Rosemary’s Baby (1968) is Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Ira Levin’s novel about a young wife in a New York apartment building who comes to believe her neighbors have designs on her pregnancy. Paramount Pictures released it in the United States on June 12, 1968. Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes star, with Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer as the neighbors. Gordon won the Academy Award for best supporting actress. The film is often credited with pulling occult horror into the American mainstream, a year before The Exorcist was even a novel on the bestseller list waiting to be filmed.
At a glance
| Release date | June 12, 1968 (United States) |
| Director | Roman Polanski |
| Writer | Roman Polanski, from the novel by Ira Levin |
| Starring | Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer, Ralph Bellamy, Maurice Evans |
| Runtime | 137 minutes |
| Rating | R (later rating; released before the modern system was in force) |
| Genre | Occult horror, psychological thriller |
| Producer | William Castle |
Plot summary
Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse rent an apartment in the Bramford, an old Upper West Side building with a reputation Rosemary’s friend Hutch does not like. The previous tenant, an elderly woman, has died. The neighbors arrive almost at once. Minnie and Roman Castevet are nosy, generous, and impossible to shake. Guy, a stage actor waiting for a break, starts spending evenings with them. Rosemary wants a child. After a dinner that leaves her dizzy, she has a dream of being assaulted by something not her husband, and wakes scratched. Guy says he took advantage of her while she was unconscious. She is pregnant within days.
The pregnancy is painful in a way her new obstetrician, Dr. Sapirstein, tells her is normal. Minnie brings herbal drinks. Hutch, who has been reading up on the Bramford, falls into a coma before he can finish the warning. Rosemary’s suspicion moves from “my neighbors are odd” to “my neighbors are a coven, and my husband has made a deal.” Polanski keeps the camera with her. The audience is not given a second, calmer point of view.
Spoiler section: the ending
Rosemary is told the baby died. She hears crying through the wall, finds the nursery in the Castevet apartment, and sees what was born. Roman explains that Guy traded his wife’s pregnancy for his career, and that the child is Satan’s. The coven expects her to reject it. She does not. The last image is Rosemary rocking the cradle.
Production and behind the scenes
William Castle, a showman better known for gimmick horror, bought Levin’s novel and wanted to direct. Paramount’s Robert Evans agreed to the purchase and hired Polanski instead, with Castle kept on as producer. Polanski wrote the adaptation himself and stayed close to the book, including the date-stamped New York detail and the dream that may or may not be a dream. He shot much of the film in the Dakota, the apartment building on West 72nd Street that stands in for the Bramford, and built the Woodhouse apartment on a Paramount stage so the rooms would match.
Farrow, then married to Frank Sinatra, had her hair cut short on camera for a scene Sinatra disliked. He wanted her for his own film and served her divorce papers during the shoot. Cassavetes and Polanski argued about method. Cassavetes wanted room to improvise. Polanski wanted the lines as written, because Guy’s charm is a scripted performance. Gordon plays Minnie as a busybody first and a cultist second, which is why the performance won the Oscar. The horror is in the casseroles.
Christopher Komeda wrote the lullaby score. The theme was hummed, not sung with lyrics, and used under titles that pan across the New York skyline as if the building were the villain. The film opened in June 1968 to strong reviews and solid business. It made Levin’s book a permanent title and gave later occult films, including The Omen, a domestic shape to work from: the devil as a problem inside a marriage, not a monster in a ruin.
Cast
- Mia Farrow as Rosemary Woodhouse
- John Cassavetes as Guy Woodhouse
- Ruth Gordon as Minnie Castevet
- Sidney Blackmer as Roman Castevet
- Ralph Bellamy as Dr. Sapirstein
- Maurice Evans as Hutch
- Patsy Kelly as Laura-Louise
- Elisha Cook Jr. as Mr. Nicklas
Trivia
- The Bramford exteriors are the Dakota. John Lennon later lived and was killed there. The film had already made the building look cursed.
- Castle, denied the director’s chair, appears briefly outside a phone booth.
- Polanski keeps almost every supernatural event inside Rosemary’s perception. Confirming shots are rare until the nursery.
- Gordon’s Oscar was the film’s only Academy Award, from two nominations. The other was Polanski’s adapted screenplay.
- A television sequel, Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby, followed in 1976. A 2014 miniseries remade the novel. Neither displaced the film.
- Levin’s book names the baby Adrian. The film never has Rosemary ask.
Related links
- The Omen (1976)
- Mia Farrow
- Roman Polanski