What happened with Tuesday Weld (a DL fav) and The Stepford Wives?

She was said to be difficult.

They got rid of Joanna Cassidy too and replaced her with Paula Prentiss.

I thought we were friends!

Tina Louise deserved more films after this.

Any clips of Tina's award worthy performance?

yes r5

It makes little sense that Goldman complained over Nanette Newman's casting when Tina Louise was no spring chicken herself.

And Paula Prentiss was no longer ingenue age either.

What did Goldman say? Wasn't Newman the wife of some powerful person? I've heard jokes about her on AbFab that I never got. Is she a joke in the UK?

Nanette Newman became famous for advertising dishwashing liquid in the UK. It was probably a joke about that.

[Quote] A good actress, as Goldman describes her, “but not a sex-bomb”

[Quote] By having Nanette Newman in the part, the whole look of the film had to alter. Forget the tennis costumes. Forget the parade of Bunnies walking through the A&P in shorts on their perfect tanned legs. She can’t wear the clothes.”

This is bullshit. Nanette Newman could be glammed up very easily. I think the more believable explanation is that Forbes found the "Playboy Bunny" style too obvious, and probably outdated, for the robot wives of the movie.

Prentiss comes across as very likable; Cassidy always comes across as trying to be likable.

Casting older for the women around Ross was a smart choice. It sets Ross further apart.

The Newman comment is odd. They weren't making perfect wives just making their current ones as perfect as they could be and docile.

The had to fool the kids who would notice a different woman suddenly in the house.

Goldman was pissed at Forbes' execution of the movie. He chose to get back at Forbes by insulting Forbes' wife. Goldman wasn't exactly classy. Didn't he make some homophobic comments in that book he wrote about a theater season?

Oh so Newman was married to the director. I get it now.

Tuesday is very active in buying and selling her homes.

Wasn't casting of Newman in whole or part of main reason for that Gunne Sax wardrobe?

I really like Joanna Cassidy but Prentiss was absolutely perfect. I just can't see Cassidy pulling off the sarcastic but warm side that Prentiss did.

Really? Cassidy's whole vibe was mature, seen-it-all.

[Quote] Wasn't casting of Newman in whole or part of main reason for that Gunne Sax wardrobe?

No. That was just Goldman's bitchery.

Although she always had a more mature vibe, Cassidy was barely 30 and looked it. Some of Bobbie’s lines would have seemed absurd coming from a 30 year old…especially playing off the older Ross.

Prentiss was almost 40 but always seemed older, Louise and Newman over 40, and Ross maybe 35. I also think Prentiss was capable of holding back in her acting, probably more so than Cassidy…Bobbie was a strong role and Prentiss could have chewed up the scenery…but she did not and stole the movie.

I don't think Cassidy looked 30. She has always looked well preserved 40s. She always read District Attorney.

Tuesday was fired when the producers realized they thought they'd hired Carol Lynley.

R25 Or Yvette Mimieux.

I love post-Gilligan Tina Louise. Little Caprice was home with the nanny and Tina was studying acting, trying her best to put her sexpot years behind her.

The Happy Ending was surely the beginning of her peak—Richard Brooks’s study in suburban ennui—with his wife Jean Simmons doing her best Audrey Hepburn, surrounded by the likes of Shirley Jones, Nanette Fabray, Karen Steele, Teresa Wright, Lloyd Bridges, John Forsythe at his disapproving best, and Tina Louise in what seems like a dress rehearsal for Stepford. With music by Michel Legrand, no less.

Who was Nanette Newman? What role was she?

Her replication didn't take.

R32 Carol Van Sant. She’s a neighbor and hands a casserole to Walter (Joanna’s husband) right after they move in in her first scene.

For the lead role, it came down to Jean Seberg and Tuesday Weld, with director Bryan Forbes eventually selecting Weld. She was costumed and ready to start shooting when the insurance company pulled the plug. Apparently, Miss Weld suffered from debilating migraines, which necessitated rest in a darkened room for two days at a time.

/debilitating

It was a brilliantly written film even without Goldman's original ending which was a blood bath. I hope one day it will be remade the way he wanted it although it will be hard to find a leading lady as good as Katherine Ross. P.S. The comedy remake with Nicole Kidman is not even worth mentioning.

