One hopes that director Bryan Forbes and indeed source novelist Ira Levin were being highly satirical with this very chauvinistic tale in which the good ladies of Stepford seem to conform to a very man-centric view about what constitutes the perfect wife. The womenfolk in this small backwood town seem to exist only to cater to the every need of their husbands, uniformly deferring to them in everything, from ensuring their man has a hearty dinner waiting for them when they return to their spotlessly cleaned home after a hard day at work, to indulging their every whim even in the bedroom. These women certainly know their place and appear perfectly happy in their docile domesticity, allowing the men to meet up together and rule the roost even though it's clear that these guys are all self-important, narcissistic bozos who'd struggle to put their trousers on the right way round, if left to themselves.
Into this idyllic Big Boys Town comes Katherine Ross, as Joanna Elkhart, a young photographer married to her city-slicker lawyer husband with their two young kids, the family craving a change of pace as well as place, but she's immediately struck by the bland, obedient ways of all the wives she meets in town as well as the strangely similar outdated clothes they wear, all white lace and plunging neck-lines. She pals up with another newbie, Paula Prentiss's gobby Bobbie, but then when even she suddenly turns into a welcome-mat wife like all the rest, her suspicions are aroused and she determines to ascertain the truth, which she does at dead of night in a roaring thunderstorm, natch, at the big old house in the centre of town presided over by the apparent leader of the men's association, played by the sinister Patrick O'Neal.
Filmed in a dreamy, gauzy, very 70's style by Forbes, rather like a glossy TV advert, it certainly draws you in to its super-indulgent men-only fantasy-world, up until the last half-hour as the truth is uncovered and we move into horror-film territory. Watching it, I was reminded of that other classic male-fantasy movie of the time, Michael Crichton's "Westworld", although here, at least there's no sign that this boys-only nirvana is going to end anytime soon.
Like I said, I'm guessing and hoping that director Forbes is taking a side and striking a blow for woman's lib in the battle-of-the-sexes argument which was raging at the time. I do think he made a mistake however in casting, as he usually does in fact, his English wife Nanette Newman as one of the wives as she's too old and mumsy for her part.
Very much a film of its time, in subject-matter, standpoint and visual style, it does leave the viewer with a sense of disquiet but also one would hope, distaste for the caveman attitudes perpetuated in the movie.
Into this idyllic Big Boys Town comes Katherine Ross, as Joanna Elkhart, a young photographer married to her city-slicker lawyer husband with their two young kids, the family craving a change of pace as well as place, but she's immediately struck by the bland, obedient ways of all the wives she meets in town as well as the strangely similar outdated clothes they wear, all white lace and plunging neck-lines. She pals up with another newbie, Paula Prentiss's gobby Bobbie, but then when even she suddenly turns into a welcome-mat wife like all the rest, her suspicions are aroused and she determines to ascertain the truth, which she does at dead of night in a roaring thunderstorm, natch, at the big old house in the centre of town presided over by the apparent leader of the men's association, played by the sinister Patrick O'Neal.
Filmed in a dreamy, gauzy, very 70's style by Forbes, rather like a glossy TV advert, it certainly draws you in to its super-indulgent men-only fantasy-world, up until the last half-hour as the truth is uncovered and we move into horror-film territory. Watching it, I was reminded of that other classic male-fantasy movie of the time, Michael Crichton's "Westworld", although here, at least there's no sign that this boys-only nirvana is going to end anytime soon.
Like I said, I'm guessing and hoping that director Forbes is taking a side and striking a blow for woman's lib in the battle-of-the-sexes argument which was raging at the time. I do think he made a mistake however in casting, as he usually does in fact, his English wife Nanette Newman as one of the wives as she's too old and mumsy for her part.
Very much a film of its time, in subject-matter, standpoint and visual style, it does leave the viewer with a sense of disquiet but also one would hope, distaste for the caveman attitudes perpetuated in the movie.