The Stepmother

A hot-headed architect thinks his wife is cheating on him, which leads him to murder. Another, even worse guy gets the blame but the police still have suspicions. Meanwhile, the stress of all this palaver drives his wife to seduce his son.

This drive-in flick was made by exploitation specialists Crown International in the period when they were producing their most consistently interesting work. While this isn't amongst their best as such, it's still effective enough and gets by quite a bit off the back of its early 70's charms. It has to be said that it indeed does take a long while before the title of the movie attains any relevance whatsoever but that's just one of the factors that gives this one its goofy appeal I reckon. So long as you don't go into this one with unrealistic expectations, then I think a pretty good time can be had. Its simple-minded melodrama kept me entertained in any case. On a final note, and what has to be the one thing that will always make this one at least a footnote in cinema history is the quite unbelievable fact that the crooning song with Latin beat that plays over the credits entitled 'Strange Are the Ways of Love' was actually nominated for an Academy Award! There is no way on Earth I ever expected anything from Crown International got anywhere near Oscar territory. The early 70's truly were strange days indeed

Arriving home from a business trip, Frank Delgado (Alejandro Rey) finds that his wife Margo (Katherine Justice) has been entertaining his client Alan. In a jealous rage, Frank accosts Alan as he leaves his house, strangling him to death. After disposing of the body, Frank returns home, but the police are soon on his trail.

Believe it or not, drive-in flick The Stepmother was nominated for an Oscar in the best song category; it didn't win, but it's an interesting fact for avid fans of low budget '70s trash, the only people for whom this film will hold any kind of appeal.

A tawdry drama/thriller, The Stepmother is far from great cinema, suffering from a meandering storyline that takes an age to go anywhere, but it does deliver a few fun elements along the way, including those staples of the exploitation genre, violence and nudity (including the obligatory shower scene).

The film also features a spot of jazz flute (always a bonus in my book), bizarre use of random slo-mo and freeze frame, a crazy film director called Goof who uses beatnik speak (It's a gas! You dig?), a seduction scene between Margo and Frank's virginal son Steve (Rudy Herrera Jr.), and a couple of moments that I found unintentionally funny (the death of Frank's friend and the 'He's got a gun!' ending).

Worth seeing if only for the beautiful Ms. Justice. 4/10

I profoundly enjoyed this film. There are some glaring errors in cinematography and blocking and editing, and there is often a feeling of ineptness. The plot itself is pure melodrama and violence.

The strength of the performances is what intrigues me. When you have a one shot of an actor delivering several lines, it's almost always done with gusto. These actors are throwing themselves into these pitiful roles. They are doing solid hard work here.

just know that all of the criticisms are correct. The film really seems as if it was made with no professional input. But the actors are phenomenal.

Awesome. I did a double take when I first saw him in this quirky little independent ditty from the early 70s. Just out of curiosity I looked at when he started work on MASH, and it was the same year. That explains his appearance, as I don't believe he would do this after international stardom, but I don't know if all the research in the world wide web could fully explain the movie.

It's really a movie in two parts: the first half(ish) is story of a husband with a temper and jealous streak and throughout the second half the title of the movie is explored a little more and fleshed out (pun intended). Typical incoherent, excuse for a young filmmaker to get his name out by throwing in gratuitous walking-out-of-bed or to-and-from- the-bathroom-shot drive-in cinema with a director that never graduated from the genre in his short (directorial) career. There are moments of interesting story or character development, and the title song was amazingly nominated for an Oscar, but overall this is only worth watching for someone with an interest in films from the 1970s.

I wasn't expecting much, but it was better than what I was expecting. Mainly just wanted to see Katherine Justice nude after seeing her on Barnaby Jones, Cannon, and Mannix. She was also in Prescription Murder, the Columbo pilot movie. Having John Anderson in it was a plus. It was more intriguing than what I thought it would've been. Is it a must see? No, but I liked it just fine.