The Stepford Wives (1975 film)
The Stepford Wives is a 1975 American satirical psychological thriller film directed by Bryan Forbes. It was written by William Goldman, who based his screenplay on Ira Levin's 1972 novel of the same name. The film stars Katharine Ross as a woman who relocates with her husband (Peter Masterson) and children from New York City to the Connecticut community of Stepford, where she comes to find that the women live lives of unwavering subservience to their husbands.
The Stepford Wives
Filmed in Connecticut in 1974, The Stepford Wives premiered theatrically in February 1975. It grossed $4 million at the U.S. box office, though it received mixed reviews from critics. Reaction from feminist activists was also divided at the time of its release; Betty Friedan dismissed it as a "rip-off of the women's movement" and discouraged women from seeing it, though others such as Gael Greene and Eleanor Perry defended the film.
The Stepford Wives has grown in stature as a cult film over the years, and the term Stepford or Stepford wife has become a popular science fiction concept. Several sequels to the film were made, as well as a big-budget remake in 2004 that used the same title.
Analysis[edit]
Film scholar John Kenneth Muir interprets The Stepford Wives as "a film essay about what it means to be part of an unspoken 'underclass.'"[4]
Production[edit]
Development[edit]
Producer Edgar Scherick recruited English director Bryan Forbes to direct the film.[5] Brian De Palma was initially going to direct[6] but William Goldman didn’t want him to.[7]
Casting[edit]
For the lead role of Joanna Eberhart, Forbes initially met with Diane Keaton, who he said turned it down because her analyst did not like the script.[8] Jean Seberg declined the part;[5] Tuesday Weld initially accepted but cancelled before filming began.[9] The part eventually went to Katharine Ross.
Joanna Cassidy was cast as Joanna's friend and ally Bobbie[10] but was fired after a few weeks of production and replaced by Paula Prentiss.[10][11]
Mary Stuart Masterson, Dee Wallace and Franklin Cover appear in supporting roles. Tina Louise - the original Ginger Grant from Gilligan's Island- was cast as a 'wife' along with her TV character's replacement Judith Baldwin.
For the role of Carol Van Sant, Forbes cast his wife, Nanette Newman.
Filming[edit]
Scheduling difficulties delayed the filming from 1973 until 1974.[12]
No exterior sets were built for the film, which was shot on location in several Connecticut towns. The climax was filmed at the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion in Norwalk.[13] Forbes purposefully chose white and bright colors, attempting to make a "thriller in sunlight". With the exception of the stormy night finale, it is almost over-saturated to emphasize bright lights and cheerful-looking settings.
Tension developed between Forbes and screenwriter Goldman over the casting of Nanette Newman (Forbes's wife) as one of the wives. Goldman felt that the 40-year-old Newman's appearance did not match the young provocatively-dressed model-like women he'd scripted for. Forbes responded by instituting contemporary prairie-style dress, complete with frilly aprons, for all the wives. Goldman was also unhappy with re-writes by Forbes - in particular, the ending[14] - which Nanette Newman claimed Forbes had deliberately filmed "in an unreal way, so they were almost like a ballet moving in and out, up and down the aisle."[15] Additional stresses were caused when
actor Peter Masterson secretly called his friend Goldman for input on scenes. Goldman later claimed the film "could have been very strong, but it was rewritten and altered, and I don't think happily."[16]
Release[edit]
Critical response[edit]
The Stepford Wives has a rating of 68% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 38 reviews, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The site's consensus states: "The Stepford Wives's inherent satire is ill-served by Bryan Forbes' stately direction, but William Goldman's script excels as a damning critique of a misogynistic society."[17] Some critics deride its leisurely pace. Most applaud the "quiet, domestic" thrills the film delivers in the final third and earlier sections as "clever, witty, and delightfully offbeat".[18] As for the satire in the film, Roger Ebert wrote that the actresses "have absorbed enough TV, or have such an instinctive feeling for those phony, perfect women in the ads, that they manage all by themselves to bring a certain comic edge to their cooking, their cleaning, their gossiping and their living deaths."[19]
The film has a Metacritic rating of 54 based on nine reviews.
Jerry Oster of the New York Daily News awarded the film a middling two out of four stars, describing the screenplay as a "tedious" and "padded" adaptation of the source material.[20]
Variety summarized the film as "a quietly freaky suspense-horror story" and praised Ross's performance as "excellent and assured."[21] John Seymour of the Santa Maria Times also gave the film a favorable review, deeming it an "epic nightmare" boasting "gripping drama."[22]
Devan Coggan of Entertainment Weekly wrote that the finale was "deeply divisive" and the actress for Joanna stated retrospectively that if she was to revise the ending she would have Joanna "fight harder".[15]
Legacy[edit]
Film scholar John Kenneth Muir considers The Stepford Wives one of the best horror films of the 1970s.[31] In a writer's roundtable with The Hollywood Reporter, Jordan Peele listed the film as one of the inspirations behind his directorial debut Get Out.[32]
A line delivered by Paula Prentiss, as Bobbie Markowe, after becoming a Stepford Wife; "Yes.. this.. it's wonderful!", was legally sampled on the song, "Hey Music Lover", by British dance act, S-Express, becoming a big international hit in 1989.[33]
The film influenced the development of the character Bree Van de Kamp in the successful series, Desperate Housewives (2004–12), played by Marcia Cross. The character was often referred to as a "Stepford Wife" by other characters, due to her somewhat uptight personality, immaculately presented home, beautifully pruned red roses, and her love of baking cakes. She also dressed in a Midwestern, traditional style, echoing, but modernizing, the look of the original "Stepford Wives", as seen in the film.