The Stepford Wives, Crazy Stepford Sequels and a Nicole Kidman Remake 

I need that clip of Bobby going "Holy cow!" as a reaction GIF or meme. There are a lot of situations as of late that I could use it for.

So glad you brought up Disturbing Behavior! It was totally giving me "Stepford Wives" vibes as I was watching it!!

Ira Levin really knew how to delve into American women’s fears during the ‘60s. “Stepford Wives” still holds so much relevance as it feels like some of this is coming back into fashion

Great work! Loved this, especially due to the sequel info and DB connection. Thank you!

Please also consider doing a video on "Seance on a Wet Afternoon" (1964), which was also directed by Bryan Forbes. A fantastic film starring Richard Attenborough, Kim Stanley and Nanette Newman (Mrs. Bryan Forbes).

Every time I see Katherine Ross, I think of Anne Hathaway. I grew up with Stepford wives or basically unhappy wives, so this story resonated. These types of men are still amongst us. This is like a paradigm that cannot be resolved. One side will always feel like they sacrificed too much. In this vein it would be interesting to cover Peyton Place. The book was insanely popular and then the movie, then the soap opera. Girls older than me would always bang on about Peyton Place. I never watched it but, out of curiosity, read the book a few years ago. It adressed the small town mentality and women's discontent. It kind let the cat out of that bag.

On the 2004 remake, "Are the Stepford wives humans with mind-controlling chips or robotic doubles? The film is uninterested in reconciling such questions, reflecting its emphasis on satire." I believe that they are robotic doubles, but with cloned brains, it makes the most sense. In this made-up world where anything seems possible, I'm sure cloning a human brain would not be difficult. A lot of changes were made in this problematic movie, but the biggest mistake IMO was trying to explain how it all works. Let the viewers decide and make them use their imagination. Aesthetically tho the movie looks great. I've never really been a fan of the 1970's, they all have this very distinctive look to them. The movie Grease is a perfect example of how movies of that era could never truly recapture the look of a certain time period accurately. The year is 1958 but everyone looks very '70s, trying desperately to look like people from the '50s.

That was an interesting and well informed video. If I can add, Desperate Housewives was certainly Ryan Murphy referencing the Stepford Wives in a way. Things on the surface not really reflecting what's going on inside. BTW in the Remake there were many scenes referencing the women being turned into robots. They decided to make it more about mind control and RESHOT and added new scenes. But they kept many of the "ROBOT" scenes in the movie. The most glaring one is the ending scene with Christopher Walken.

Ira Levin came up with GREAT ideas. He executed them in a stripped-down style similar to Richard Matheson's, making the books ready for movies. William Goldman did a terrific script and added some good stuff (the wife calling 'You're the best!' to her pipsqueak husband). Goldman's anecdote about the director asking him what he thought of using his (the director's) wife in one of the big roles is hilarious. The movie is okay, but I admit to avoiding the sequels and reboots. My one disagreement is that folks don't seem to get that this is as much a satire on women's lib (Men would rather have robots with big boobs!) as it is on men's ideas about 'perfect' women. Levin never only satirized his obvious targets. I mean, the women in this movie with the dresses and sunhats don't reflect any male fantasies I've ever heard of... Terrific video. I've been curious about the sequels, but not enough to watch them.

I think one can’t ignore the political aspects or connotations of the original Stepford Wives. It was an exploration of a conservative desire to return to a more ordered and controlled social structure idealized in the 50’s suburban dream. It was a reaction to the progressive attempts to reorder a society toward equal opportunity for both genders and for all races.

Excellent coverage of this movie _ book. A favorite of mine. It was truly misunderstood. Re-makes all fall short. Thank you!

I believe originally the "perfect" wives were supposed to be modeled on Playboy playmates (part of the satire was that even Playboy playmates don't look like their magazine counterpart). Issues arose when the director Bryan Forbes cast his wife Nanette Newman as Carol (she was fine in the film but her appearance and dress definitely stand out against the other Stepford wives who were played by commercial actresses/models). The entire wardrobe had to be readjusted and the strange summer dresses the women wear was the result. My mom who was a 1960-70s feminist thought the movie was a clever social satire. I always saw it as such. I refuse to acknowledge anything after the 1975 film LOL

Great episodes and a good idea to join them up for a longer omnibus. Love it!

If you want to know more about women in the suburbs during the 1960s through the 1980s, read the works of the late, great Erma Bombeck.

There is also a TV movie Perfect Little Angels (1998 ) with Cheryl Ladd with a similar story about Teenagers brainwashed

I just seen this movie today and noticed that it’s a VERY feminist movie but it didn’t preach to you. It showed you. I feel like the newer movies need to follow this blueprint.

