The film deals with themes related to paranoia, women's liberation, Catholicism, and the occult.[3] While it is primarily set in New York City, the majority of principal photography for Rosemary's Baby took place in Los Angeles throughout late 1967. The film was released on June 12, 1968, by Paramount Pictures. It was a critical and box office success, grossing over $30 million in the United States, and received acclaim from critics. The film was nominated for several accolades, including multiple Golden Globe Award nominations and two Academy Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Actress (for Ruth Gordon) and the Golden Globe in the same category. Since its release, Rosemary's Baby has been widely regarded as one of the greatest horror films of all time. In 2014, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
In 1965, Rosemary Woodhouse and her husband, stage actor Guy, tour the Bramford, a large Renaissance Revival apartment building in Manhattan. They notice the previous tenant, an elderly woman who recently died, displayed odd behaviors. For example, she moved heavy furniture in front of a linen closet she had still been using. Despite warnings from their current landlord and friend, Hutch, about the Bramford's dark past, Rosemary and Guy move in.
In the basement laundry room, Rosemary meets a young woman, Terry Gionoffrio, a recovering drug addict whom Minnie and Roman Castevet, the Woodhouses' elderly neighbors, have taken in. The Woodhouses first meet the Castevets when they return home to find Terry dead of an apparent suicide, having jumped from the Castevets' seventh-floor apartment. They have dinner with the couple, but Rosemary finds them meddlesome. She is bothered when Minnie gives her Terry's pendant as a good luck charm, saying it contains "tannis root". Unexpectedly, Guy, initially reluctant to socialize with the Castevets, becomes seemingly fascinated with Roman, visiting with him repeatedly.
Guy is cast in a prominent play after the lead actor inexplicably goes blind. With his career flourishing, Guy wants him and Rosemary to have a baby. On the night that they plan to conceive, Minnie brings over individual cups of chocolate mousse for their dessert. When Rosemary complains that it has a chalky "undertaste", Guy criticizes her as being ungrateful. Rosemary consumes a bit more to mollify Guy, then discreetly discards the rest. Soon after, she grows dizzy and passes out. In a dream state, Rosemary hallucinates being raped by a demonic presence. The next morning, Guy explains the scratches covering her body by claiming that he did not want to miss "baby night" and that he had raped her while she was unconscious. He says he has since cut his nails.
Rosemary becomes pregnant, with the baby due on June 28. The elated Castevets insist that Rosemary go to their close friend, Dr. Abraham Sapirstein, a prominent obstetrician, rather than her own physician, Dr. Hill. During her first trimester, Rosemary suffers severe abdominal pains and loses weight. By Christmas, her gaunt appearance alarms her friends as well as Hutch, who has been researching the Bramford's history. Before he can share his findings with Rosemary, he falls into a mysterious coma. Rosemary, unable to withstand the pain, insists on seeing Hill, while Guy argues against it, saying Sapirstein will be offended. As they argue, the pains suddenly stop and Rosemary feels the baby move.
Three months later, Hutch's friend, Grace Cardiff, informs Rosemary that Hutch is dead. Before dying, he briefly regained consciousness and said to give Rosemary a book on witchcraft, All of Them Witches, along with the cryptic message: "The name is an anagram." Using Scrabble tiles, Rosemary works out that Roman Castevet is an anagram for Steven Marcato, the son of a former Bramford resident and a reputed Satanist. She suspects that the Castevets and Sapirstein belong to a coven and want her baby. Guy discounts this and later throws the book away, making Rosemary suspicious. Terrified, she goes to Hill for help, but Hill assumes she is delusional and calls Sapirstein; he arrives with Guy to take her home and they threaten to commit her to a psychiatric hospital if she does not comply.
Rosemary locks herself into the apartment. Somehow, coven members get in, and Sapirstein sedates Rosemary, who goes into labor and gives birth. When Rosemary awakens, she is told the baby was stillborn. As she recovers, though, she notices her pumped breast milk is being saved rather than discarded. She stops taking her prescribed pills, becoming less groggy. When Rosemary hears an infant crying, Guy claims tenants with a newborn have moved in upstairs.
