Midler was not alone in enjoying the ballroom scenes. “How many times do you get to see a group of actors of this caliber together in one room? asks Paul Rudnick. “Chris Walken, Matthew Broderick, Faith Hill. Glenn Close. Nicole Kidman, Bette Midler... I’d go see these people if they were in a car commercial.”
In addition to being an opportunity for Walken to demonstrate his enviable prowess on the dance floor, the Midsummer’s Dinner Dance is also the occasion for the Stepford wives to dress up in all their finery. Glamorous ball gowns, upswept hair, and even tiaras were de rigueur for the town’s biggest party of the year, and therefore. one of the movie’s biggest sequences.
Going all out in her costume design for the event in the film that defines the decadence and the unworldliness of Stepford. Ann Roth dressed Nicole Kidman in a gossamer gown that gives her character Joanna a Barbie doll and Cinderella look rolled into one.
“I wanted Joanna to be ethereal and not quite earthbound,” says Roth. “The ivory color of her dress is meant to blend in with her skin, making her that much more unreal looking.”
For Kidman, the costume designs were pure genius. “We were very lucky to have Ann Roth on this film because she’s very bold in her vision, " says the actress. “She takes her designs right to the edge, and as far as I’m concerned, I’d do every film with her!”
As for the colorful pants and wild tuxedo jackets on the men, Roth says she was inspired by Lily Pulitzer fabrics and madras plaids that you might see at a country club party, and in the end, the best word for the whole scene was simply extravagant. In fact. from the magnificent set decorations to the fanciful costumes to the elegant choreography, the scene embodied the community and ideals of Stepford.
The Stepford homes were key to defining the idyllic community as well, and various locations in Connecticut turned out to be, well, perfect. A super-sized home in Darien that was on the real estate market became the interior for the Herb and Sarah Sunderson (Matt Malloy and Faith Hill) house, while a multi-million dollar home in the exclusive community of New Canaan served as Joanna and Walter’s (Nicole Kidman and Matthew Broderick) new Stepford abode. Later, New Canaan’s beautiful Town Hall, built in 1909, served as the backdrop for the big political rally scene, complete with thousands of balloons and lots of stylish Stepford fanfare.
The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum in Norwalk, Connecticut became the center of all Stepford wives activity. The museum, which had housed the Stepford Men’s Organization in the original 1975 film, was the only former location site revisited by the current production.
Built in the 1860s by financier LeGrand Lockwood, the 62-room mansion is one of the finest Second Empire-style country houses surviving today and was one of the grandest houses in the country during the seventeenth century. It was said to have cost $1,500,000 to build, but sold for a mere $90,000 when Lockwood died three years after moving in. The city of Norwalk bought the home in 1941 and it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1971.
Movie Database
In Theaters
