Olde Review: Rosemary's Baby

This was part of a series of reviews of the ASUW Film series back in the '70's. Except for some punctuation, I haven't changed anything from the way it was presented, giving the kid I was back in the '70's a break. Any stray thoughts and updates I've included with the inevitable asterisked post-scripts.

This Saturday's ASUW films in 130 Kane are Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby, and Robert Wise's The Haunting.

Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968) Rosemary's Baby opens with this theme:* it's a lullaby, sung charmingly off-key by Mia Farrow, its star, but underscored with even more off-key, sometimes baleful accompaniment. And as this lullaby oozes out on the soundtrack, the image we see is of a line of New York apartments--not an unusual opening shot for the beginning of a movie, in fact, it's pretty much of a cliche. 

 

And so is the opening situation--two young newly-weds-in-love house-shopping. We've seen it hundreds of times. It's an everyday occurrence. The apartment is lovely, the couple buys it, and everything is quite normal. 

 

Until a new-found friend of Rosemary's commits suicide, and Rosemary's relationship with her eccentric neighbors turns rather familial, and a bizarre fate befalls the fellow who got her husband's job. Now, that it looks like success for them, they decide it's time to have a kid...and see, there's this chocolate mousse...

Well, I don't have to go any further for I'm sure the legend of Rosemary's Baby has preceded it. 

 

But what separates Rosemary... from other gothics is the perverse outlook of its director, Roman Polanski. Yes, everything's normal, and it is that very normalcy that makes the intrusion of Demonic Forces so doubly terrifying. One can accept odd happenings on a dark and stormy night on a cliff-top castle, but on a sunny day in a New York apartment complex?** 

It makes the horror so much more palpable to be surrounded by normalcy for it increases the possibility of something happening to you. And thus, Polanski places threats in such "normally" innocent and reassuring things as a chocolate mousse, or Ralph Bellamy (who had hawked aspirins for years on the tube) playing a "witch" doctor, if you'll excuse the pun. 

It's an unorthodox approach to the Gothic Horror Story...at least it was in 1968, when it was released, and to paraphrase an ad for Polanski's latest film, The Tenant, "No one does it to you like Roman Polanski."***--not William Friedkin in The Exorcist, or Richard Donner in The Omen. Polanski's Rosemary's Baby is head and shoulders...and horns, above them.

 

Broadcast on KCMU-FM on October 22 and 23, 1976 

 

Still true, but, my God, after Polanski's conviction of child-rape, that's one hell of a movie tag-line on The Tenant! Polanski's arrest, trial and conviction would come later, two years after The Tenant was released, but it sure is the ultimate sick joke.

As for Rosemary's Baby, it still tops the lists of "Movies No Pregnant Woman Should Watch" and it still takes the prize as the best "Devil Walks Amongst Us" movie (sorry, Damien and Regan), and it's no small part due to Polanski's sick sense of humor—Orson Welles, in one of his conversations with Peter Bogdanovich, referred to him as "one of those morbid boys"—and his way of mixing the mundane and the sacrilegious. 

The most entertaining parts of Rosemary are the elderly and uncomfortable neighbors—the "legacies" of the Bramford Hotel, and the best of them is sprightly Ruth Gordon, who won an Oscar for her role. It resurrected Gordon's career, and she went on to star in a long list of films in her twilight years. But, there are others, like Patsy Kelly, Ralph Bellamy (the joke in his early roles was that he was always the dullest of leading men and Polanski makes full use of that reputation here), Elisha Cook, Jr. (a favorite of producer William Castle), Hope Summers, and Phil Leeds (he would end up a fixture on "Seinfeld"), all semi-familiar faces that, in other circumstances, might provide comfort, all part of a conspiracy to make an anti-domestic situation to welcome the Anti-Christ.

Add to it the presence of Mia Farrow, the urchin break-out star of TV's "Peyton Place" who'd just married...Frank Sinatra!...and had a quality that could charitably be called "odd." You're not sure if she's going crazy, has a pre-postpartum depression, or if something weird is actually going on, and it keeps audiences on a tightrope tension of sympathy for/suspicion of Rosemary, the yin and yang of our sympathies and cynicism. And, of course, Polanski (out of Ira Levin, who cloned Hitler and roboticized housewives in other thrillers) turns that into your worst nightmare.

