Eye Candy #159 - "The Stepford Wives"

The Stepford Wives: The stories of Ira Levin probably would be panned heavily in the 21st century. They are thrillers with a kitsch factor that is very timely for when and where they were published (look at “The Boys from Brazil” about trying to grow the next Hitler by putting clones of him into families with similar makes-up on the off-chance he turns into a megalomaniacal despot with a penchant of goose-stepping. The odds for that, well, the Nazis are going to need a few million more kids). “The Stepford Wives” is about a New York photographer Joanna, her husband, and family who move to Stepford, Connecticut, where the women all wear sunhats, dress like June Cleaver, and have a startling lack of personality or original thought. Soon her strong-willed independent friends are also turning into something resembling zombies. It’s like Lake Woebegon if Lake Woebegon was evil. The local men’s club is behind it all, replacing the rebellious wives with docile sex slave robots, led by Diz (short for “Disney“) Coba. The climax of the film plays on that age-old fear of being strangled by our own incomplete naked sex slave duplicate in a diaphanous robe. Or is that just one of mine? Katharine Ross is in fine form here, and while the film looks and feels very dated, it still works well (though it’s hard to take it seriously as a horror movie). Woodchuck sez, “Check it out.”