{"id":14303,"date":"2020-06-24T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-24T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=14303"},"modified":"2024-03-02T21:19:05","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T05:19:05","slug":"classic-corner-the-stepford-wives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/classic-corner-the-stepford-wives\/","title":{"rendered":"Classic Corner: The Stepford Wives<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When a filmmaker tells you what influenced them, believe it. Back in 2017, when Jordan Peele was making the rounds promoting his feature directorial debut Get Out<\/em><\/a>, he spoke at length about the \u201csocial thrillers\u201d that inspired it \u2013 genre films that were rooted in the issues of the moment, and smuggled social commentary in under the cover of thrills and chills. We all nodded in recognition at such timeless classics as Night of the Living Dead<\/em> and Rosemary\u2019s Baby<\/em>, but didn\u2019t think much about The Stepford Wives<\/em> \u2013 most likely because that icy thriller\u2019s reputation had been rather sullied by an ill-advised 2004 remake. But the DNA of the original Stepford<\/em> (now streaming on Amazon Prime<\/a>) is all over Get Out<\/em>, and that\u2019s all the excuse you\u2019ll need to give it a look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on a novel by Rosemary\u2019s Baby<\/em> author Ira Levin, it tells the story of the Eberharts, a classic nuclear family: wife Joanna (Katherine Ross), husband Walter (Peter Masterson), and two adorable kids. We meet them as they\u2019re loading up their station wagon to move away from New York City \u2013 at a moment in the city\u2019s history<\/a> when such an exodus was not the worst idea \u2013 for the charming Stepford Village, over in Connecticut, where a beautiful house with a giant yard awaits them. \u201cYou don\u2019t even have to lock the doors in Stepford!\u201d beams Walter. \u201cIsn\u2019t that something?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps. But British director Bryan Forbes, perhaps less susceptible to the pleasures of suburbia than a domestic filmmaker, infuses the picture with dread and menace from the moment they arrive in this suburban enclave. (The cinematographer is Owen Roizman, who lensed such grimy \u201870s faves as The Exorcist <\/em>and The French Connection<\/em>.) The wife next door brings over a welcoming casserole with a vacancy that\u2019s a little unnerving. When Walter sees her husband at the mailbox, he notes, \u201cShe cooks as good as she looks, Ted,\u201d and Michael Small\u2019s ominous score swells. At the grocery store, a parking lot fender bender is shot and scored like a kill in a slasher movie. Later, one of the wives wanders through a garden party, robotically repeating \u201cI\u2019ll just die if I don\u2019t get this recipe.\u201d Joanna takes this all in, and smells something rotten. \u201cI don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on,\u201d she says. \u201cI just know something is wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By that time, Walter has become a member in good standing with the village\u2019s \u201cmen\u2019s association\u201d where, one of the other wives surmises, they \u201cwatch dirty movies and talk about the good old days.\u201d One night, they gather at the Eberhart home, and she finds the men alternately creepy and off-putting. \u201cThis is Stepford, not New York,\u201d Walter insists. \u201cThese are the people we have to live with, and they suit me.\u201d She will soon find out just how much they suit him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Stepford Wives<\/em> was released in 1975, plenty of time to tap into a culture that was questioning assumptions and traditions about gender roles and domestic partnerships. (It also means that it was written and directed by men, which results in a bit of aloofness; mind boggles at what, say, Elaine May could\u2019ve done with this material.) The questions aren\u2019t approached subtly; when Joanna and her only real pal in Stepford, Bobbie Markowe (the great Paula Prentiss), note that the women of the town seem stuck in the \u201850s, Joanna notes, \u201cI messed a little bit with women\u2019s lib back in New York,\u201d and adds, \u201cI\u2019m not contemplating any Maidenform bonfires, but they could certainly use something<\/em> around here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So they start something radical: a kind of group therapy, in which the wives of Stepford can talk amongst themselves about their lives, worries, fears. Or at least, that\u2019s how it begins; no sooner has one of them opened up than the rest start spouting taglines for kitchen products. The more Joanna observes these women, the more it feels like someone, or something, is getting to them, brainwashing them. But that couldn\u2019t be, right? \u201cMaybe we\u2019re the crazy ones,\u201d she wonders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Remove the genre elements, and The Stepford Wives<\/em> \u2013 like such contemporary counterparts as The Invisible Man<\/em> \u2013 is about the difficulty women have, within our society, just being believed<\/em>. And true to its time, it\u2019s also about the kind of bulldozing that happens in too many marriages; not long after they arrive in Stepford, Joanna asks her husband, \u201cWhy did we move,\u201d and it becomes clear that she wasn\u2019t really consulted on the matter. An uncomfortable uncertainty keeps flashing across her face in those early scenes, before any of the really scary stuff starts, and the camera lingers on that face; those feelings of unease and happiness are an essential ingredient, absolutely combustible when added to her suspicions and observations about the women around her. \u201cIf I\u2019m wrong, I\u2019m insane,\u201d she despairs. \u201cAnd if I\u2019m right\u2026 it\u2019s worse than if I\u2019m wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In spite of its PG rating, The Stepford Wives<\/em> gets dark \u2013 <\/em>there are real scares and violence in this thing, particularly towards the end, as Walter gets nasty and violent, and we\u2019re treated to the empty black eyeballs of\u2026 well, let\u2019s not spoil it. Or at least, any more than screenwriter Paul Rudnick and director Frank Oz did when they remade the film decades later, reworking it into a quirky comedy and copping out on the perfect, chilling ending. That garbage reinvention kept me away from the original picture for years. Don\u2019t make the same mistake. \"\"\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Stepford Wives\u201d is streaming<\/em> <\/em>on Amazon Prime<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When a filmmaker tells you what influenced them, believe it. Back in 2017, when Jordan Peele was making the rounds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":531,"featured_media":14306,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1399,1381],"tags":[1431,1422,162],"class_list":["post-14303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-looking-back","category-movies","tag-classic-corner","tag-looking-back","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/531"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14303"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22800,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14303\/revisions\/22800"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}