Producer William Castle had a carnival-barker-showmanship to him, gimmicking customers into screenings of his goofy-creepy thrillers and horrors and after Hitchcock (inspired by Castle's box-office receipts and asking "what if someone good did it?") managed to best his efforts with Psycho, he wanted to do the Master of Suspense one better. With the solid story-ideas of Rosemary's Baby, head and tails above what he could conceive, he was able to get that much better and gain some industry clout, although he ultimately had to cede most of the creativity to Polanski, and his Paramount studio-bosses. He would always be a B-movie-maker, but Rosemary's Baby made him see the promised land of the A-list.

 

* Yeah, there's nothing wrong with your computer--there is no song. I usually backed my radio-reviews with an appropriate piece of music, and for this one, I used the actual theme on the soundtrack (that I recorded on cassette from a TV broadcast...I used to do that).

Here it is:

 

** Ironically enough it's the high-end and rather exclusive Dakota building, standing in for the "Bramford." John Lennon would be shot in front of the Dakota a decade later.

*** EEE-Yikes!

 

Legendary producer-showman William Castle appears outside the telephone booth for a cameo.

 

The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

The Masque of the Red Death (Roger Corman, 1964) After a series of successful Poe adaptations—some veering into comedy—AIP Studios took a big leap in budget with a project director Roger Corman had long wanted to do since making his first adaptation House of Usher: Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death." Budget and lack of a satisfactory script is what was delaying the project. Plus, Corman was afraid his film would look too much like Bergman's The Seventh Seal (released in 1957), so production kept getting delayed.

 

In terms of financing, that couldn't have been more fortuitous: AIP had made a deal with a British production company to co-produce films and studio heads Samuel Arkoff and James Nicholson made the suggestion to Corman that he might leave the California lots and move production there. Also, England had the Eady Levy, which was a tax on box office receipts that would be rebated to British productions with certain stipulations, meaning that 85% of any film applying for funds would have to be filmed in England, with an emphasis on providing work for British actors and crew (it's one of the reasons Stanley Kubrick moved to England to make Lolita...and stayed there).

But, there were other benefits besides financial. Corman could avail himself of British actors, utilizing Patrick Magee (again...as Magee had appeared in AIP's Dementia 13, written and directed by a young Francis Ford Coppola), Nigel Green, and a 17 year old actress named Jane Asher (who was just getting involved with some musician or other). For cinematography, he graduated from Floyd Crosby to a young up-and-comer named Nicholas Roeg. And he was able to utilize British sets, like the castle that had been built for the recently-filmed Becket.

An old woman gathering fire-wood approaches a figure in red: The figure tells her "Go to your village. The day of their deliverance is at hand." And, indeed, the flower he gives her contains the red death and by the time Prince Prospero (Vincent Price) goes to the village, the woman is already dead and the contagion is spreading. He arrests two defiant men, Ludovico (Green) and Gino (David Weston) and well as the girl who is the one's daughter and other's betrothed, Francesca (Asher). With the three secured, he orders the village burned to prevent the spread of the disease, while he invites the local noblemen to his castle for safe quarantine and salacious partying. "Act according to your nature" is his only request.

Prospero is a Satanist, a sensualist, and cruel master, and for him, the Christian Francesca, is both challenge and prize as he intends to turn her to his way of seeing things by any means necessary—but with her, he finds himself showing a bit of restraint. Sure, he'll make her choose between father and fiance over who should die by Prospero's hand, but, for him, that's uncommon restraint. He's a bad guy. A very bad guy, as fulsomely and charmingly as Price plays him, content to let everything in the city he lords over dies, while him and his lordly pals party all the while. Not exactly a stretch from reality.

