User Reviews

It isn't so much that The Stepmother is a weird story--it could be the plot of any made-for-cable late night erotic thriller. But the way the story unfolds feels unusual, and that--along with some hammy acting--is probably why this movie has been largely forgotten.

The main character looks like a younger Al Pacino after two months with no sleep. The movie gets right to the action before we even know who any of these people are. The characters explain everything eventually, but for a while, we don't really know their backgrounds or their relationships to each other. Not that it's complicated, but you expect to know something about Frank before he strangles the guy messing around with his wife.

Even the ending is handled strangely. Moments before the credits roll, things happen that seem to set up another half hour of drama, but then the conclusion hammers down, and we are deprived of the conflict that the story seemed to be building towards.

I found The Stepmother on an 8-movie collection called "Drive-In Cult Classics" for only $7 at Best Buy. This was the first of the eight I watched, and it was exactly what I was looking for: low budget, goofy, obscure 70's trash. I didn't think it was all that good, but as a fan of bad movies, I enjoyed it.

At first I thought IMDb's reference to an Academy Award nomination for The Stepmother must be a mistake. But it's true, and the funny thing is that Strange Are the Ways of Love really IS the best thing about the film. Alejandro Rey is dreadful as Mexican architect Frank Delgado, a deeply pious Catholic who kills his friend Alan after he discovers him pawing wife Margo (Katherine Justice). Worse, Frank is paranoid about the intentions of his business partner Dick (Larry Linville) and ends up shoving him off the roof. Whenever the police interview Frank he almost screams guilt, figuratively speaking, but the dumb cops take an awful long time to solve what should really be a very simple case. There's a groovy score that must have already sounded five years out of date in 1972, John D. Garfield as a skin flick producer named Goof, and a couple of full frontal scenes that don't advance the narrative.

THE STEPMOTHER is another tawdry skin flick put out by Crown International Pictures and directed by Hikmet Avedis. The plot is murky and complicated and opens with a murder before leading to a situation which has no kind of suspense or impact whatsoever. A bunch of characters gather at a house but not much really happens throughout. The title is something of a misnomer and refers to a sub-plot that doesn't go very far. If you're looking for exploitation values there's not much in the way of them either, with this coming across as both tame and dull.

The movie opens with a man attempting to have sex with "Margo" who is half asleep. She says, "no" pretty much like a wife says "No" to her husband, but gives in anyway. Apparently they have some screen sex (bed sheet pulled up to her neck). The real husband Frank Delgado (Alejandro Rey aka Carlos Gomez of the "Flying Nun" series)comes home and the next thing you know he is loading a body into his car with the proverbial shovel while his wife (Catherine/Katherine Justice) showers (nudity).

The dead man is a client Alan Richmond (Mike Kulcsar). While he is burying him in a shallow grave there is a weird credit roll as if the movie was over. There is another couple out in the woods, although we don't know how close or what they saw. The guy went there to have some fun, the woman went there to frustrate him. They next thing you know he grabs her by the hair, gets her on the ground and slaps her and...well we don't know at this point.

The next morning a group of 4 hippy-esque people show up to go party. Frank reluctantly goes along with them, mostly because he will have to talk to Dick Hill, played by Larry Linville who is uncool in this movie as he was as Frank Burns in M.A.S.H. His wife Sonja is played by Marlene Schmidt.

Meanwhile the cops have found the body of a strangled Mexican woman and that of Alan Richmond who were both strangled about the same time. The case is investigated by Inspector Darnezi (John Anderson, Star Trek: The Next Generation "The Survivors") and Chief Inspector (Duncan McLeod).

The guys are architects. They were designing a house for Richmond, who was ready to seal the deal. It appears everyone knew he was sleeping with Margo, except Frank.

Now the movie is not a who-dun-it. We know who did it. So it is about crime solving, but the inspectors are not entertaining like Columbo, where how they find out holds our interest. The killing plays havoc on their lives. Frank is told about the affair and he is haunted with images of Alan Richmond. This is all find and well, but never fits into the movie. The title "Stepmother" is about Margo.

The script is very bad. The actors did what they could to rescue it. Not worth the time to watch.

