Trailer
Plot summary
Joanna Eberhart, a photographer, leaves Manhattan and moves to Stepford, Connecticut, with her husband Walter and daughters Kim and Amy. The town's wives are polished, devoted to housework, and show no intellectual interests, while the men belong to the exclusive Men's Association. Joanna befriends Bobbie Markowe and organizes a women's liberation meeting, but the other wives keep steering the discussion back to cleaning products. The Men's Association bores her, from its boorish members to its intimidating president, Dale Coba. After Charmaine Wimpiris returns from a weekend trip as a compliant wife who has fired her maid and given up her tennis court, Joanna and Bobbie begin investigating the town's obedient women.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Stepford Wives (1975)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Diane Keaton turned down the lead role of Joanna because her analyst did not like the script; the part was then offered to Jean Seberg, who declined, and Tuesday Weld accepted but canceled a week before filming began.
- Brian De Palma was initially going to direct The Stepford Wives because producer Edgar Scherick admired De Palma's Sisters, but Scherick said screenwriter William Goldman threatened to leave the film if De Palma got the job.
- Bryan Forbes wrote that he and William Goldman came to an acrimonious parting of the ways as the first day of principal photography neared, and that the final script that reached the screen was his, differing greatly from Goldman's.
- Joanna Cassidy was cast as Joanna's friend and ally Bobbie but was fired after two weeks of production, a decision Bryan Forbes claims was the producer's, and Paula Prentiss replaced her.
- Betty Friedan called The Stepford Wives "a rip-off of the women's movement" and urged women to boycott the film and try to diminish any publicity for it.
- Actor Peter Masterson secretly called his friend, screenwriter William Goldman, for input on scenes while making the film; Goldman later said it could have been very strong but was rewritten and altered.
SPOILER
Paula Prentiss's line as Bobbie Markowe, "Yes.. this.. it's wonderful!", was legally sampled on the S-Express song "Hey Music Lover", which became a big international hit in 1989.- Director Bryan Forbes wrote that the film has stood the test of time and that its title has become part of the language, hearing people say of someone, "Oh, she's a real Stepford wife".