Believing her baby is alive, Rosemary discovers a hidden door in the linen closet leading directly into the Castevets' apartment, the same closet the previous tenant had blocked and the same hidden door the coven members had used to access the Woodhouses' apartment. Guy, the Castevets, Sapirstein and other coven members are gathered around a bassinet draped in black with an upside down cross hanging over it. Peering inside, Rosemary is horrified and demands to know what is wrong with her baby's eyes. Roman proclaims that the child, Adrian, is Satan's son and the supposed Antichrist, and that he "has his father's eyes". He urges Rosemary to mother her child, promising she does not have to join the coven. When Guy attempts to calm her, saying they will be rewarded and can conceive their own children, she spits in his face. After hearing the infant's cries, however, Rosemary gives in to her maternal instincts and gently rocks the cradle.
In Rosemary's Baby: A Retrospective, a featurette on the DVD release of the film, screenwriter/director Roman Polanski, Paramount Pictures executive Robert Evans, and production designerRichard Sylbert reminisce at length about the production. Evans recalled William Castle brought him the galley proofs of the book and asked him to purchase the film rights even before Random House published the book in April 1967. The studio head recognized the commercial potential of the project and agreed with the stipulation that Castle, who had a reputation for low-budgethorror films, could produce but not direct the film adaptation. He makes a cameo appearance as the man at the phone booth waiting for Mia Farrow's character to finish her call.
François Truffaut claimed that Alfred Hitchcock was first offered the chance to direct the film but declined.[1] Evans admired Polanski's European films and hoped he could convince him to make his American debut with Rosemary's Baby.[4] He knew the director was a ski buff who was anxious to make a film with the sport as its basis, so he sent him the script for Downhill Racer along with the galleys for Rosemary's Baby.[5] Polanski read the latter book non-stop through the night and called Evans the following morning to tell him he thought Rosemary's Baby was the more interesting project, and would like the opportunity to write as well as direct it.[6] After negotiations, Paramount agreed to hire Polanski for the project, with a tentative budget of $1.9 million, $150,000 of which would go to Polanski.[6]
Polanski completed the 272-page screenplay for the film in approximately three weeks.[6] Polanski closely modeled it on the original 1967 novel by Ira Levin and incorporated large sections of the novel's dialogue and details, with much of it being lifted directly from the source text.[7]
Casting
Mia Farrow's performance as Rosemary Woodhouse received widespread critical acclaim.
Casting for Rosemary's Baby began in the summer of 1967 in Los Angeles.[8] Polanski originally envisioned Rosemary as a robust, full-figured, girl-next-door type, and wanted Tuesday Weld or his own fiancée Sharon Tate to play the role. Jane Fonda, Patty Duke and Goldie Hawn were also reportedly considered for the role.[8][9][10]
Since the book had not yet reached bestseller status, Evans was unsure the title alone would guarantee an audience for the film, and he believed that a bigger name was needed for the lead. Farrow, with a supporting role in Guns at Batasi (1964) and the yet-unreleased A Dandy in Aspic (1968) as her only feature film credits, had an unproven box office track record; however, she had gained wider notice with her role as Allison MacKenzie in the popular television series Peyton Place, and her unexpected marriage to noted singer Frank Sinatra.[11] Despite her waif-like appearance, Polanski agreed to cast her.[11] Her acceptance incensed Sinatra, who had demanded she forgo her career when they wed.[12]
Robert Redford was the first choice for the role of Guy Woodhouse, but he turned it down.[13]Jack Nicholson was considered briefly before Polanski suggested John Cassavetes, whom he had met in London.[13] In casting the film's secondary actors, Polanski drew sketches of what he imagined the characters would look like, which were then used by Paramount casting directors to match with potential actors.[14] In the roles of Roman and Minnie Castevet, Polanski cast veteran stage/film actors Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon. Veteran actor Ralph Bellamy was cast as Dr. Sapirstein. (Many years earlier, Bellamy and Blackmer had appeared in the pre-Code 1934 film, This Man Is Mine.) [14]
When Rosemary calls Donald Baumgart, the actor who goes blind and is replaced by Guy, the voice heard on the phone is actor Tony Curtis. Farrow, who had not been told who would be reading Baumgart's lines, recognized his voice but could not place it. The slight confusion she displays throughout the call was exactly what Polanski hoped to capture by not revealing Curtis' identity in advance.[citation needed]
Filming
The Dakota served as a stand-in for exterior shots of the fictional Bramford Building
Principal photography for Rosemary's Baby began on August 21, 1967, in New York City.[1]The Dakota's exteriors served as the location for the fictional Bramford. Levin modeled it on buildings like the Dakota.[15] In the novel, Hutch even urges Rosemary and Guy to move into "the Dakota" instead of the Bramford.[16]
