THE STEPFORD WIVES. 1975. BASED ON THE BOOK BY IRA LEVIN. SCREENPLAY BY WILLIAM GOLDMAN. MUSIC BY MICHAEL SMALL. DIRECTED BY BRYAN FORBES.
STARRING KATHARINE ROSS, PAULA
PRENTISS, NANETTE NEWMAN, TINA LOUISE, PATRICK O'NEAL AND PETER
MASTERSON.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
The book of this film was written by a
chap called Ira Levin. As a writer too, I'm extremely jealous of Ira
Levin. Not only were several of his novels all bestsellers, but they
were made into some of cinema's most memorable films as well.
Well...! Someone certainly
got lucky, haha.
Some examples, besides THE STEPFORD
WIVES itself, include
ROSEMARY'S BABY, A KISS BEFORE DYING and
THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL. These
books of Mr. Levin's were all made into humongously famous
films, especially the Roman
Polanski-directed ROSEMARY'S BABY.
I love
A KISS BEFORE DYING as
well though, the story of a poor boy from the wrong side of the
tracks who resorts to the nastiest of extreme measures to get his
hands on a vulnerable young heiress's dosh. I love the original old
version of the film but there's an excellent modern re-make starring
Matt Dillon as well which I'm always trying to get my hands on.
THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL is
a cracking book-slash-film. In the film, an elderly Laurence Olivier
plays a Nazi-hunter who thinks he's finally caught up with his
longest-standing nemesis, Dr. Josef Mengele, played by Gregory Peck.
Mengele,
of course, was the notorious Nazi doctor from Auschwitz concentration
camp who experimented on and killed hundreds of prisoners during World War Two. He was
especially fascinated by twins and performed medical experiments on
any he could get his hands on. Anyway, these two marvellous old actors in the twilight of their careers turn
in unforgettable performances as the two old enemies.
It's
ROSEMARY'S BABY, however,
which is my favourite movie adaptation of one of Ira Levin's books. I think
I like it even more than THE STEPFORD WIVES, which
is also a brilliant and memorable film. ROSEMARY'S BABY
tells the story of a young woman
who finds herself pregnant with the spawn of Satan (ooops,
awkward...!) and most horror
fans probably include it in their Top Ten of Favourite Horror Films
Of All Time.
You've
probably guessed by now why I'm so jealous of Ira Levin. The only books
he hasn't written,
seemingly, are JAWS, THE EXORCIST and
PSYCHO, and that's probably only
because someone else got
to 'em first, haha.
I've always wanted to write a short horror novel like one of these
that got turned into a major film and then became a household name. Sigh.
Maybe one day...
Anyway,
let's move on to THE STEPFORD WIVES before
we forget why we're here. It would appear that something
decidedly odd is happening in the pretty little town of Stepford,
Connecticut, so perhaps we should investigate. Everyone got their
Sherlock Holmes hats on? Okay then, let's go.
When Joanna Eberhardt, a would-be photographer played by the
stunningly beautiful Katharine Ross of THE GRADUATE fame, moves there from New York City
with her husband and two small children (and their dog), her
biggest problem initially is boredom. What the hell is she going to
do with herself all day when the kids are at school and hubby Walter
is off lawyering...? Lawyering...? Is that even a word? Ah, you know
what I mean.
Joanna soon realises, however, that she
has more to worry about in her new home than the question of how to occupy her
daylight hours. The housewives of Stepford are worrying her
enormously, for one thing. They're all immaculately turned out in
pretty little old-fashioned 'wifey' dresses, their houses are
uniformly immaculate and they treat their ugly, ageing balding hubbies
like the second coming of Rudolph Valentino... Hmmm. Interesting.
For another thing, Joanna's other half
Walter, who by the way isn't nearly good
enough for the gorgeous knockout of a woman who starred alongside
Paul Newman and Robert Redford in BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE
SUNDANCE KID, has been behaving strangely ever since he joined the
Stepford Men's Association, the biggest organisation in town. Walter
also doesn't support Joanna'a 'picture-taking,' as
he so dismissively puts it.
The Men's Association sticks in Joanna's
throat a bit though, as she's something of a Women's Libber
(which
would certainly explain why all her bras seem to have been long-since
burned and the Stepford Two swing loose and free throughout the film)
and she hates the way the men in Stepford seem to have the upper hand
in literally everything.
Also, she finds Walter's new pals boring and
creepy, especially the sinister Dale Coba, and she disagrees with the high-handed way in which they treat their wives.
With her one friend and ally in
Stepford, the feisty and decidely not house-proud
Bobby (Bobby's a chick, by the way) di Marco, Joanna tries to
start up a women's 'consciousness-raising' group among the Stepford
Wives but it's nothing doing. The girls of Stepford just wanna have
fun, if by fun you mean swapping tips on Ultimate Stain Removal and kow-towing to their
all-superior spouses.
The housewives are all brilliant, by the
way, especially Nanette Newman who famously went on to advertise
washing-up liquid. (Fairy Liquid, I believe it was called...!)
They're all so drifty and floaty and housewifely and their hair is
all big like Farrah Fawcett's and the other CHARLIE'S ANGELS and
the lights are on but is there anybody at home? The jury's still out
on that one.
Any-hoo, it's not long before Bobby and the
beautiful Joanna, whose nipples in a see-through maxi-dress,
incidentally, have all the perfect beauty of a poem, come to a
terrifying conclusion. Are the lads from the Men's Association
somehow transforming the women of Stepford from independent-thinking
human beings into housework-loving, sexually submissive automatons with no minds of their
own? Well, I suppose it's easy to see why the guys would dig a bit of that action...!
It all sounds terribly far-fetched, I know, but
Joanna's suspicions seem to be borne out when Bobby returns from a
'weekend away' with her husband all prettied up and with, seemingly,
half her brain missing. Joanna, frightened that her time to be
'transformed' (lobotomised, more like!) is coming too, decides to grab her kids and make a run
for it.
Oh, and here's my final thought, as
Jerry Springer famously used to say on his wonderfully chaotic 'Nineties talk-show:
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA
HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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