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DVD The Stepford Wives
Ira Levin's scary novel about forced conformity in a small Connecticut town made for this compelling 1975 thriller. Katharine Ross stars as a city woman who moves with her husband to Stepford and is startled by how perpetually happy many of the local women seem to be. Her search for an answer reveals a plot to replace troublesome real wives with more accommodating fake ones (not unlike the alien takeover in Invasion of the Body Snatchers). The closer she gets to the truth, the more danger she faces--not to mention the likelihood that the men in town intend to replace her as well. Screenwriter William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) and director Bryan Forbes (King Rat) made this a taut, tense semiclassic with a healthy dose of satiric wit. --Tom Keogh
Something Strange Is Happening In The Town Of Stepford!
Walter (Masterson) and Joanna (Ross) Eberhart move to the quiet suburb of Stepford. Walter's reasons seem to be more than an escape from the crazy life of the big city. Here wives are suddenly converted into the perfect homemakers in a matter of months.
The 1970s was a fertile time for feminist movements. This film was amazingly cited by both sides of the argument, never seeming to please either. Feminists considered the film to be a slap in the face of the "modern woman". It was accused of undermining years of progress to the age-old stereotypes of a woman's place. At the same time anti-feminists citied it as a mockery of what were considered wholesome American values. It's strange that a film that was never intended to be part of these controversies couldn't seem to please either side. The film quickly disappeared from the box office and was deemed an early failure. That was until frequent television showing gained a cult following that exists today. To many of us this is simply a quaint blend of science fiction and horror elements to produce a better than average low budget film.
What is extremely disappointing about this disc is it is actually just a re-release of the 2000 Anchor Bay edition. Not only are there no improvements, but the extras are exactly the same.
The only feature of note is a 17 minute interview piece. Mostly you'll learn what a mess the production was... from juicy fights about nepotism to several rocky starts to the picture including a sudden firing of actress Joanna Cassidy. It's amazing this film ever got made at all. The rest of the minimal extras are a couple of audio-only radio spots and a trailer.
It's hard not to allow the cheesy sequels that were horrible damage the reputation of this film. Katherine Ross and Paula Prentiss do pretty good jobs with the material here. The film's climax is still quite spooky without being gratuitous. There are certainly ways this film could have been better. Perhaps the more comedic remake did this. But it is still a decent film. There are tons of extras that would have made this a better DVD. What would you like to have seen in release of The Stepford Wives? Well, "I'll just die if I don't get this recipe".
EVERY MAN'S FANTASY?
First, despite the passing of 30 years this well made film is still a very good suspense thriller with excellent acting and pacing. The climatic scene is still a major creep-out, and the resolution scene is still a hoot-and-a-half.
The Stepford Wives touches on many issues popular in America in the early and mid 1970s and even today: the battle of the sexes (Katherine Ross's husband wants her to give up the career she had in New York City before they moved to Stepford), the feminist movement (The heroines don't wear bras but put them on after they've been "turned"), the sexual revolution ("My only tennis partners are two teenage boys with permanent erections." "Oh, really? Send them over to my place."), liberal versus conservative lifestyles, environmentalism ("Maybe these companies are polluting the water and tranquilizing the women in this town."), man's innate desire to create life without the help of women (The president of Stepford's Men's Association--Peter Lawford--is called 'Diz because he used to work for Disneyland where they build humanoid robots.), and the blandness or sameness of American suburbs (Everyone in Stepford drives a big station wagon. For you younger readers, the station wagon was the mini-van of the 1950s, 60s and 70s.)
The premise of this movie isn't silly but serious, and here's why: True, life-like androids aren't the stuff of science fiction but of pure fantasy. However, there are real methods of turning people into automatons involving surgery, drugs and social conditioning which should allow us to cut the makers of the film a little slack, although a story using these methods might have made for a more horrific and serious movie....I haven't read the book.
Since this movie was originally released in 1975 most people seem to agree that the male characters are portrayed as evil (although the men don't give up their wives lightly they do all go through with it in the end.) Feminist activists, leaders, etc. didn't and still don't like the film because the men do prevail and the women are powerless to stop them. They see the movie as more of a male fantasy full of negative stereotypes of women. However, when you see the film it's clear that these sterotypes were played for laughs.
Now, is this movie every man's fantasy? Well, yes, it is. But if you take a moment to think about it, isn't it true that when we realize our fantasies we often discover that the reality doesn't measure up? We men often fantasize about what life would be like if our wives didn't have "issues" or PMS, didn't gain weight or grow old, and never said no in the bedroom because we drove them wild with lust. But the fact is that a quiet, subserviant wife would sadden and disappoint most American men. We don't just want a lover, housekeeper or nanny; we want a partner and best friend. And that's what I came away with from The Stepford Wives. The film is an entertaining examination of American society and some of its more controversial issues, but more importantly it contains themes that left this viewer with a greater respect for the yin & yang relationship of men and women and the very American desire for freedom and the free will to take full advantage of it.
The Stepford Wives
In its first movie adaptation, Ira Levin's chilling suspense novel turned into of the biggest money-making films in the 1970s. Also, it was quoted to be an "even more perfect" story than the book itself, which was wrapped up with great literature.