Meanwhile, Prospero's mistress, Juliana (Hazel Court), seeing the interest her lord is paying to his new pet, decides she's going to go over his head and appeals to Satan just to ensure her interests don't get overlooked. Such an act even impresses Prospero, but, as they all learn (but for a mere handful of worthy), whatever one does in life, Death will end it. It's merely a question of...when.

Corman had looked commissioned many scripts for Masque, from Barboura Morris (an AIP company player, she'd starred in A Bucket of Blood), and even Robert Towne, who'd written The Last Woman on Earth for Corman, and who would become Hollywood's ultimate script-doctor, the Oscar-winning author of Chinatown and a director in his own right. None satisfied him, until Charles Beaumont, a short-story author and (along with Richard Matheson) one of the "go-to" writers for "The Twilight Zone," came up with the Satanist angle and the majority of the script, but by 1964, he was suffering from Pick's disease, and started farming out jobs to associates—he would be dead from something akin to Alzheimer's at the age of 39. R. Wright Campbell finished the screenplay, using ideas from other Poe works.

There are a lot of contemporary critics who consider The Masque of the Red Death the best of Corman's Poe adaptations, running neck-and-strangled-neck with the year's other Poe/Corman film The Tomb of Ligeia (which was written by Towne), and the film does seem to go beyond the series' formula for strengths and weaknesses, with a depth to it that other of the films lacked, and the dialogue is a little less plummy and the ideas a little more dangerous. The acting, also, has none of the weak spots the other Poe films had, as there doesn't seem to be any callowness in any of the leads—some of the extras seem to be struggling a bit, however.

Corman made Tomb of Ligeia in England, but he wasn't happy there. As he was used to working fast and filming quickly, he was frustrated with the speed of British crews and their insistence on tea breaks. Most of the Poe films were done in three weeks; The Masque of the Red Death took five.

And, yes, Corman was right to worry about comparisons with The Seventh Seal, with manifestations of the world's deadliest diseases walking the Earth (but using tarot cards, not chess-matches, to determine fates), but the multi-colored hues of the plagues' costumes have a tendency to throw one off a bit, reminding one of color-coded CDC threat-levels.

The color-coded plagues:

L-R: Tuberculosis, Yellow Fever, Scurvy, "The Red Death" (Anthrax), Cholera, Porphyria, and Bubonic Plague 

(Covid is probably last in line)

 

House of Wax

House of Wax (André de Toth, 1953) Oh, the money studio mogul Jack Warner invested in 3-D, only to see it fade away when the craze lost its "zhuzh" and no longer distracted Americans from their newly bought black-and-white broadcast television sets (epic films with wide-screen dynamics was more successful). The 1950's "3-D craze" had a little less dimension to it, fad-wise (and not very many other major studio productions were made in that format) but, that doesn't take away from the fact that Warner's investment in House of Wax created a technological achievement in film, being the first color 3-D movie with stereophonic sound—a feat that made it a surprisingly big hit at the box-office (more so than the monophonic color 3-D film, Bwana Devil) when it was first released (to those theaters that could actually accommodate the new processes), and also, ironically, made the film a staple of those new-fangled television sets (which is where I constantly ran into it in my youth). It also managed to revive the status of Vincent Price, who would spend the rest of his career starring in horror films, sometimes being the most expensive items in their budgets.

Jerrod and his Marie Antoinette—the wax-figure is "portrayed" by lead actress Phyllis Kirk

 

Based on an earlier Warner film, 1933's The Mystery of the Wax Museum—that was directed by Michael Curtiz in two color Technicolor—it tells the story of gifted sculptor Professor Henry Jerrod (Price), who is having a bit of a falling-out with his principal investor Matthew Burke (Roy Roberts)—Burke wants to see Jerrod's wax museum become a bit more sensational to attract business while Jerrod wants to concentrate on more life-like attractions on a par with his sculptures of Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, and his personal favorite, Marie Antoinette. While Burke is upstairs going over the books, Jerrod takes a meeting with art critic Sidney Wallace (Paul Cavanagh) to see if he'd be interested in buying Burke out.