When Farrow was reluctant to film a scene that depicted a dazed and preoccupied Rosemary wandering into the middle of Fifth Avenue into oncoming traffic, Polanski pointed to her pregnancy padding and reassured her, "no one's going to hit a pregnant woman". The scene was successfully shot with Farrow walking into real traffic and Polanski following, operating the hand-held camera since he was the only one willing to do it.[1][17]
By September 1967, the shoot had relocated to Paramount Studios in Hollywood, where interior sets of the Bramford apartments had been constructed on sound stages.[1] Some additional location shooting took place in Playa del Rey in October 1967.[1] Farrow recalled that the dream sequence in which her character is attending a dinner party on a yacht was filmed on a vessel near Santa Catalina Island.[18] Though Paramount had initially agreed to spend $1.9million to make the film, the shoot was overextended due to Polanski's meticulous attention to detail, which resulted in his completing up to fifty takes of single shots.[19] The shoot suffered significant scheduling problems as a result, and ultimately went $400,000 over budget.[20] In November 1967, it was reported that the shoot was over three weeks behind schedule.[1]
The shoot was further disrupted when, midway through filming, Farrow's husband, Frank Sinatra, served her divorce papers via a corporate lawyer in front of the cast and crew.[19] In an effort to salvage her relationship, Farrow asked Evans to release her from her contract, but he persuaded her to remain with the project after showing her an hour-long rough cut and assuring her she would receive an Academy Award nomination for her performance.[21] Filming was completed on December 20, 1967, in Los Angeles.[1]
Music
Rosemary's Baby (Music from the Original Motion Picture Score)
The lullaby played over the intro is the song "Sleep Safe and Warm", composed by Krzysztof Komeda and sung by Farrow.[22] A tenant practicing "Für Elise" is also frequently used as background music throughout the film, the skill improving throughout the film to demonstrate the progression of time. The original film soundtrack was released in 1968 via Dot Records. Waxwork Records released the soundtrack from the original master tapes in 2014, including Krzysztof Komeda's original work.[23]
Rosemary's Baby was given a wide theatrical release by Paramount Pictures, opening in the United States on June 12, 1968.[2] The film was a major box-office hit for the studio,[24] grossing a total of $33,397,080 worldwide against its $3.2 million budget.[2]
Critical response
Contemporary
In contemporary reviews, Renata Adler wrote in The New York Times that: "The movie—although it is pleasant—doesn't seem to work on any of its dark or powerful terms. I think this is because it is almost too extremely plausible. The quality of the young people's lives seems the quality of lives that one knows, even to the point of finding old people next door to avoid and lean on. One gets very annoyed that they don't catch on sooner."[25]
Stanley Eichelbaum of the San Francisco Examiner called the film "a delightful witches brew, a bit over-long for my taste, but nearly always absorbing, suspenseful and easier to swallow than Ira Levin's book. Its suggestions of deviltry in a musty and still-respectable old apartment house on Manhattan's Upper West Side are more gracefully and appealingly related than in the novel, which I found awfully silly, when it wasn't downright noxious. The very idea of a contemporary case of witchcraft, in which an innocent young housewife is impregnated by the Devil, is to say the least unnerving, particularly when the pregnancy is marked by all degrees of mental and physical pain."[26]
Variety said, "Several exhilarating milestones are achieved in Rosemary's Baby, an excellent film version of Ira Levin's diabolical chiller novel. Writer-director Roman Polanski has triumphed in his first US-made pic. The film holds attention without explicit violence or gore... Farrow's performance is outstanding."[27]
The Monthly Film Bulletin said that "After the miscalculations of Cul de Sac and Dance of the Vampires", Polanski had "returned to the rich vein of Repulsion".[28] The review noted that "Polanski shows an increasing ability to evoke menace and sheer terror in familiar routines (cooking and telephoning, particularly)", and Polanski has shown "his transformation of a cleverly calculated thriller into a serious work of art".[29]
Retrospective
Today, the film is widely regarded as a classic; it has an approval rating of 97% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on 86 reviews, with an average rating of 8.8/10. The site's critics' consensus describes it as "A frightening tale of Satanism and pregnancy that is even more disturbing than it sounds thanks to convincing and committed performances by Mia Farrow and Ruth Gordon."[30]Metacritic reports a weighted average score of 96 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[31]
