Film 44/52: Rosemary's Baby (1968)


Rosemary's Baby was a key contender in our first half of this series, and this time it made the cut!

Produced by genre legend William Castle (who pops up in a can't-miss-him cameo) and adapted for the screen from Ira Levin's novel by Roman Polanski, the film is a horror classic that we just never got around to watching. Vonna, because she intentionally shied away from it, assuming it was a film more in the vein of The Exorcist.  Me, because I always assumed it would be a somewhat boring tale about the long road to birthing the Devil's baby. After the talk of the film in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Vonna was finally interested in checking it out. Well, it turns out Vonna's original assessment was wrong, though she ended up seeing the film similarly as to how I had pictured it. It's a slow burn, but I found the settings and the construction of the film to be quite interesting; far more than I would have had I watched it as a kid on video. Vonna was fascinated with Rosemary's period clothing, and The Dakota apartment building used for the exteriors, which she had to research after the movie was over.

I do wish I were able to experience the film without already knowing where things were going. I can imagine audience members unfamiliar with the book having some doubts as to whether Rosemary's suspicions were true, or believing that perhaps she was being paranoid. 

I was so used to seeing images of Mia Farrow as Rosemary from the latter half of the picture, I was surprised when she starts off the film with longer hair! I find it amusing (though not really surprising) that my exposure to John Cassavetes has almost exclusively been his horror film roles (in addition to this, The Incubus and DePalma's The Fury). The film has a great cast of supporting characters — from Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer as the seemingly nice if somewhat odd next door neighbors, to Maurice (Dr. Zaius) Evans as Rosemary's friend Hutch, and a pair of doctors portrayed by Charles (Midnight Run) Grodin and Ralph (Trading Places) Bellamy. 

While the film doesn't match the unsettling nature of The Exorcist, I did enjoy in; particularly the climax, and how the scene was staged and sold by the actors. I can understand why Polanski received such acclaim for the film. While I think he had strong source material to work with, I think he made the most of his cast and locations to make it an effective thriller. Nice to have finally experienced it on the big screen.


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