Wallace is funding some archaeological dig of other and will be out of the country for three months, but fully intends to fund Jerrod's expansion of his wax museum when he returns. This is promising news for Jerrod, but not for Burke who won't wait three months and turns on Jerrod, starting a fire in the museum to burn the place to the ground to collect the insurance money. That he has left Jerrod unconscious in the burning building is of no concern to him. And the gas-lights in the structure only ensures the sculptor's doom, creating a spectacular explosion that destroys the man...and his life's work.

The unseemly Mr. Burke cashes his insurance check for 25k—nobody being very good at checking for accelerants in 1902—and doling out just enough of it to attract gold-diggers like Cathy Gray (a blonde, pre-"Addams Family" Carolyn Jones), reassured that the body of Jerrod was never found. He shouldn't be so presumptive, as when he goes to stash the remainder of his money in his safe (fireproof, I hope!), he is attacked in his room and strangled by a mysterious black-cloaked figure, who then takes a rope and hangs the body in the walk-up's elevator shaft to make it appear a suicide.

Cathy is preparing for her upcoming date with a new fella, being helped into her frills by her housemate, Sue Allen (Phyllis Kirk). Sue is having trouble making the rent, but Cathy assures her that she'll lend her some money if Sue's attempt to get a job as a hat-check girl falls through. It does, but after a shakedown by her landlord, Sue goes to her room and checks on Cathy, only to find her dead, and the perpetrator still in the room—a black-cloaked figure with a misshapen, scarred face. She screams and escapes through the window with the figure in hot pursuit.

She manages to lose the strange murderer in the foggy streets and finds shelter at the home of a friend (Angela Clarke) and her son Andrew (Paul Picerni), and the next day, they go to the police (in the form of Frank Lovejoy and Dabbs Greer), who are a bit skeptical of Sue's story. But, then, they're not much help in the case of Cathy's murder—as her body has gone missing from the morgue! It's the latest in a string of disappearing corpses that they can't explain.

 Price, a young Charles Bronson, and Cavanagh

 

But, remember that art critic Sidney Wallace? He comes back into town to meet with Professor Jerrod, who is quite alive, but wheelchair-bound and his hands burned so horribly that he can only supervise the work of his assistants: Carl Hendricks (Nedrick Young) and the deaf/mute Igor (Charles Bronson, but at the time going by Charles Buchinskey). Jerrod has changed his mind about things since the previous museum's fire—now he's going to only focus on exhibits of the macabre, a chamber of horrors, if you will, of the past and present day. Including one exhibit of the suicide of Matthew Burke...with a remarkably life-like wax figure that, in the first real incident of fragrant 3-D usage falls forward into the screen—realistically enough that it must've seemed like it was falling in people's laps. With that little shock comes...

It's the half-way point of the film, and a reel change was required, but with both projectors each showing one part of the 3-D image, the proceedings had to be interrupted to manage it. I used to run projectors, but nothing as sophisticated as in the theaters, so how they managed to keep everything in sync, I wouldn't know (what happens if the film in one of the reels breaks...do they have to swap out as many frames in the other reel?*). Anyway, that's not the most interesting thing about the 3-D process. The most interesting thing was that director Andre dé Toth was blind in one eye and wore an eye-patch over it, so he couldn't have seen the 3-D images if he tried!

It's in the second part of the film where the 3-D tricks really start coming in fast, threatening to invade the audience's space: there are two more fainting spells toward the camera (as a result of squeamish reactions to Jerrod's house of horrors) as well as a rather gratuitous sequence involving the museum's barker enticing ticket-buyers with a paddle-ball breaking the fourth wall by threatening to knock the audience's popcorn out of their hands) and an equally unnecessary can-can sequence where the dancers threaten to kick out jaws, and one chorine throws her derriére in your face (the 3-D version of putting butts in seats?). But, there are subtler things—flying angel decorations, splintering doors, one prominent fist. And it must have been a shock to suddenly see Charles Bronson's henchman pop up in the frame during a critical juncture. It's not can-can girls, but it probably caused a lurch in the customers.