The Rosemary's Baby DVD, released on October 3, 2000 by Paramount Home Entertainment, contains a 23-minute documentary film, Mia and Roman, directed by Shahrokh Hatami, which was shot during the making of the film. The title refers to Mia Farrow and Roman Polanski. The film features footage of Roman Polanski directing the film's cast on set. Hatami was an Iranian photographer who befriended Polanski and his wife Sharon Tate.[43]Mia and Roman was screened originally as a promo film at Hollywood's Lytton Center,[44] and later included as a featurette on the Rosemary's Baby DVD. It is described as a "trippy on-set featurette"[45] and "an odd little bit of cheese."[46]
The film inaugurated cinema's growing fascination with demons and related themes in the coming decades,[52] and the novel's author Ira Levin wondered in a 2003 afterword whether his idea for Rosemary's Baby ultimately led to an increase in religious fundamentalism.[53]
Sequels and remakes
In the 1976 television filmLook What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby, Patty Duke starred as Rosemary Woodhouse and Ruth Gordon reprised her role of Minnie Castevet. The film introduced an adult Andrew/Adrian attempting to earn his place as the Antichrist. It was disliked as a sequel by critics and viewers, and its reputation deteriorated over the years. The film is unrelated to the novel's 1997 sequel, Son of Rosemary.[54]
Another attempt to remake Rosemary's Baby was briefly considered in 2008. The intended producers were Michael Bay, Andrew Form, and Brad Fuller.[56] The remake fell through later that same year.[57]
In 2016, the film was unofficially remade in Turkey under the title Alamet-i-Kiyamet.[59]
The short Her Only Living Son from the 2017 horror anthology film XX serves as an unofficial sequel to the story.[60]
The film was followed by a prequel in 2024, Apartment 7A. The prequel takes place a year prior to the events of Rosemary's Baby, and expands on Terry Gionoffrio - a minor character in the original film.[61]
The film inspired the English band Deep Purple to write the song "Why Didn't Rosemary?" for their third album in 1969, after the band had watched the movie while touring the US in 1968. The song's lyrics pose the question, "Why didn't Rosemary ever take the pill?"[63]
Raymond Roman Thierry Polański is a French and Polish film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and convicted sex offender. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, two British Academy Film Awards, ten César Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, as well as the Golden Bear and a Palme d'Or.
Sharon Marie Tate Polanski was an American actress and model. During the 1960s, she appeared in advertisements and small television roles before appearing in films as well as working as a model. After receiving positive reviews for her comedic and dramatic acting performances, Tate was hailed as one of Hollywood's most promising newcomers, being compared favorably with the late Marilyn Monroe.
Rosemary's Baby is a 1967 horror novel by American writer Ira Levin; it was his second published book. It was the best-selling horror novel of the 1960s, selling over four million copies. The high popularity of the novel was a catalyst for a "horror boom", and horror fiction would achieve enormous commercial success in its wake.
Ira Marvin Levin was an American novelist, playwright, and songwriter. His works include the novels A Kiss Before Dying (1953), Rosemary's Baby (1967), The Stepford Wives (1972), This Perfect Day (1970), The Boys from Brazil (1976), and Sliver (1991). Levin also wrote the play Deathtrap (1978). Many of his novels and plays have been adapted into films. He received the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award and several Edgar Awards.
Maria de Lourdes Villiers "Mia" Farrow is an American actress and activist. She first gained notice for her role as Allison MacKenzie in the television soap opera Peyton Place and gained further recognition for her subsequent short-lived marriage to Frank Sinatra. An early film role, as Rosemary in Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby (1968), saw her nominated for a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. She went on to appear in several films throughout the 1970s, such as Follow Me! (1972), The Great Gatsby (1974), and Death on the Nile (1978). Her younger sister is Prudence Farrow.
Repulsion is a 1965 British psychological horror thriller film directed by Roman Polanski, and starring Catherine Deneuve. Based on a story written by Polanski and Gérard Brach, the plot follows Carol, a withdrawn, disturbed young woman who, when left alone in the apartment she shares with her sister, is subject to a number of nightmarish experiences. The film focuses on the point of view of Carol and her vivid hallucinations and nightmares as she comes into contact with men and their desires for her. Ian Hendry, John Fraser, Patrick Wymark, and Yvonne Furneaux appear in supporting roles.
Krzysztof Trzciński, known professionally as Krzysztof Komeda, was a Polish film music composer and jazz pianist. Perhaps best known for his work in film scores, Komeda wrote the scores for Roman Polanski’s films Knife in the Water (1962), Cul-de-sac (1966), The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967), and Rosemary’s Baby (1968). Komeda's album Astigmatic (1965) is often considered one of the most important European jazz albums. British critic Stuart Nicholson describes the album as "marking a shift away from the dominant American approach with the emergence of a specific European aesthetic."
