Suburban Wives

Suburban Wives
Suburban Wives
	Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Derek Ford
Written by	Derek Ford
Produced by	Morton Lewis
Starring	; ; Gabrielle Drake
Cinematography	Bill Holland; Roy Pointer
Edited by	Terry Keefe
Music by
Distributed by	Butcher's Film Service
Release date	1971;
Running time	87 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Suburban Wives, subtitled "nine to five widows in a sexual desert", is a 1971 British sex comedy directed by Derek Ford and starring , , and Gabrielle Drake. It was described by The New York Times as "a spicy satire of modern manners and mores."^[1]

Premise[]

Newspaperwoman Sarah (Eva Whishaw) narrates a series of separate stories about the lives of various couples. Sarah describes a situation in which dissatisfied and bored middle-class housewives seek excitement and adventure outside their marital homes— and marital beds.

Cast[]

as Sarah
as John's Boss
Heather Chasen as Kathy Lambert
Gabrielle Drake as Secretary
Richard Thorp as Sarah's Husband
as Photographer
as Irene
as John
Claire Gordon as Sheila
Denys Hawthorne as George Lambert
as Carole
as Jean
Pauline Peart as Mavis
as Client
as Bookmaker

Reception[]

According to Leon Hunt the film represents the suburban wives as both "banal and voracious, passive and rapacious, timid and uncontainable." The Daily Mirror described the characters as a "monstrous regiment of frustrated wives".^[2] It portrays suburbia as a deadened, lifeless space, one that mirrors the "sexual desert" experienced by the characters, but which, as Hunt says, "just intensifies desire rather than diminishing it".^[2] Stephanie Dennison sees it as an example of "soft-core porn films" that represent "naughty suburban housewives" as part of "democratization of female sexual desire".^[3]

The film's commercial success led to a sequel, Commuter Husbands, marketed with the tagline "Remember what those Suburban Wives got up to?... Now see what their getaway men get down to!"

References[]

^ Hal Erickson, New York Times
^ ^a ^b Hunt, Leon, British Low Culture: From Safari Suits to Sexploitation, Routledge, 2013, p.104-6.
^ Dennison, Stephanie, "Sex and the Generals", Latsploitation, Latin America, and Exploitation Cinema, Routledge, 2009, p.243.

External links[]

Suburban Wives at IMDb

[1] Hal Erickson, New York Times

[hunt-2] Hunt, Leon, British Low Culture: From Safari Suits to Sexploitation, Routledge, 2013, p.104-6.

[3] Dennison, Stephanie, "Sex and the Generals", Latsploitation, Latin America, and Exploitation Cinema, Routledge, 2009, p.243.

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