Rosemary's Baby (film)

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 designer Richard 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-budget horror 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 novel and incorporated large sections of the novel's dialogue and details, with much of it being lifted directly from the source text.[7]

Mia Farrow received widespread praise for her performance as Rosemary Woodhouse

Casting for Rosemary's Baby began in the summer of 1967 in Los Angeles, California.[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.[8] Additionally, Jane Fonda, Patty Duke and Goldie Hawn were considered for the part.[8][9]

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. Mia 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.[10] Despite her waif-like appearance, Polanski agreed to cast her.[10] Her acceptance incensed Sinatra, who had demanded she forgo her career when they wed.[11]

Robert Redford was the first choice for the role of Guy Woodhouse, but he turned it down.[12] Jack Nicholson was considered briefly before Polanski suggested John Cassavetes, whom he had met in London.[12] 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.[13] In the roles of Roman and Minnie Castevet, Polanski cast stage actors Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon.[13] Ralph Bellamy, also primarily a stage actor, was cast in the role of Dr. Abraham Sapirstein.[13]

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.

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, where location shooting commenced.[1] 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][14]

By September 1967, the shoot had relocated to California's 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.[15] Though Paramount had initially agreed to spend $1.9 million to make the film, the shoot was overextended due to Polanski's meticulous attention to detail, which resulted in him completing up to fifty takes of single shots.[16] The shoot suffered significant scheduling problems as a result, and ultimately went $400,000 over budget.[17] 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.[16] 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.[18] Filming was completed on December 20, 1967, in Los Angeles.[1]

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."[21]

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."[22]

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".[23] 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."[24]

Today, the film is widely regarded as a classic; it has an approval rating of 96% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on 72 reviews, with an average rating of 8.80/10. 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."[25] Metacritic reports a weighted average score of 96 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[26]

The Rosemary's Baby DVD, released in 2000 by Paramount Home Video, 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.[27] Mia and Roman was screened originally as a promo film at Hollywood's Lytton Center,[28] and later included as a featurette on the Rosemary's Baby DVD. It is described as a "trippy on-set featurette"[29] and "an odd little bit of cheese."[30]

On October 30, 2012, The Criterion Collection released the film for the first time on Blu-ray.[31]