Katherine Ross plays Joanna Eberhart, a family wife that plans to move away from home with husband Walter and their two children into a suburb area, Stepford, in Connecticut. While her stay their, she slowly begins to deduce that the people in Stepford are acting strangely in a way she finds too hard to believe and understand. She deduces that most of the housewives in Stepford only seem to work for their husbands' please and in benefit of their home. The way they speak is trivial and vapid. Together with her new friend Bobby, which to Joanna seems to be the only one in Stepford that's "normal", they investigate this curious status quo. When, after spending some time together trying to solve this mystery, Bobby "becomes" as strange as the others, Joanna starts to panic that this "something" in Stepford is going to get her. Finally, she discovers that the men in Stepford have joined up into a men-only or-ganization that turns the wives into computerized robot duplicates.
The movie is packed with mystifying scenes that keep you guessing what it really is that's wrong with the Stepford wives till the end. The ending itself is a gem of compact horror and unexpected black-comedy. Perhaps what differs the movie from the book is the fact that the movie spent more time showing how deceiving the place can be, which in the book is just seemed curious and unclear. Even the book's ending leaves you stunned with amaze. Watching the movie, you will go "aha" at some thins were in the book weren't as comprehensible as they were supposed to be (considering the fact that the book was only about 140 pages).
After the domestic profit the movie made, it spawned several low-budget sequels, such as The Revenge of the Stepford Wives, which were-n't as good or worthy as the original in my opinion. In 2004, a remake was successful, starring the Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman and Mathew Broderick, as Joanna and Walter; it also wasn't as solemn as this original. The remake was more comedic and, like with most modern-day remakes, it boasts with its computer animation and camera tricks (not to mention the sprinkling use of musical instruments) - the scene at the dance, where one of the wives literally sparks while dancing isn't the same as the intense thrilling scenes in this original.
An all-star cast remakes the 1975 socio-political horror flick, The Stepford Wives. After being fired as president of a television network, Joanna (Nicole Kidman, Moulin Rouge) has a nervous breakdown, prompting her husband Walter (Matthew Broderick, Election) to take her to a simple Connecticut town called Stepford to recuperate. But Stepford is a little strange: The schlubby husbands congregate at a closed-doors men's club, while the wives--all in bright summer frocks and air-brushed smiles--exercise to keep their hourglass figures and cook endless pastries. Joanna, along with new arrivals Bobbie (Bette Midler, Beaches) and Roger (the very funny Roger Bart), soon discover that the mastermind of Stepford (Christopher Walken, Communion) has used... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Nicole Kidman - Matthew Broderick - Bette Midler Director(s): Frank Oz DVD Release Date: Released the 09 November 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Psychological terrorism and supernatural horror have rarely been dramatized as effectively as in this classic 1968 thriller, masterfully adapted and directed by Roman Polanski from the chilling novel by Ira Levin. Rosemary (Mia Farrow) is a young, trusting housewife in New York whose actor husband (John Cassavetes), unbeknownst to her, has literally made a deal with the devil. In the thrall of a witches' coven headquartered in their apartment building, the young husband arranges to have his wife impregnated by Satan in exchange for success in a Broadway play. To Rosemary, the pregnancy seems like a normal and happy one--that is, until she grows increasingly suspicious of her neighbors' evil influence. Polanski establishes this seemingly benevolent situation and then introduces each... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Mia Farrow - John Cassavetes Director(s): Roman Polanski DVD Release Date: Released the 03 October 2000 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Welcome to Delos, the high-tech Disneyland for adults that Michael Crichton created for Westworld, a nifty science fiction thriller from 1973 that also marked the popular novelist's feature-film directorial debut. The movie is so named because the vacationing buddies who travel to Delos (James Brolin, Richard Benjamin) choose Westworld as their destination (the other choices being Roman World and Medieval World), where they are free to indulge their movie-inspired fantasies of the Wild West. From brothel beauties to black-hatted gunslingers (like the villain played by Yul Brynner), the place is populated by perfectly humanlike robots programmed and monitored to cater to every guest's fancy. But fun turns into abject horror when the robots--particularly Brynner's badman--begin to... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Yul Brynner - Richard Benjamin Director(s): Michael Crichton DVD Release Date: Released the 22 August 2000 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The Manchurian Candidate, a classic of paranoid cinema from the 1960s, gets a cunning update, rife with hot-topic references to corporate war profiteering and electronic voting machines. Major Ben Marco (Denzel Washington, Training Day) has been haunted by nightmares ever since a firefight during the first Gulf War--a battle in which he believes he was saved by the heroism of Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber, Kate & Leopold). But Marco's nightmares suggest otherwise and drive him to investigate what happened, which may threaten Shaw's candidacy for vice-president. Meryl Streep plays Shaw's mother, a senior senator who manipulates everyone around her with an iron will and a sharp tongue. The Manchurian Candidate loses steam towards the end, but up until then... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Denzel Washington - Liev Schreiber - Kimberly Elise - Meryl Streep Director(s): Jonathan Demme DVD Release Date: Released the 21 December 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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