THE STEPFORD WIVES (1975)

Walter Eberhart (Peter Masterson) and wife Joanna (Katherine Ross) flee the hubbub of New York seeking peace in the suburban community of Stepford, a New England haven as beautiful and peaceful as any sane person could imagine. Maybe too peaceful, as amateur photographer Joanna, who "messed a little with Women's Lib" back in Manhattan, fears her creativity will be stifled by her sedate new surroundings. Plus, she's begun to feel that her opinions don't matter to her husband, who of late has been making all their decisions without her. Meeting her neighbor Carol Van Sant (Nanette Newman) only intensifies Joanna's fears many of the wives of Stepford seem all too perfect, like throwbacks to an imaginary bygone age of unquestioning servitude.

For a time, her paranoia is sidetracked by striking up a friendship with Bobbie Markham (Paula Prentiss), a brassy fellow former New Yorker who shares her views on Stepford. But the other Stepford wives still bother her a little, as do the men Walter has begun to hang around with - particularly Dale Coba (Patrick O'Neal), a creepy ex-Disneyland engineer. If she only could see what the audience sees. The local Men's Association is engaged in some very strange activities behind her back, clearly spying on her and plotting something.

When she and Bobbie try to get the women together for some sort of group "consciousness-raising" activities away from the men, the only one to show more thn slight interest is Charmaine Wimperis (Tina Louise), another newcomer. But vague paranoia turns more concrete when Charmaine has a change of heart overnight, suddenly becoming the "perfect" wife and hostess like the other wives, whose most radical thoughts concern new cleaning products. When even Bobbie changes her ways, Joanna becomes determined to learn the secret of the Stepford wives.

Okay, so we're supposed to be coy about movies with surprise endings, but this is one of those movies that hasn't really surprised anyone since its initial release, and the secret was out soon after, so spoiler warnings be damned. Robots! The men in Stepford have gotten together to swap their real wives for robot duplicates. Anyone who has ever heard of this movie knows the "surprise" ending. After a disappointing theatrical run, the film went on to gather a huge cult audience on college, home video and TV circuits, and has come to symbolize the horrors of domesticity. However, the what the movie loses in chills due to its status as a cultural icon, it gains as drama and social satire once one knows what's going on, a lot of little things stick out more vividly. Walter's behavior after he becomes a member of the Men's Association and not only learns their secrets, but becomes a part of their scheme, is fascinating.

But STEPFORD has a lot more to offer than dramatic tension. Ira Levin, who found Satanists among Manhattan brownstones in ROSEMARY'S BABY, is soft on his science, but once again digs up unease from within modern society. The early 1970s were years in which technology was making such accelerated strides that it frightened everyone. It was as if the story of FRANKENSTEIN was beginning to happen to the entire world. The recent remake may take a more tongue-in-cheek attitude, but society's fears were deadly serious business back then. The world was more than a little crazy which may explain the green shag carpeting. Bryan Forbes' film plays it all like a modern day gothic. Our pretty young heroine is drawn into a web of terror, but instead of vampires taking over her village, it's corporations and their technology. It's a bit dated (granny dresses abound), and a bit obvious (the climax takes place in a raging thunderstorm), but it's valid. The majority of men don't really want a mindless Barbie doll for a wife, and suburbia isn't quite as numbingly sanitized as it was once feared, and maybe movies like STEPFORD WIVES had something to do with that.

Paramount's DVD frames the image well, though there's not much room for improvement in the grainy look of the era's photography and limited soundscape. An 18-minute featurette combines interviews with surviving cast and crew members, discussing disagreements between Forbes and screenwriter William Goldman (whose vision tended toward increasing some of the story's more sensational aspects), difficulties in casting, and other aspects of the production. A trailer and two radio spots are also included, which shows how the film may have been mismarketed as a straight horror picture.