THE STEPFORD WIVES (1975)

THE STEPFORD WIVES. Bryan Forbes, dir. USA: Columbia, 1975. Based on the novel by Ira Levin.

The husbands of Stepford, CT, replace their wives with robot duplicates. Discussed in TMG by D. Palumbo (see under Drama Criticism) and in CW by D. Ingersoll (see under Literary Criticism). Also note the 1980 TV film by Brian Wiltse, THE REVENGE OF THE STEPFORD WIVES: the climactic sequence of which is an SF updating of the catastrophe of THE BACCHAE of Euripides (lines 1050-1150), with the malfunctioning robot wives of Stepford playing Maenads to the Pentheus of the leader of the Stepford Men's Association. A further sequel brings us to THE STEPFORD CHILDREN in the late 1980s and the entry of "Stepford," at least for a while, into popular culture vocabulary.