Still, the strength of the movie is dé Toth's direction, done in long, tracking takes (which would have really showed off the changing perspectives in 3-D), especially the tours of each of the wax museums usually done in one sweeping tour, aided by Jerrod's "waxing" poetic about his creations. And dé Toth had a good eye (but only one) for composition, so that when he did cut away, it was always to something interesting and striking.

And, say what you will about the "Perils of Pauline" style-finish, it is a nerve-jangler with our heroine threatened to be entombed in her own wax coffin for display, and if the elaborate device used to do so isn't exactly practical, it is impressive looking, rivaling the sparking laboratories of previous screen-villains, and there's another sequence involving split-second timing with a guillotine that provides an unexpected jolt (enough that the actor involved did it under protest).

But, dramatically, the movie doesn't fool anyone. One can guess the identity of the black-cloaked figure on a murderous (and covetous) rampage in turn-of-the-century New York nearly as soon as he appears—unless you're six (which is what I was when I first saw it and the revelation was as shocking as finding out who Darth Vader was much later in my film-watching) and have had no previous experience with movie-making sleight-of-hand. You'd have to be conked in the head with a paddle-ball to be surprised by it (hmmm...maybe that's why they did it...!). But, the movie is true to its melodramatic roots (the original play on which it and the earlier version premiered in 1932).

House of Wax was voted into The National Film Registry in 2014 for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Given its breakthroughs in color 3-D and stereophonic sound one should add "technologically" as well.

* Answer: Yeah, they did, or the resulting de-synchronization of images would cause headaches or even nausea faster than you could say "des-synchronization"!

 

"The film's out of SYNC!!"

 

Don't Make a Scene: Rosemary's Baby (1969)

The Story: This is another of the late Premiere magazine's "Classic Scene" features...from November, 1999, the subject being the last scene of Rosemary's Baby. And considering how few YouTube video's have the complete scene (answer: none), I'm surprised they did it.

The reason it's here is because it was produced by one of my favorite movie-hustlers, William Castle, who produced many a cheap, gimmicky horror film (so successfully that he inspired Hitchcock to make Psycho!) Hopefully, you've read this month's post about The Tingler and there are others around here somewhere—I try to post at least one Castle feature every Hallowe'en season. He'd bought the film-rights to Ira Levin's book with the intention of directing it for Paramount, until Robert Evans forebade it lest the movie look "cheap" and successfully approached Roman Polanski to make it. Castle got the producing credit and a cameo.

And Polanski made the better film. Castle would have kept the "camp" elements, certainly, but I'm not sure he would have rooted it so deeply in the real world, with references to "plain ordinary" Lipton's Tea, Vidal Sassoon hair-styles (not without some payment, at least) which is one of the most horrorific aspects to it: the movie leaves us with "the anti-Christ" and wanders off into the world, leaving us with the knowledge that "life goes on normally" even if, behind closed doors and black-out curtains, things aren't normal at all. Talk about instilling paranoia! Even Castle would have a hard time doing that, no matter how many seat-buzzers and glowing skeletons he could pack into the theater.

No, Polanski wanted to make things as normal as apple-pie, even casting familiar faces as the Satanists—my favorite is probably Hope Summers (who played Aunt Bea's neighbor, Clara, on the "Mayberry" shows and seemed to be on every sit-com known to man and Beast). And the seemingly comic busybodies who make up her neighbors are certainly no threat, although they are odd and set-in-their-ways, and Polanski's treatment of them might be chuckle-inducing...with little touches like Ruth Gordon's Mrs. Castanet smudging the place where Rosemary's knife cut the floor (don't want to ruin the finish!) or Patsy Kelly's obnoxious Laura-Louise sticking her tongue out at Rosemary as she slunks back to her pity-party (Satanists can be SO petty!) And the whole situation where the displaying of the anti-Christ resembles nothing so much as a neighborly baby-shower...or the world's worst Tupperware party.

But, he also could be giving us a warning, too. Informality doesn't necessitate complacency.

Don't get comfortable. 

Oh. And ("...you haven't been, really") don't forget to vote.

