Barnes & Noble

A dark secret lurks beneath domestic tranquility in The Stepford Wives, an oh-so-'70s psychological thriller from director Bryan Forbes. Screenwriter William Goldman (Marathon Man) adapted the novel by Rosemary's Baby author Ira Levin that imagines nightmarish underpinnings to a suburban dream. New York City housewife Joanna (Katharine Ross) moves with her husband and children to the town of Stepford, Connecticut, a haven of good schools, low taxes, and clean air. Oddly, though, Joanna's female peers all exude a zombielike placidity. The Stepford Wives hits all the beats of the classic conspiracy story, as Joanna increasingly suspects evil is afoot, questions everyone and everything around her, and eventually fears for her own sanity. The story serves up classic stereotypes along the way: children pile into station wagons, neighbors offer casseroles, women shop in cheery, shiny supermarkets, and men work the backyard grills -- it's an idyllic upper-class setting of green, green lawns. Paula Prentiss is nicely spunky as a fellow newcomer to Stepford who shares Joanna's suspicions, and Patrick O'Neal has a small but sharply sinister role as the founder of the secretive local men's association. But Ross is the real attraction here: This uniquely beautiful actress's girl-next-door allure perfectly suits this strangely asexual feminist allegory. Gregory Baird

All Movie Guide

In the William Goldman-scripted, Bryan Forbes-directed adaptation of Ira Levin's savagely satiric sci-fi novel The Stepford Wives, housewife Joanna (Katharine Ross) moves with husband Walter (Peter Masterson) and their children to the "ideal" suburban community of Stepford, CT. Slowly, Joanna deduces that something is amiss; most of the other housewives are vapid creatures who speak in trivialities and live only to please their husbands. Together with new friend Bobby (Paula Prentiss), she investigates this curious status quo. When Bobby also succumbs to cloying sweetness, Joanna discovers that Stepford's husbands have conspired with male chauvinist scientists to replace all the wives with computerized android duplicates. The Stepford Wives became a massive, runaway hit, earning four million dollars domestically. Mega-producer Scott Rudin and director Frank Oz teamed up for a remake in 2004. Hal Erickson

Product Details

• UPC: 097363816249
• Source: PARAMOUNT
• Region Code: 1
• Time: 1:55:00
• Sales Rank: 18,208

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