To my understanding in the 2004 movie, the women ARE replaced with robots, but their actual brains are surgically fused to the robot casing and programmed using microchips. That explains the doppleganger body on the platform when Joanna and Walter go down to the basement, the sparking heads, the malfunctions during conversations, and the strength shown in the clip where one of the wives takes the remote and crumples it in seconds. They are robots. Just Robots with human brains. Think Cybermen from Doctor Who

I know ATM machine isn't something anyone needs anyone to talk about anymore, but I can't help it. It grinds against my brain.

Last year , OLivia Wilde's Don't Worry Darrling is also almost a remake

I'll maintain the original film walked right up to the line of camp also.. . not necessarily the overall theme(s) or even directorial intent, but the cooking and the cleaning and the walking and the talking, it's an unmistakable satire of the way women were portrayed by madison avenue at the time (the waxy yellow buildup, my husband never asks for a second cup at home, etc).. . of course it needed to be presented in a way that even the least sophisticated viewer would easily recognize that something was off with the women of stepford, but for anyone coming to the table with a camp sensibility it just hits as funny (and no, it's not the big hair, or the gunne sax sundresses, it's definitely in the writing and the performances).

24:39 I always considered Disturbing behavior to be more of a remake of Zombie high.

On the "comedy remake" - I notice that a number of socially conscious genre films (Total Recall, Robocop, come to mind) were remade in the early 2000s with all social commentary removed - a little mini-genre unto itself

@15:54 Would you believe it’s Don Murray, not Don Adams?

There is also the movie called Perfect little angels.

My mom grew up in the 1950s, her mother wasn't submissive, in fact my grandfather was dependent on her to run the business while he was out on the road. She did have the kitchen: yellow appliances and tea cup wallpaper. I lived in the same house two decades later. My grandmother was pleasant, but not bending over backwards to please her husband! Ever!

thank you for educating us, didn't know anything about it

GoodBadFilms did an extended look at Book Of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 as well. Nag DAB these people, anyway! I did love this (of course), and I enjoyed reading the novel as well as loving the book. I have never understood why people didn't see that the point was the men that wanted... something, I can't say they wanted wives/lovers/friends so much as mannequins with lady parts.

4:20 White flight. Read “Fluke.”

It's interesting to me that the prominent feminists of the time didn't see that the film was pro-feminist. The connection with Invasion of the Body Snatchers should also be noted (The sequels and remakes of body Snatchers would make a good video)

Joanna isn't killed in the book, nor the movie. It's implied that there is some kind of integration that takes place. In the movie, Joanna's replacement has black eyes when it attacks her, and in the following supermarket scene the Joanna-bot has normal eyes. There's a long out of focus shot that resolves as Joanna-bot rolls her shopping cart towards the camera. As the out of focus close-up on her face becomes clear, you see her eyes. They appear wide, and dark. Likely trying to convey some kind of distress, fear, or sadness. This implies that the real Joanna is inside the automaton in some way.

I truly liked the comedy remake.

I had first seen this movie - in the theatre - on a double feature with "Shampoo" (AWFUL movie!). The Stepford Wives was the older movie- Shampoo was new. I really liked it , but was surprised that it was not a BIGGER hit than it was. 1975 was pretty much DOMINATED by "JAWS". I guess that had something to do with it. Then.. came the TV movie "Revenge of the Stepford Wives" and HOW INSULTING was THIS: The wives were not robots-- they were HYPNOTIZED ! LOL. It could not get any worse than this . Right ? Noooo. "The Stepford Children" in the 1980s w/ Barbara Eden as the mom; was like a crazy Lifetime movie (IN A BAD way ,. LOL. Not in a GOOD way). The NAIL in the Stepford Coffin was - the absolutely STUPID woke "comedy" version with Nicole Kidman. I cannot BELIVE I paid to see that in the theatre!! As far as I know- NO REMAKES are planned (Like that DREADFUL Rosemary's Baby remake in the 2000s!~) .

To borrow from the re-make: they were "re-programmed!"

Honestly, it seems like we are due for a redux. It could focus on a well intentioned husband who in theory wants to have a strong independent wife. Maybe he considers himself a feminist. Until his wife’s interests conflict with his vision of their family. The horror would be how seductive he finds the thinking of traditionalists like the KC kicker, and trad life podcasters.

In the original The Stepford Wives, were Bobbi and Charmaine stay at home wives?

