 Hello and welcome to another episode of Frightfully Forgotten Horror Movies. Today is a Patreon request episode. You only know him as Relic. Very mysterious. Asked us to cover 1975's The Stepford Wives. Based on the novel of the same name. It is directed by Brian Forbes. Catherine Ross is in this. She was in The Graduate. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. And she was in an episode of the Wild Wild West TV show. Not that God awful piece of shit movie. Paula Prentice is in this. She's in that... Saturday the 14th movie. I tried watching that once. I was like, ooh, I don't think I can finish this. Peter Madison is in this. And he was in The Exorcist. He's one of the doctors. William Prince is in this. And he was in The Gauntlet. He plays Blake Locke. Shoot him! Shoot! The Stepford Wives starts off with Joanna and Walter and their two daughters moving from the big city to a nice new quiet suburb called Stepford. Joanna is a kind of a city woman. She's a photographer into that kind of life. This new kind of setting for her is unsettling. She's not used to it. Like she even makes a comment that, you know, someone asked her what do you miss most about the big city. She says the noise. She also notices that all the women in this neighborhood are all very perfect looking. Walter comes home from work one day and, you know, she tells him, ah, look what I saw in the front lawn there. The two neighbors kind of getting at it a little bit. He mentions to her that, you know, he was offered to join this men's association, higher end upper crust men in Stepford join this association. This woman, Bobby, has just moved to Stepford and kind of befriends Joanna in the field. Bobby speaks her mind. She's an old bullshit woman and they sit down and they bust into Walter's scotch. No! They start to get to know each other and they become very good friends. Joanna and Walter are out grocery shopping and I love this scene because it's such a snapshot of the times where they're writing checks at the checkout. Yeah, that's right. Nobody writes checks anymore. There was an accident in the parking lot and one of the wives, one of the Stepford wives, gets in the car and hits her head and she starts acting all kind of funny and calls his ambulance and shows up right away and they pick her up and they take her away. But they don't take her in the direction of the hospice. Right, yeah. Now that Walter's joined the men's association they go to like a big party held by like the leader of the men's association. You get to kind of see all the Stepford people all the women and they're like all proper. The woman that was in that accident was acting very odd and she starts repeating herself over and over again about this recipe. I have to have that recipe. Yeah. I have to have that recipe. The husband gets so mad and kind of leads her away and she's had too much to drink. You're always doing this to me. One night Walter has the men from the men's association over. They also try and include Joanna in their conversation too just to get her opinion on things I guess. They never actually ask for her opinion. They just talk about nothing. Just a bunch of bullshit. Just smoke cigars and drink. That Blakelock guy. He's sketching her the whole time. And it's time to leave and one of the guys you know, oh can I get you a nightcap? Okay, yeah. Give me a decent brandy. None of this cooking sherry. Can't fault the man for wanting a decent brandy. No, no, no, no. There's also a guy that comes by sort of under the guise that he wants to have her record her own voice. Studies accents. She actually does do it. She goes through like the whole dictionary reading out all the words and everything in this tape recorder. They get a little fed up with this men's association and they want to create their own like their women's association. None of these women seem interested. They just want to stay at home and cook and clean. Finally come upon a woman named Charmaine. She's an avid tennis player. It turns out that Charmaine and her husband are sort of new to the town as well. When they all get together it seems like Joanna, Bobby and Charmaine are the only ones who are like... Talking. Talking and normal. And the other women don't really care about anything. They just want to talk about cooking and cleaning. Joanna and Bobby start thinking that there's something in the water. Manufacturing plants around the town too that maybe these things have something to do with what's going on. Go back to Charmaine's place and they find that the tennis court is being bulldozed. She loves tennis, right? So what's going on here? Bobby kind of springs it on Joanna that her husband is going to be taking her away on a trip. As soon as she comes back she's different. Starts to get Joanna thinking that there's something going on in the town. While she's telling the psychiatrist what's going on, even she realizes she sounds nuts. The psychiatrist tells her go get the kids and just leave. She goes back to her house turns out that her husband Walter has already sent them away somewhere and he doesn't tell her where they are. He's all drunk? Yeah, he's all drunk and they kind of have a bit of a tussle on the stairs and she kind of pushes them aside and takes off and she