Leofwine_draca 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.

Uriah43 Upon returning home from a business trip "Frank Delgado" (Alejandro Rey) finds another car in his driveway and happens to see his wife, "Margo Delgado" (Catherine Justice) in their bedroom with another man. As the man comes out into the front yard Frank kills him in a fit of rage. Immediately afterward he comes to his senses and decides to quickly bury him in a field on the outskirts of town. Unfortunately, as luck would have it the body is soon discovered anyway and Frank is considered as a possible suspect. In the meantime though, Frank cannot manage to forgive his wife because of her supposed infidelity and so refrains from making love to her from then on. What he doesn't know is that the man he killed had forced himself on her and since Margo is unaware that Frank knows anything about this incident it has left her feeling confused and sexually frustrated. Now, rather than reveal any more of the film I will just say that this was an adequate movie for the most part. The acting was okay but the story seemed to lag here and there. Likewise, I also thought the ending was a bit too abrupt. All things considered then, I rate the movie as slightly below average.

jfgibson73 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.

Woodyanders 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.