Tina Louise Starred In One Of The Most Important '70s Cult Sci-Fi Movies
by Witney Seibold · /FilmAdd SlashFilm on Google:
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After her stint on "Gilligan's Island" ended in 1967, Tina Louise infamously didn't return for any of the show's spin-offs and follow-up projects. She also didn't appear at fan events as regularly as some of her co-stars, and she wasn't particularly close with them. For a long, long time, many assumed that her absence from such fan events indicated that Louise hated "Gilligan's Island," and might have even resented the fame that it brought her. Louise, however, set the record straight in 2020, explaining her real feelings about playing Ginger on "Gilligan's Island." She said that she actually loved the role, and that she very much enjoyed working on the show. Louise only eschewed spin-offs and fan events because, well, she wanted to work on other things.
And indeed she did. Looking over Louise's resume post-"Gilligan" reveals a wide variety of film and TV projects, including episodes of "Bonanza," "Love, American Style," "Ironside," "Mannix," "Kojak," and even "Dallas." She was in three episodes of "CHiPs," and even landed a leading role in the short-lived soap opera "Rituals." On film, she starred in the final Matt Helm film "The Wrecking Crew" in 1968, as well as "How to Commit Marriage" and "But I Don't Want to Get Married!" It seems Louise didn't want to be pigeonholed.
One of the actress' most notable roles came in 1975 when she played Charmaine, the doomed housewife in the chilling sci-fi movie "The Stepford Wives." The film was based on the 1972 novel by Ira Levin, and it remains one of the decade's most important — not to mention scariest — sci-fi/horror stories. We'll get into mild spoilers below.
The Stepford Wives is one of the best horror/sci-fi movies of the 1970s
Again, "The Stepford Wives" has a notorious twist, and I will have to describe it, at least a little bit, to communicate just how scary the movie is. If you just want a hint, know that the movie "Get Out" mirrors the story of "The Stepford Wives" pretty closely.
In "The Stepford Wives," Katharine Ross plays Joanna, a Manhattan photographer who's forced to move to the placid, boring suburb of Stepford, Connecticut, with her husband, Walter (Peter Masterson), and their two young daughters. Joanna finds Stepford to be a backward, regressive place where the local housewives all seem docile and weirdly devoted to their husbands. All they ever talk about is housework, and none of them have any personality. Joanna finds some relief in the company of Bobbie (Paula Prentiss), one of the only women in town with any character.
The pair also find an ally in Charmaine (Tina Louise), and the three of them become determined to bring feminist ideas to the women of Stepford. The feminism meeting goes poorly, as all the locals only talk about housework and their loving husbands. Something weird is happening. At one point, Charmaine goes on a vacation with her husband (Franklin Cover), and returns with the same docile, placid demeanor as all the other women. There definitely is something foul afoot. And it definitely has something to do with the men-only meetings that the Stepford husbands all attend with regularity and secrecy. When Bobbie turns up equally brainwashed, Joanna begins to fear for her life. What are the men of Stepford doing to the women?
The twist is likely well-known to most sci-fi fans, and it's also likely that casual readers can intuit what it might be.
The Stepford Wives is embarrassingly salient, even today
Of course, there is a conspiracy of men in Stepford, and they are indeed doing something to their wives to make them complacent and servile. That controlling behavior served as a backlash to feminist ideas that were gaining cultural power in the late '60s and early '70s, noting that a certain class of sexist men would prefer soft-spoken, home-cleaning sex kittens as wives rather than actual human beings. These ideas have been explored in many additional sci-fi movies, all the way up to "Disturbing Behavior" in 1998, "Get Out" in 2017, and "Don't Worry Darling" in 2022.
Over the years, there have been several direct follow-up movies to "The Stepford Wives," including "Revenge of the Stepford Wives" in 1980, "The Stepford Children" in 1987, and "The Stepford Husbands" in 1996.
The final chapter (thus far) of the "Stepford" saga came in 2004, when Frank Oz remade it as a dark comedy. The divisive remake stars Nicole Kidman as Joanna and Bette Midler as Bobbie. Matthew Broderick plays Joanna's husband, Walter. Lorri Bagley plays the Tina Louise role from the original. That film is more of a campy satire than anything, and although the movie isn't operating on the same wavelength as the original, it contains a similar message.
Go back and watch the original instead. It's still great to this day.