The Stepford Wives - Adaptations

Adaptations

In 1975, the book was adapted into a science fiction thriller directed by Bryan Forbes with a screenplay by William Goldman and starring Katharine Ross, Paula Prentiss, Peter Masterson and Tina Louise. The film also marked the screen debut of Brat Pack actress Mary Stuart Masterson, playing one of Joanna's children. While the script emphasis is on gender conflict and the sterility of suburban living, and the science fiction elements are thus only lightly explored, the movie still makes it much clearer than the book that the women are being replaced by some form of robot. Goldman's treatment of the book differed from that of Forbes with the robots closer to an idealized "Playboy Bunny"; it has been claimed that the look was scrapped when Forbes' actress wife Nanette Newman was cast as one of the town residents.

A made-for-TV sequel was produced in 1980, entitled Revenge of the Stepford Wives. It was critically panned. In this film, instead of being androids, the wives undergo a brainwashing procedure and then take pills that keep them hypnotized. As suggested by the title, in the end the wives are broken free of their conditioning and a mob of them kill the mastermind behind the conspiracy.

Yet another made-for-television sequel/remake was released in 1987 called The Stepford Children, wherein both the wives and the children of the male residents were replaced by drones. It again ends with the members of the conspiracy being killed.

A 1996 version called The Stepford Husbands was made as a third TV movie with the gender roles reversed, and the men in the town being brainwashed by a female clinic director into being perfect husbands.

A remake of the original The Stepford Wives was released in 2004. It was directed by Frank Oz with a screenplay by Paul Rudnick, and featured Nicole Kidman, Bette Midler, Matthew Broderick, Christopher Walken, Roger Bart, Faith Hill, Glenn Close and Jon Lovitz. It was intended to be more comedic than previous versions. There were many other changes, most importantly the almost complete erasure of the powerful feminist message of the original film, culminating in a role reversal in which it is the powerful woman (played by Glenn Close) who is the evil mastermind of the injustice perpetrated on other women, and featuring a Stepford-drone replacement for the male partner of a gay town resident.

Both the 1975 and 2004 versions of the film were filmed in various towns in Fairfield County, Connecticut, including Redding, Westport, Darien, New Canaan, Wilton, and Norwalk. The 1975 version had several locations in the Greenfield Hill section of Fairfield, including the Eberharts' House and the Greenfield Hill Congregational Church. Additional scenes from the 2004 movie were filmed in Bedminster, New Jersey, with extras from surrounding communities.

In a March 27, 2007 letter to The New York Times, Ira Levin said that he based the town of Stepford on Wilton, Connecticut, where he lived in the 1960s.