 

The Set-up: There are difficult pregnancies and there are DIFFICULT pregnancies (emphasis on the "cult"!). From the Premiere Magazine intro: "Mia Farrow plays Rosemary Woodhouse, a waifish young housewife, who has been unwittingly impregnated by Satan. Unknown to Rosemary, her elderly neighbors, Roman and Minnie Castavet (Sidney Blackmer and Oscar-winning Best Supporting Actress Ruth Gordon) are a couple of witches who head a coven (which includes Rosemary's actor husband Guy, played by John Cassavetes; the oddball Laura-Louise, played by Patsy Kelly; and Hope Summers's Mrs. Gilmore). Here, just days after giving birth (she has been told that her baby died), she sneaks into the Castavets' apartment (they are supposed to be in Europe), kitchen knife in hand, having been drawn by activity and voices. In the living room she finds the coven and — yikes! — a black bassinet with an upside-down cross hanging over it.

 

Action.

 

Rosemary is at the archway now. She can see the coven is at the other end, laughing, talking softly. Ice cubes clink.

She betters her grip on the knife and moves a step forward. 

She stops, staring.

Across the room in the one large window bay stands a black bassinet, skirted with black taffeta, hooded and flounced with black organza. A silver ornament turns on a black ribbon pinned to its black hood. The stiff organza trembles. The silver ornament quivers and we can see that it is a crucifix hanging upside down, with the black ribbon wound and knotted around Jesus' ankles.

Rosemary wipes her hands on her housecoat, throws back her hair, finds a fresh grip on the knife's thick handle and steps out where they can see her. Insanely, they don't. They go right on talking, listening, sipping, pleasantly, partying. Mr. and Mrs. Castevet, Guy, Mr. Fountain, the Weeses, Laura-Louise and a studious-looking young Japanese with eye-glasses. All gathered under an over-the-mantel portrait of Adrian Marcato (the same as in the book). 

Mr. Castevet sees Rosemary first, puts down his drink and touches Mrs. Castevet 's arm. The voices fade. 

Those who sit with their back to Rosemary turn around questioningly. Guy starts to rise but sits down again. 

Laura-Louise claps both hands to her mouth and starts squealing. 

MRS. GILMORE Rosemary! Get back in bed, Rosemary; you know you aren't supposed to be up and around. 

JAPANESE Is the mother? 

Mr. Castevet nods and the Japanese looks at Rosemary with interest. JAPANESE Ah, sssaasassssss. 

Watching them, Rosemary starts across the room toward the bassinet.

MR. CASTEVET Rosemary. 

ROSEMARY Shut up. 

MR. CASTEVET Before you look at- 

ROSEMARY Shut up. You're in Dubrovnik. I don't hear you.  

Rosemary watches them until she is by the bassinet, which is angled in their direction. 

With her free hand, she catches the black-covered handle and swings the bassinet slowly,

gently, around to face her.

Taffeta rustles, the black wheels squeal.

She looks in,

smiling gently,

she slowly reaches her left arm to take the baby.

The smile fades on her face

and changes into an expression of horror.

She backs slowly away and freezes with her eyes wide open. 

ROSEMARY What have you done to it? 

ROSEMARY What have you done to its eyes?!? 

They stir and look to Mr. Castevet. 

MR. CASTEVET He has His Father's eyes.*

Rosemary looks at him, looks at Guy - whose eyes are hidden behind a hand - looks at Mr. Castevet again. 

ROSEMARY What are you talking about? Guy's eyes are normal! 

ROSEMARY What have done to him, 

ROSEMARY you maniacs?!

She moves from the bassinet ready to kill him. 

MR. CASTEVET Satan is His Father, not Guy. 

MR. CASTEVET He came up from Hell and begat a Son of mortal woman! 

MR. WEES Hail Satan.

MRS. GILMORE  Hail Satan!

Mr. Castevet cries, his voice growing louder and prouder, his bearing more strong and forceful. 

MR. CASTEVET Satan is His Father and His Name is Adrian! 

MR. CASTEVET He shall overthrow the mighty and lay waste their temples! 

