The Stepford Wives (1975)

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Great ideas are few and far between. This is a great idea. Written at a time when women's liberation was finally emerging from a 1960s where possibly the most blatant (Technicolor) sexism was portrayed in popular culture and men were still of the generation that assumed theirs was really the dominant sex. (Yes , some still do, I think they are called Neanderthals?)The expectation was for women to act accordingly - at home and work. The world was still absolutely patriarchal. Only the hidden power of women - at home and work - was still lingering in the subconscious. Ready to emerge. And in the 1970s I think there was real progress.This film just asks a question, what do you want from a partner? A real person, given power to choose, another human being to share lifes ups and downs, a partner and soul mate, or that which is given pleasing shape and kitchen duties? There is of course only one answer, or should be unless tradition, peer pressure and convention expose the frailty of the male ego to the point of murder? Trust, role play and many other topics are touched upon, the savage final reel shattering the idyllic suburban setting is more Twin Peaks / Blue Velvet - and one wonders how much influence this may have had.This is a truly beautiful film to look at, the camerawork , performances and direction are all first rate and produce a memorable, and finely crafted masterpiece in the art of film making. 10/10 (I rated it 8/10 on the absolute scale - compared to the modern remake for instance which takes the premise to an altogether different place - with its plastic, robotic, modern Hollywood manufacture - even before the story starts - it's a 10 in comparison

You remember the existence of the Christian Right, the MRA, pro-lifers, the gender pay gap, the sexual harrassment scandals all over the world and the fact that no older actress ever gets to play the lead hottie like the boys do. Suddenly the film seems a lot more relevant in 2018 than we'd like to believe, doesn't it? Makes you wonder why anybody thought it needed parodying in 2004. Were we pretending women had equality, particularly in the industry the bulk of the scandals have come from?Creepiest line in the film? Walter's comment to Carol's husband: " She looks as good as she cooks, Ed" within hours of arriving in Stepford. Walter KNEW before he moved his wife there!

The first time I saw The Stepford Wives, it was on ABC, in, I think, the fall of 1975. Since then, I've seen TSW about a half dozen times, and I still am amazed at how unsettling this sci-fi/feminist Gothic can be. I don't think of myself as a feminist--the levels of anger and hostility are a turn-off--but I got the point of the movie. Stepford is a grown-ups' movie because it has the audacity to tell an uncomfortable story, one of possessiveness and mass-murder in a sleepy New England community. The futuristic technology in the movie was dated for a long while, but with the advent of that Scarlett Johansson robot in the news, the end scene in TSW seems eerily prescient. In my childhood, I expected the good guys--or in this case, the heroine--to win. I won't give anything away, but the ending of The Stepford Wives is easy to see coming as an almost senior-citizen, but as a high school senior, I was stunned at how the story ends.Some years ago I read the Ira Levin novel. There is a moment in the book that, if I had been a 17 year old, I would have found incomprehensible. The main character and her husband are drifting away from each other, and, one night, the husband starts masturbating in bed while his wife, who he thinks is asleep, is very much awake. She lays still with her back to him. He is crying while he's manipulating himself, and she's horrified but silent.Here is his wife, 6 inches away from him, but the distance could easily be 6 miles. They're no longer married. She's dead to him. Heavy stuff, dude.Johanna Eberhart's husband, Walter, holds a secret so monstrous, his wife's horror at his self-gratification would quickly vanish if she knew her fate.So, when I sat down to watch the movie again some 10 years ago, I was startled at how deeply disturbing the book was and how the movie almost gets it right. The cast is both acceptable and believable, and my only quibble is that, as things wrap up, The Stepford Wives starts to veer dangerously close to a clichéd mad slasher flick. And that's my only complaint. My favorite moment in the movie is when one of Katherine Ross' friends, I think it was Tina Louise, mocks suburban wifey-wifeness by sneering through cigarette smoke, "Personally, I'd rather not squeeze the goddamned Charmin." That line is my take-away from this well-made, unpleasant, and disturbing little horror flick.

"...we do this because we can"This is a film that reminds me of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". No, it isn't because of the personality changes of the characters. Both stories are excellent BUT it seems that so many people know the twist at the end that much of the wonderful impact is lost in the movies when you see them today (or read them if you're reading "Jekyll"). I wish folks could watch this without knowing--it would make the suspense so much greater.The film begins in New York City. A family is moving to the country and once there, they see that things are practically perfect in every way. While Walter Eberhart seems to take all this perfection in stride, his wife, Joanna (Katharine Ross) is simply going bananas! Most of the housewives only talk about cleaning their homes and baking--and are very bland but beautiful women. However, there are three women (Paula Prentiss, Tina Louise and Ross) who are 'normal' and haven't succumbed to whatever's changing the women of Stepford into whatever the crap they are! This is a well made and chilling movie. If you DON'T know the twist, I'd rate it an 8 or possibly a 9. If you DO, it's still worth watching but only garners a 7. It was certainly original when it first debuted.By the way, although the movie was rated PG, today it probably would earn a PG-13 due to some sexual content and brief nudity.