goes to Bobby's place. She starts getting very frustrated with Bobby because Bobby just keeps repeating herself over and over again and she's not the friend that she once had, right? She finally grabs a knife and she's like, if I cut myself I bleed. What happens when you cut yourself and she stabs Bobby right in the stomach? And that's where we're going to end the plot. Obviously the biggest thing about this movie is the social commentary on women. Exactly. And women's place in the house in society and basically it's like a women's lib type movie. Funny thing is that a lot of feminists hated the movie when it came out. Maybe it was too blatant. I don't really get that because it's obviously bringing to the forefront what women go through or what they were going through at the time. They have to conform to men's idea of the household. What men want you to do and what men think you should look like. The character Bobby, she never wore makeup. She never wore bra or anything like that. Pretty outspoken. It also speaks a lot to just simply conforming in society, right? Keeping up appearances and you move into a new town. What are the neighbors going to say about something? Is there going to be gossip all around? You've got to fit in. The pacing of this movie is really good. It is kind of a slow burn but there's always something happening to keep you interested. There's always a new clue popping up. Something as simple as the guy doing the sketch. Why? And then Charmaine's place and you see that she has a sketch of herself up on the wall. It may be a slow burn movie but it's an enormous payoff at the end. It's probably one of the best payoffs ever. You finally learn what's going on in Stepford. It's actually a mystery. What's happening with these women? It kind of boils down to two things. Is it brainwashing or are they even women? You have to watch the movie to find out but you do find out exactly what's happening. The acting in this movie is fantastic. It's totally believable. You believe Catherine Ross the predicament she's in. You feel for her what she's going through. I think everybody's sort of just women but men too have been in this situation at one time or another where you've got to conform to something and you don't want to. Work, school, whatever the case may be. There's a great scene I love when she's talking to a psychiatrist and there's that dead silence that awkward silence. I think it's fucking great because they can feel the tension in the psychiatrist. Tell me why you came all this way because nobody believes her. Paul Apprentice as Bobby is really good. The two of them together even the villain he could probably sell you anything. He's such a normal dude. I love the fact too he says that he used to work at Disneyland which plays into the whole I can sell you anything. We all want to live in Disneyland. The comedy in this movie too is very good and it works very well and it's not shoved down your face it's put in places in the movie where it makes sense it gives you a little break. The men is the comedy in this. The men are the idiots. That men's association meeting it's like you're sitting there I was laughing because it's so boring you listen to these guys just talk about boring shit and there's that great scene where they have to take care of those other kids. Walter doesn't like noise he's all going nuts. The stuttering guy is kind of interesting. He is not perfect, right? He stutters or something wrong with him but he has to have a perfect wife like what about you? Why can't you get better? You know you're not fucking perfect. Exactly. Well that's the point of the movie is that the men are in charge. You're allowed to be imperfect. So they can do whatever they want. That's what's so shitty about it. It's kind of more sci-fi thriller I'd say. But it is kind of horrid in a way where you think about put yourself in Joanna's shoes the situation she's put in. It is pretty fucking scary. What do you do? You know you're the only person left in this town that is normal. Or that you think is normal. What do you do? There's no one to go to. Everybody else is on the other side of the fence. And it's such a fantastical story that he's going to believe you. And I love that scene at the end where she's face to face with that villain guy, the Turtle Knight guy. Like you said, he can sell anything. She puts down her guard, right? She's got that. She gives him the poker. And then she realizes, ah fuck. And then she bolts. I love that part of it. This guy can sweet talk anybody. That's why he's such a great villain. This movie did spawn a whole bunch of sequels on TV, kind of bullshit. There's Return of the Stepford Wives, the Stepford Children, the Stepford Husbands. After a while, don't you think you should call it Quits? The Stepford Man and everything? The Stepford Pets? Yes, enough is enough already. So if you want a really good thought provoking movie that has something to say about society. Basically. It does it very well. It doesn't cram things down your throat. It just tells the story subtly. Thinking Man's movie. Not Man, Thinking People's movie. Watch your ass. Definitely check out 1975's The Stepford Wives if you haven't seen it. And until next time. Keep drinking. Keep drinking. Keep drinking.