Stressed-out middle-aged Mexican-American self-made millionaire architect Frank Delgado (a solid performance by Alejandro Rey) ain't having a good time of it. First off, he murders the lover of his hot young second wife Margo (lovely brunette Katherine Justice) and buries the body at a nearby beach. The police initially think another guy who killed his girlfriend on that same beach on the same night might have committed the dastardly deed, but no-nonsense Inspector Darnezi (a properly crusty portrayal by John Anderson) is certain that Frank is the real culprit. Things go from bad to worse when Frank accidentally kills his own laid-back best friend and business partner Dick Hill (an engaging turn by Larry Linville of TV's "M.A.S.H." fame). To add further abject insult to already awful injury, Margo seduces Frank's teenage son Steve (handsome Rudy Herrera Jr.) and Hill's widow Sonja (nicely essayed by Marlene Schmidt, who also co-wrote the script) makes advances on Frank. Director/co-writer Hikmet Avedis whips up one doozy of a deliciously convoluted and ridiculous plot and further spices things up with a decent amount of tasty female nudity. Popping up in cool supporting roles are familiar character actor Duncan McLeod (sleazy lawyer Porter Hall in "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls") as a hard-nosed police chief, John D. Garfield as hipster smut movie director Goof, and luscious 70's drive-in exploitation cinema goddess Claudia Jennings as stoner hippie porno starlet Rita (Claudia naturally does one of her customary yummy full-frontal nude scenes). Jack Beckett's snazzy cinematography goes overboard on the dewy soft-focus, strenuous slow motion, and, especially, plenty of gloriously tacky freeze frames. The groovy Oscar-nominated theme song "Strange Are the Ways of Love" is a complete sappy hoot. An entertainingly loopy potboiler.

Everyone must've been on drugs in the 70's to watch stuff like this. I think the main problem with this movie, besides the bad acting, directing and storyline, is the title of the film. I think the marketing department came up with the title after the film was made, and came up with a tagline to explain the title. Gotta get people into the drive-in some how. The problem with the title is it has nothing to do with the film until the second half of the movie. The title is only a subplot of the movie. You spend a lot of time wondering am I watching the wrong movie. This movie is bad. Not super bad. Unfortunately not so bad, that it's great. Just bad. Not believable at all. It apparently got Oscar nominated for best original song. And that fact makes this movie even more weirder. Why does a movie like this have a song like that. The song deserved better.

Hikmet Labib Avedis may not be considered one of the best directors of all time, but he should be known as one of the most entertaining. Throughout his films, I'm never anything but into the story and wondering what happens next.

Take The Stepmother, a film which prefigures the adult world of today by presenting the story of, well, exactly what you think a stepmother is going to do. Just take a look at the tagline: "She forced her husband's son to commit the ultimate sin!"

Architect Frank Delgado (Alejandro Rey, TerrorVision) returns home to find the car of his client Alan Richmond (Mike Kulcsar, Raise the Titanic!) in the driveway. Thinking that his wife Margo (Katherine Justice) is having an affair, he follows the man home and strangles him, then buries him at the beach.

But now, he's taken a whole group of people - his business partner Dick (Larry Linville!) and his wife Sonya (Marlene Schmidt, Miss Universe 1961, who was also Avedis' wife), as well as porn director Goof (David Garfield) and his wife Rita (Claudia Jennings! - to the home of the man he just killed.

Of course, all manner of shenanigans ensue, but the movie never goes as far as you'd expect a 70s exploitation movie to go. Trust me, Avedis would eventually find his way to better work, but hey, we should all be so lucky to watch Claudia Jennings in a movie.

Despite this being a drive-in film, composer Sammy Fain and lyricist Paul Francis Webster were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Strange Are the Ways of Love."

When you think of Oscar-nominated movies, chances are you don't think of movies from exploitation studio Crown International, but "The Stepmother" did indeed get an Oscar nomination for best song. Listening to the song, I have no idea why anyone would think it was award-worthy, but the lame song is an insignificant problem compared to the other problems found in the movie. Despite what the title might promise, the stepmother takes kind of a backseat role in the events of the movie. Indeed, her stepson isn't mentioned until a third of the movie is over, and does not actually appear until half the movie is over! (And the stepmother/stepson hookup does start until the last twenty minutes!) While there is some nudity and sex here and there, it's insignificant and not very erotic, so forget about getting some cheap thrills. Most of the movie is devoted to the husband of the stepmother character, and what we see of his life is for the most part a big bore. The movie comes to a standstill in almost all of his scenes, so when the situation is resolved at the end it comes as abrupt and forced, as if the filmmakers didn't care about building the story and characters and just ended things when they realized they had a running time of ninety or so minutes. Not Crown International's finest hour.