Victoria Vetri is an American model and actress.
The Tenant is a 1976 French psychological horror thriller film directed by Roman Polanski from a screenplay he co-wrote with Gérard Brach, based on the 1964 novel of the same name by Roland Topor. The film stars Polanski, Isabelle Adjani, Melvyn Douglas, Jo Van Fleet, Bernard Fresson, Lila Kedrova, Claude Dauphin and Shelley Winters. It is the final installment in Polanski's "Apartment Trilogy", following Repulsion (1965) and Rosemary's Baby (1968), it was Polanski's last film before being accused of sexual assault in 1977, and then fleeing the United States.
Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby is a 1976 American made-for-television horror film, which serves as the sequel to Roman Polanski's 1968 film Rosemary's Baby, and the second installment in the franchise of the same name. The movie stars Stephen McHattie, Patty Duke, George Maharis, Ruth Gordon, Ray Milland and Tina Louise; premiering as the ABC Friday Night Movie on October 29, 1976.
Son of Rosemary is a 1997 horror novel by American writer Ira Levin. It is the sequel to his 1967 novel, Rosemary's Baby.
A pixie cut is a short hairstyle, generally short on the back and sides of the head and slightly longer on the top, with very short bangs. It is a variant of a crop. The name is derived from the mythological pixie.
Mia and Roman is a 1968 23-minute documentary film which was shot during the making of Rosemary's Baby. The title refers to Mia Farrow and Roman Polanski.
Clive Barker's A-Z of Horror was a six-part documentary series first broadcast on BBC2 on 4 October 1997. It was written and hosted by Clive Barker and explored the history of horror, from the cinema to art. Subjects included are the influence of the Grand Guignol, the literary works of Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft, the real life serial killer Ed Gein, the horror make-up effects of Tom Savini and director George A. Romero, as well as works of artist Franz Xaver Messerschmidt and the horror film icon Freddy Krueger. A tie-in book was released featuring art work by Barker and film reviews by Stephen Jones.
Full Circle, released in the United States as The Haunting of Julia, is a 1977 supernatural horror film directed by Richard Loncraine, and starring Mia Farrow and Keir Dullea. Based on the novel Julia by the American writer Peter Straub, it is the first film realisation of one of his books, and follows a woman who, after the death of her daughter, finds herself haunted by the vengeful ghost of a young girl in her new home.
All of them Witches is a 1996 Mexican supernatural horror film by director Daniel Gruener. Based on a screenplay by Gabriel González Meléndez, it features Susana Zabaleta, Ricardo Blume, Alejandro Tommasi, and Delia Casanova. The name of this movie matches that of a book of witchcraft that appeared in the 1968 film Rosemary's Baby, based on the book by Ira Levin.
"Sleep Safe and Warm", originally known as "Lullaby from Rosemary's Baby", is a musical composition by Krzysztof Komeda, written for Roman Polanski's 1968 psychological horror film Rosemary's Baby. Appearing in the movie as a wordless theme song sung by Mia Farrow, it was turned over to Larry Kusik and Eddie Snyder, who wrote the lyrics for it the same year.
Rosemary's Baby is a 2014 two-part, four-hour television miniseries adaptation of Ira Levin's best-selling 1967 horror novel of the same name and its 1997 sequel Son of Rosemary. It is the third installment overall in the franchise of the same name, and stars Zoe Saldana. Produced by NBC, the series was directed by Agnieszka Holland. Unlike earlier versions, it is set in Paris rather than New York. The work was not well received by critics, many of whom said that it was stretched to fill two two-hour timeslots. Although there are several notable changes, this miniseries is considered to be a faithful updating of the original 1968 film adaptation.
Mia Farrow is an American actress whose career has spanned six decades. The daughter of actress Maureen O'Sullivan and director John Farrow, she had an uncredited appearance in John Paul Jones (1959) before making her feature debut in Guns at Batasi (1964), for which she earned a Golden Globe for New Star of the Year. From 1964 to 1966, she portrayed Allison MacKenzie on the dramatic television series Peyton Place.
Apartment 7A is a 2024 American psychological horror film directed by Natalie Erika James from a screenplay she co-wrote with Christian White and Skylar James. It serves as a prequel to Rosemary's Baby (1968). Julia Garner, Dianne Wiest, Jim Sturgess, and Kevin McNally star.
↑ "Polanski balances terror, humor the director adds deceit upon deceit in Rosemary's Baby until we finally find the truth". Orlando Sentinel. October 20, 2000. p.42.
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