woman of the era in which the women's moment had come of age: intelligent, forthright, and meeting her husband on equal terms. Then she, her husband, and their children move from New York to the small town of Stepford, where she is dismayed to find that most of the neighboring women seem engaged in a competition to have the neatest house, the best-groomed children, the most satisfied husband. Joanna is relieved to find women like herself in newcomers Bobbie and Charmaine, but even so, it seems... odd. So odd that she begins to question her sanity.

The film works on several levels, not the least of which is the macabre sense of humor with which director Byran Forbes endows the film: it is often very funny in a disquieting sort of way, as when Joanna and Bobbie's efforts to start a women's group results in a gathering of perfectly manicured women exchanging recipes and comparing floor polishes, or when Joanna and Bobbie accidentally overhear a Stepford couple making love. But for all the wittiness involved, THE STEPFORD WIVES is rooted in the women's movement of the 1970s, an era in which "a woman's place" was hotly debated on a national level. Just what is "a woman's place?" And to what lengths might men go to keep their women in traditional roles? Unlike many similar films, THE STEPFORD WIVES has tremendous restraint--and moreover a truly exceptional cast. Katherine Ross' talents were never before or after so well used, and Paula Prentiss gives perhaps her single most memorable performance here as Joanna's friend Bobbie. The supporting cast is equally fine, most particularly so with Patrick O'Neal as the unnerving "Diz" and a nice turn by Tina Louise as Charmaine.

Ultimately, THE STEPFORD WIVES is something of a "one trick pony:" it works best on a first viewing, when you don't know what's coming, and on subsequent viewings the film tends to read as unnecessarily slow. Even so, it is an interesting little cultural artifact, an "almost classic" that is sure to give you pause the next time your better half announces he is joining a men's club. Recommended.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

A normal couple move out of the stressful big city to live in a tranquil upper middle class semi- rural community, seeking peace and quiet. The town holds a sinister secret though- why do the wives of Stepford all seem to mindlessly content ? That is the start of this slow paced , surreal , and in some ways silly horror story. Gradually, clues begin the mount and the viewer becomes aware that soothing is very terribly wrong with these women. The last third of the film is better, more intense than the prior segments; the ending makes it all worth the while. Several themes are explored in this movie- an intensification of the 'war' between the sexes, crude stereotypes about that women think men want, the conflict between being independent , an individual, being free, plus Mans desire to 'create.' Some feminists objected to this movie but it should be obvious that , if anything, the movie is anti men, and not anti women at all.