The Stepford Wives (1975 film)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Stepford Wives is a 1975 American satirical psychological horror 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 the women live unwaveringly subservient lives to their husbands.
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 discouraging 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.
Plot
Joanna Eberhart is a young wife who moves with her husband Walter and their two daughters from Manhattan to the idyllic Fairfield County, Connecticut suburb of Stepford. Loneliness quickly sets in as Joanna, a mildly rebellious aspiring photographer, finds that the women in town all look flawless and are obsessed with housework, but have few intellectual interests. The men all belong to the exclusionary Men's Association, which Walter joins to Joanna's dismay. Neighbor Carol Van Sant's sexually submissiveness to her husband Ted, and her odd, repetitive behavior after a car accident also strike Joanna as strange.
Joanna subsequently befriends the sloppy, irrepressible Bobbie Markowe, with whom she finds common interests and shared ideas. Along with the glamorously beautiful tennis-playing trophy wife Charmaine Wimperis, the three organize a women's liberation meeting, but the gathering is a failure when the other wives continually divert the discussion to cleaning products. Joanna is also unimpressed by the boorish Men's Association members, including the intimidating president Dale Coba. Stealthily, the Men's Association collects information on Joanna including her picture, her voice, and other personal details. When Charmaine returns from a weekend trip with her husband as an industrious, devoted wife who has fired her maid and destroyed her tennis court, Joanna and Bobbie start investigating, with ever-increasing concern, the reason behind the submissive and bland behavior of the other wives. Her speculations zero on the industry in or nearby Stepford ranging from from Aerospace, Computer Tech, to Biochemical, and how they are dumping chemicals into the local water to make the women submissive, which eventually is proven false.
Bobbie and Joanna start house hunting in other towns. Later, Joanna wins a prestigious contract with a photo gallery. When she tells Bobbie the good news, Joanna is shocked to find her freewheeling friend has abruptly changed into another clean, conformist housewife, with no intention of moving. Joanna panics and visits a psychiatrist, to whom she voices her belief that the men in the town are in a conspiracy of somehow altering the psyches of the women. The psychiatrist recommends that she leave town until she feels safe. After leaving the psychiatrist's office, Joanna returns home to pick up her children only to find out that her children are missing and Walter evasive about their whereabouts. Joanna sneaks out of her house and goes to Bobbie's house, but grows frustrated when Bobbie refuses to engage with her in a meaningful way. Desperate and disturbed, Joanna stabs Bobbie with a kitchen knife. Bobbie does not bleed, but goes into a loop like a malfunctioning computer, thus revealing the real Bobbie has been replaced by a robot.
Joanna later returns home and bludgeons Walter with a firepoker demanding where their children were taken to. He tells Joanna that their children are at the Men's Association, after which Walter loses consciousness. Despite sensing she may be the next victim, Joanna sneaks into the mansion which houses the Men's Association, in hopes of finding her children. However Joanna falls right into the trap that was set up for her, as she finds herself face to face with the mastermind of the whole operation, Dale Coba (who tells Joanna that her children are really with "Charmaine"), and eventually her own unfinished robot replica. Joanna is shocked when she witnesses its soulless, empty eyes. Thus the attraction of the tech and science industries to the town of Stepford. The Joanna-replica brandishes a nylon stocking and smilingly approaches Joanna to strangle her as Coba looks on.
Some time later, the artificial "Joanna" placidly peruses the local supermarket amongst the other "wives", all glamorously dressed. As they make their way through the store, they each vacantly greet one another. During this sequence, the camera zooms in on Joanna, and reveals normal-looking eyes. During the end credits, photographs show a smiling Walter driving the family car, and picking up his new "Stepford Wife" from the supermarket with their children in the backseat.
Cast
- Katharine Ross as Joanna Eberhart
- Paula Prentiss as Bobbie Markowe
- Peter Masterson as Walter Eberhart
- Nanette Newman as Carol van Sant
- Tina Louise as Charmaine Wimperis
- Carol Rossen as Dr. Fancher
- William Prince as Ike Mazzard
- Carole Mallory as Kit Sundersen
- Toni Reid as Marie Axhelm
- Judith Baldwin as Patricia Cornell
- Barbara Rucker as Mary Ann Stavros
- George Coe as Claude Axhelm
- Franklin Cover as Ed Wimperis
- Robert Fields as Raymond Chandler
- Michael Higgins as Mr. Cornell
- Josef Sommer as Ted van Sant
- Remak Ramsay as Mr. Atkinson
- Mary Stuart Masterson as Kim Eberhart
- Ronny Sullivan as Amy Eberhart
- Patrick O'Neal as Dale "Diz" Coba
