The Stepford Wives (1975)
July 13, 2024 10:40 AM - Subscribe
Joanna Eberhart has come to the quaint little town of Stepford, Connecticut with her family, but soon discovers there lies a sinister truth in the all too perfect behavior of the female residents. -- IMDb
I loved the book when I first read it as a (way too young to be reading it) kid, and I have yet to see an adaptation i don't also like, but this one is my favorite.
posted by rhiannonstone at 9:42 PM on July 14
posted by rhiannonstone at 9:42 PM on July 14
I saw this decades ago and liked it quite a lot but haven't ever read the book. The remake struck me as a bit more tonally inconsistent and not really the film for me.
I was surprised to see that this hadn't been posted before; the post on Deathtrap reminded me of it.
posted by johnofjack at 3:20 PM on July 15
I was surprised to see that this hadn't been posted before; the post on Deathtrap reminded me of it.
posted by johnofjack at 3:20 PM on July 15
Yay I finally get to rant about this film (and by extension the remakes, especially the 2004 Nicole Kidman) which all make a huge mistake, I think:
For writer William Goldman it was the casting of Nanette Newman as the Head Wife. According to Goldman, the script implied that the wives are surprising because they're young hippie sex babes and all the husbands are typical upper class conservative business types; this was the fantasy of the middle aged men at the time (1975). It also pokes fun at the horror of the newly- liberated woman of the 70's finding herself in a harem-type situation (the Western fantasy of one anyway) with the women just being mindless fantasy objects.
However, because Nanette Newman was cast, and she was not a young hippie sex babe type, the director and costumer went with very proper stuffy stylish wife type, and so all the wives became conservative dream wives instead. As if that was fantasy that all the men have, to have these very traditional mother-types (young looking, but very polished makeup/hair/clothes, etc). This really changes the tone of the film and makes it more about falling into a conservative nightmare, rather than the "let's change them into sex babes who would normally never have anything to do with guys like us" reaction to liberated women of the 70's.
Nanette Newman was married to the director.
posted by winesong at 4:55 PM on July 15 [4 favorites]
For writer William Goldman it was the casting of Nanette Newman as the Head Wife. According to Goldman, the script implied that the wives are surprising because they're young hippie sex babes and all the husbands are typical upper class conservative business types; this was the fantasy of the middle aged men at the time (1975). It also pokes fun at the horror of the newly- liberated woman of the 70's finding herself in a harem-type situation (the Western fantasy of one anyway) with the women just being mindless fantasy objects.
However, because Nanette Newman was cast, and she was not a young hippie sex babe type, the director and costumer went with very proper stuffy stylish wife type, and so all the wives became conservative dream wives instead. As if that was fantasy that all the men have, to have these very traditional mother-types (young looking, but very polished makeup/hair/clothes, etc). This really changes the tone of the film and makes it more about falling into a conservative nightmare, rather than the "let's change them into sex babes who would normally never have anything to do with guys like us" reaction to liberated women of the 70's.
Nanette Newman was married to the director.
posted by winesong at 4:55 PM on July 15 [4 favorites]
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posted by emd3737 at 12:49 PM on July 13