The Stepford Wives NEEDS to be released on Blu-Ray

R33, how does the book end?

R33, I would love to know more about Goldman's original "bloodbath" ending. Does he talk about it in his memoir?

[Quote] a leading lady as good as Katherine Ross.

Said no one ever.

I don't know if Cassidy and Ross would have had the same chemistry. Prentiss and Ross played well off each other.

I know Ross is not usually recognized as a great actress but I thought she was great in The Stepford Wives. She works well with everybody in the film - with Prentiss, the brilliant and tension-filled scene with the psychiatrist. I also love her look in the film.

That's where I first read about it but he didn't go into detail. He did not like the English director at all mainly because he felt he was too delicate and opted for a passive, poetic ending to the film - Ross in a supermarket with dead eyes wheeling a shopping wagon. I sort of liked it myself but Goldman's ending was actually more justified considering what the men had done to their wives - i.e., killed them.

Goldman's Playboy bunny idea was witless. The way they are costumed in the Forbes movie gives an eerie effect. And it ties in with The Perfect Wife idea. "Lady in the streets, whore in the sheets" is a thing for a reason.

R38- Agreed- I like Katherine Ross anyway, and I loved her in this film. She was also a stunning woman.

This film has two of my favorite scenes in filmdom.

The one you mentioned! With the psychiatrist! Its is extremely well done and well acted by Katherine and the lady playing the psychologist (was she a real life psychologist? I think she was, or I am getting her confused with another film). It oozes dread, it was beautifully photographed (It looked like a rainy day in the summer in New England- you have to live here to understand) And the utter fear Joanna had, and the psychologist actually believing her- It's just a satisfying scene.

And for some reason I always love that scene when Joanna visits NY to try to sell her photography. The curator says that her pictures are actually very good. And he asks her what she wants from all of this.

"I want to be remembered." she replies.

I always find it very moving in a weird way.

I dig that film. Especially the grainy 70's photography.

Florence Pugh for a remake?

Katherine Ross was gorgeous and they paired her up with a really dweeby looking guy.

Old hat for Katharine.

Wasn't Katharine Ross in The Colbys? Or was that the Doctor Doolittle woman?

I saw a different version of the Nicole Kidman' Stepford Wives at a screening two months before it's release. It was very funny and entertaining. I thought it might do well. I was surprised at the criticism. Then I saw the recut version. It was awful. They should have left it alone. (although it's been so long I don't remember the changes).

R45 it’s the same Ross that was on the Colby’s.

Katherine Ross was so photogenic, especially in this film and 1978's The Legacy.

She looked like a less va-va-voom Julie London.

R27 I love LeGrand’s music, especially The other side of music soundtrack.

Stepford wives is the only movie outside of the 1964 movie, The haunting, that I find trouble watching.. Haunting is scary, Stepford wives makes me uncomfortable ( that ending). I think of them but find I just can’t watch them without those feelings.

R41 The real shrink was Clayburgh’s in An Unmarried Woman.

R40 She was stunning in Games with Simone Signoret.

Was Clayburgh's sessions with the doctor scripted or did they do real "therapy" in character.

In Klute Jane Fonda adlibbed her psyc scenes as if she was really in therapy.

That...looks...dreadful, r52.

Ha! Yes, it does. The marketers were definitely trying to jump on the ‘60s psychedelic bandwagon. With the exception of the ubiquitous to the late ‘60s “weird partygoer scene,” it’s more of a stagey 3-person play.

That looks like an American International Pictures production.

r53 Scripted. There were some lines Russianoff was permitted to change because she said she never would have said them to a patient, but not ad libbed.

r56 Well, it’s a Curtis Harrington production. Genre pictures, all the way. He also jumped on the hag trend and did “What’s the Matter with Helen?” and “Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?”

The woman who plays the psychologist also plays one in The Fury. (the one who Amy Irving makes bleed.)

Katharine Ross’ best performance by far

the therapist's name is Carol Rossen (sp?).

She got so old that she now goes by Wednesday Weld.

Nanette Newman has the best scene in the whole movie.

And she was right to insists on the prairie dresses. The film would not have worked at all had the women dressed like Playboy bunnies, and we would have lost the great final last scene of the women wearing the picture hats and the gloves in the supermarket.

Tina Louise’s hair in this movie. That’s all.