The original 'Stepford Wives' deserves its cult classic status

A lot of people are aware of the original The Stepford Wives but very few have actually seen it -- which I think is a shame. It's a delightfully weird and subversively smart genre film and it deserves a serious reappraisal.

For a movie that introduced a very specific term into the cultural lexicon, its had very little staying power and the problematic 2004 remake only enhanced the problem.

That film, which boasted an all-star cast including Nicole Kidman, Bette Midler and Glenn Close made a lot of crucial mistakes with the material. It tried to be consciously camp, which almost never works and it was too literal in places where the original was mysterious and foreboding.

Ultimately that film's failure should not detract from what is exceptional about the 1975 original, which in a way could only have existed or worked at the time of its release.

It was unfairly maligned at the time as "anti-women" when in reality it was a pitch-black satire on male desire to repress women and make them subservient. The film is funny, but almost entirely intentionally so, but it also has a palpable sense of dread and an eeriness that is unique to its austere New England setting.

The pace is definitely glacial and if you're looking for a lot of jump scares this isn't the movie for you but it draws me in and its finale is a real gut punch.

The Stepford Wives

For those unfamiliar with its wild and crazy plot -- the massively underrated Katharine Ross (The Graduate, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) plays a New Yorker who relocates with her husband and kids to Stepford, an idyllic Connecticut community, largely at her spouse's urging.

She grows quickly disconcerted with a mysterious all-male community group and the cleaning-product-obsessed living dolls that make up the female population. I won't spoil it for you, but needless to say there is an insidious conspiracy behind the soulless ladies of Stepford and the Ross character becomes increasingly helpless in the face of it all.

What I like about the 1975 version is that it never really explains how and why the men of the town do what they do. In a way, describing those practical matters would deprive the films of its oddball power.

Without explanations the movie becomes a not-so-subtle commentary on gender roles, the institution of marriage, the commercialization of our domestic lives and much more. Pretty heady stuff for a B-movie.

I've always felt that a mark of good film adaptation of a book is that (if you haven't already) you want to read the source material when its through. That was definitely the case for me with this story (although admittedly I've yet to read the book). There are so many avenues and subjects you can explore through this premise.

This film came right on the heels of the women's liberation movement of the late '60s and early '70s and wasn't easily digestible to a cynical and jaded post-Watergate audience. On the surface its such a silly, even throwback movie. But I think it deserves a shot at redemption.

There are some really creepy, yet compelling ideas in this movie and I strongly recommend it.