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[1] by D. Palumbo (see under Drama Criticism) and in CW[2] 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.