MR. CASTEVET He shall redeem the despised and wreak vengeance in the name of the burned and the tortured! 

MR. CASTEVET Hail Adrian! 

VOICES Hail Adrian! Hail Adrian! 

MR. CASTEVET Hail Satan! Hail Satan! 

VOICES Hail Satan!

Rosemary shakes her head. 

ROSEMARY No. 

MRS. CASTEVET He chose you out of all the world, Rosemary. Out of all the women in the whole world, He chose you. He arranged everything 'cause He wanted you to be the mother of His only living Son. 

MR. CASTEVET His power is stronger than stronger. 

MRS. WEES Hail Satan. 

MR. CASTEVET: His might will last longer than longer. 

JAPANESE Hail Satan! 

Laura-Louise uncovers her mouth. Guy looks out at Rosemary from under his hand. 

ROSEMARY No, 

ROSEMARY it can't be. 

ROSEMARY No. 

MRS. CASTEVET Go look at His hands.  

LAURA-LOUISE And His feet. 

ROSEMARY Oh...

ROSEMARY ...God. 

She covers her face. 

The knife falls into the floor and sways, upright. 

VOICES MR. CASTEVET (Thundering) God is DEAD! 

ROSEMARY Oh God! oh God! oh God! 

MR. CASTEVET God 

MR. CASTEVET ...is dead. Satan lives! 

MR. CASTEVET The year is One! 

MR. CASTEVET Hail Satan! Hail Adrian! Hail Adrian! Hail Satan! The year is One, God is done! The year is One, Adrian's begun! 

Rosemary backs away. 

ROSEMARY No, no Oh, God!

She backs further and further away through the shouting people. In the confusion of movement, a faint fragment of her dream flashes. A chair is behind her; she sits down on it and stares at them. 

Mrs. Castevet goes over and, grunting as she stoops, 

pulls out the knife and takes it into the kitchen.

Guy follows her. Laura-Louise rocks the bassinet possessively, making faces into it.

Rosemary sits staring. Mr. Castevet comes over to her. 

MR. CASTEVET Why don't you help us out, Rosemary, be a real mother to Adrian. You don't have to join if you don't want to; 

MR. CASTEVET just be a mother to your baby. 

(Bends down and whispers) 

MR. CASTEVET Minnie and Laura-Louise are too old. 

MR. CASTEVET It's not right. 

Rosemary looks at Mr. Castevet. He straightens up. The doorbell rings. 

MR. CASTEVET Think about it, Rosemary. 

He goes to answer the door. 

The Japanese, sitting across the room on a hassock, catches Rosemary's eye, grins and ducks his head. He holds up an opened camera into which he is putting film.

ROSEMARY Oh God. 

LAURA-LOUISE (Rocking the bassinet) Oh. Shut up with your Oh God's,

LAURA-LOUISE or we'll kill you, milk or no milk. 

MRS. WEES  You shut up. 

She comes to Rosemary and puts a dampened handkerchief in her hand.

MRS. WEES Rosemary is His mother, so you show some respect. 

Laura-Louise mutters.

Rosemary wipes her forehead and cheeks with the hand-kerchief. The Japanese, sitting across the room on a hassock, catches Rosemary's eye, grins and ducks his head. He holds up an opened camera into which he is putting film. Rosemary looks down and starts crying. 

Mr. Castevet comes in, holding the arm of ARGYRON STAVROPOULOS. He is a robust, handsome, dark-skinned man, wearing a white suit, white shoes and carrying a large box wrapped in light blue paper patterned with Teddy bears and candy canes. Musical sounds come from it. Everyone gathers to meet him and shake his hand. There is a confused, hushed conversation from which words like "Worried - pleasure -- airport - Stavropoulos -- occasion" can be heard. 

Laura-Louise brings the box to the bassinet. She holds it up for the baby to see, shakes it, and puts it on the window seat. There are other boxes similarly wrapped and a few that are wrapped in black with black ribbon. 

Mr. Castevet draws Argyron Stavropoulos forward. 

MR. CASTEVET Come, my friend. Come see Him. 