I saw this when quite young on TV. It always struck me the fellas were creeps. In Adventures of the screen trade written by William Goldman, also script writer on the orig film. He claimed rightly that the casting of Bryan Forbes wife Nanette Newman (a fine actress but completely miscast) as the men in stepford want to fxxk Bo Derek. The original is both a time capsule and reflection of the 70s feminist movement distorted by the husband's misogyny

I dont know, to be honest, the 2004 movie is my favorite because ive seen so many versions of "person goes to place and loved ones want to change them and they ether change by the end or they usurp everything" disney plus did one in their show just beyond and there are so many other horror anthologies that do. the 2004 one, with the twists and the comedy made it the most creative of the premise at least in my opinion.

I honestly don't find SW in any way suspenseful or scary. Not because I am statistically safe as one of the penis-d ones, on top of my aspergers keeping me from doing anything to get noticed from the weirdos from botting me, but the whole thing about replacing wives with robots to be just dumb. Sell this technology to the military!

I was hoping, before all the politics, you'd mention that 'Wives' was a popular and really crappy flick that made buckets of money...

You can give me all the remakes in the world, to pacify and sugarcoat my feelings of what happens in the end of Stepford Wives and what really happened. but the first one did it for me. The first one is more straight forward. No Matter How Sad the ending. (Which personally really made me cry. The same way the beginning of Terminator dark fate made me cry. I Know No one wants to say it, but I'm saying it.).ButThe first one tells it all. You can't beat the original. You can't beat an OG. Stepford wives 1975 is real proof that you men are stupid. You're going to kill your real wife actual wife in exchange for a robot clone of your wife if you love your wife that much why not just stick with the original? cuz ain't nothing like the real thing. No it's not all men. But it's a lot of men and I mean straight men obviously. But if you can work out a loving relationship with a robotic clone of your wife why not just do it with the original your wife? Yeah times get rough but that's why you talk it out and talk it through. All the robot clone can do is please you and tell you everything you want to hear a real wife can tell you things about yourself and make you take a real look at yourself in the mirror that's something only a real True loving partner would do. And if you're going to kill her for it and replace her with a robot, then she's just too good for you. And the robot is just your robotic toy sex toy fantasy. And it'll only last for a while but in the end it's just a fantasy. And even fantasies have an end and then you'll wake up and realize you missed the real thing. Robots can always be replaced but it's the originals that are priceless. They're One of a kind. A robot can always outlive you because you'll eventually die but a real original of your wife can live with you and y'all can die together. Again, Robots can always be replaced but it's the originals that are priceless. They're One of a kind. --Warriors0714🦅 Just because some guy (who wrote the book "Stepford wives" Ira Levin) had some personal vendetta with his wife who he divorced or the feminist movement as a whole, just before he wrote the book, Don't make us pay for it by giving us some sad bleak ending that breaks our hearts brakes our spirits and makes us cry not to mention triggers emotions on top of other shit we're going through in our own personal lives, and makes our lives and our day all the more worse with a bleak ending to a movie. Just because your life and personal life was fucked up with the wife you divorced don't make us pay for it. we're not her. So if that's your little vendetta with her don't take it out on us. Take that shit out on her not on us. We're not her. If you hate women that much, I wonder if after the making of Stepford wives did you turn gay? Being all that said I can understand why they remade The Stepford wives from revenge of the Stepford wives to Stepford wives with Nicole Kidman and Matthew Broderick. To where the ending was the men and women can be equal to each other as people in a relationship and a marriage with children and still respect each other as individuals beyond their gender and still work they're very respectable jobs as a news anchor and a TV show host. Whether gay or straight because there was a gay man in the character of The Stepford wives movie 2004. But for all the sadness and tragedy and shit that the original ending to be orginal Stepford wives was, if Joanna's family is dead like she said to the psychiatrist in the movie before she was killed, at least now being killed and replaced with a robot imitation of her, at least now the real Joanna is in heaven and finally at peace with her family. That's the only relief I take from it all. So that's a good thing. And the husband Walter and all the men at the men's association who did this to her at all the other women in The Stepford wives 1975 movie, they're all dead and burning in hell right now for what they did. And if I were to throw an extra nugget out there is if the men's association's evil Deeds that they did was such a secret that no one ever finds out the truth then why do we know about it?

The stepford Wife -wives Disturbing Behavior - kids of stepford wives and husbands

Stephen King...

In the Nicole Kidman version, they are robots w the wives brain w programming. Thats why they can distribute money through their mouths and spark and why Mic cracked the girls neck at the party and she didn't die. Also deleted scenes shows Midler go haywire and show her insides which includes a speaker and fridge.

I thought STEPFORD WIVES remake when I saw the Amy Adams ENCHANTED sequel (which was a BIG disappointment) silly & never really funny, not unlike the BARBIE over rated film also.

It may be improper and incorrect but damn I wish I had a Stepford wife.

Slate this movie…mock the subject…but women in this movie looked 1000% better - more elegant, classy, beautiful, subtle and healthy - than they do now.