It is arduous to imagine it has been 50 years because the launch of The Stepford Wives, a movie based mostly on the 1972 novel of the identical identify by Ira Levin. It may not be to everybody’s style, however its lasting cultural affect is plain. A psychological horror/thriller with a touch of sci-fi, the movie spawned a number of made-for-TV sequels and a campy 2004 remake, in addition to inspiring one of many important characters within the hit sequence Determined Housewives. The time period “Stepford spouse” grew to become a part of our shared cultural lexicon, and Jordan Peele even cited the movie as one of many key influences for his 2017 masterpiece Get Out.
(Spoilers beneath for the novel and each movie diversifications.)
Levin’s novels have been a scorching commodity in Hollywood on the time, particularly after the success of his most well-known novel, Rosemary’s Child (1967), tailored right into a 1968 horror movie starring Mia Farrow. (The novels A Kiss Earlier than Dying, The Boys from Brazil, Sliver, and Levin’s play Deathtrap have been additionally tailored to movie.) The plot of the The Stepford Wives movie follows the novel’s plot pretty carefully.
Katharine Ross stars as Joanna Eberhart, a younger spouse and mom and aspiring photographer who strikes along with her household to the seemingly idyllic fictional Connecticut suburb of Stepford at her husband Walter’s (Peter Masterson) insistence. She bonds with sassy fellow newcomer Bobbie (Paula Prentiss) over scotch and Ring Dings (and their respective messy kitchens), mutually marveling on the vacuous habits of the opposite neighborhood’ wives.
There are quickly hints that every one isn’t proper in Stepford. Carol (Nanette Newman) has a bit an excessive amount of to drink at a backyard social gathering and begins to glitch. Along with dissatisfied trophy spouse Charmaine (Tina Louise), Joanna and Bobbie maintain a ladies’s “consciousness elevating” assembly (aka a bitching session), solely to have it devolve into the opposite wives raving in regards to the time-saving deserves of Straightforward On spray starch. In the meantime, Walter has joined the unique Stepford Males’s Affiliation and turns into more and more secretive and distant.
When Charmaine out of the blue transforms into yet one more vapid housewife after a weekend getaway along with her husband, Joanna and Bobbie turn into suspicious and determine to analyze. They uncover that there was once a ladies’s group in Stepford—headed by Carol, no much less—however all of the reworked wives out of the blue misplaced curiosity. Is it one thing within the water inflicting the transformation? That seems to be a lifeless finish, however one clue is that the creepy head of the Males’s Affiliation, Dale “Diz” Coba (Patrick O’Neal), used to work for Disney constructing animatronics. (When Diz first tells Joanna about his background, she says she does not imagine it: “You do not appear to be somebody who enjoys making folks comfortable.” Her instincts are right.)