MR. CASTEVET Come see the Child. 

They go to the bassinet. Laura-Louise waits with a proprietary smile. They close around it and look into it silently. 

Argyron Stavropoulos lowers himself to his knees. 

Guy comes back from the kitchen, over to Rosemary.

He stands looking down at her. 

GUY They promised me you wouldn't be hurt, 

GUY and you haven't been, really. 

GUY I mean, suppose you'd had a baby and lost it; wouldn't it be the same? And we're getting so much in return, Ro. 

Rosemary puts the handkerchief on the table, looks at Guy, and,

as hard as she can, spits at him. 

Guy flushes 

and turns away, wiping his face. 

Laura-Louise rocks the bassinet. The baby starts whimpering. 

Mr. Castevet catches Guy by the arm. 

MR. CASTEVET Guy, let me introduce you to Argyron Stavropoulos  Argyron Stavropoulos clasps Guy's hand in both his own. 

STAVROPOULOS How proud you must be. 

He looks over Guy's shoulder, at Rosemary.

STAVROPOULOS Is this the mother? Why in the name of - 

Mr. Castevet draws him away, speaking in his ear. 

Mrs. Castevet brings a mug of steaming tea to Rosemary. 

MRS. CASTEVET Here, Drink this and you'll feel a little better .. 

Rosemary looks at the mug and looks up at Mrs. Castevet. 

ROSEMARY What's in it? Tannis root? 

MRS. CASTEVET Nothing is in it. It's plain ordinary Lipton tea. 

MRS. CASTEVET You drink it. 

Rosemary looks 

at Laura-Louise rocking the bassinet.

The baby is still whimpering, and Laura-Louise rocks it faster and faster. 

Rosemary gets up 

and goes over. 

LAURA-LOUISE Get away from here. Roman!

ROSEMARY You're rocking him too fast. 

LAURA-LOUISE Sit down! 

LAURA-LOUISE (To Mr. Castevet) Get her out of here. Put her where she belongs. -

ROSEMARY You're rocking him too fast. That's why he's whimpering.

LAURA-LOUISE Mind your own business! 

MR. CASTEVET Let Rosemary rock him. 

Laura-Louise stares at him. He stands behind the bassinet's head. 

MR. CASTEVET Go on. Sit down with the others. Let Rosemary rock Him.

LAURA-LOUISE She's liable - 

MR. CASTEVET Sit down with the others, Laura-Louise. 

Laura-Louise huffs 

and marches away. 

MR. CASTEVET Rock him. 

He smiles at Rosemary and moves the bassinet back and forth towards her, holding it by its hood. Rosemary stands still and looks at him.!

ROSEMARY You're trying to get me to be his mother. - 

MR. CASTEVET Aren't YOU His mother? 

Slowly, Rosemary lets the black-covered handle come into her hand,

and closes her fingers around it. 

For a few moments they rock the bassinet between them, then Mr. Castevet lets go and Rosemary rocks it alone, nice and slowly. 

Mr. Castevet withdraws silently to where everybody now stands in a semi-circle, watching.

Dr. Sapirstein comes into the room and looks at the scene, in surprise.

Mrs. Castevet puts her finger to her lips.

The Japanese steps forward 

and crouching down to find an angle, clicks his camera. 

Very softly, Rosemary is humming. 

From behind the window, 

we can hear the distant noise of the street and cars hooting. 

The sun has already set behind the buildings

and the pleasant evening light covers the city. 

THE END

 

Rosemary's Baby

 

Words by Roman Polanski (and Ira Levin)

 

Pictures by William A. Fraker and Roman Polanski

Rosemary's Baby is available on DVD, Blu-Ray and 4K UHD from Paramount Home Entertainment and The Criterion Collection.

 

 

* Mad Magazine's parody of the film had Rosemary give a great rejoinder: "Blood-red eyes? Who's his father? Dean Martin?" Oh. And for those of you who notice such things (Being raised Catholic, I did!), the capitalization of "His" and the entity's name are from the script (Being raised Catholic, I had to fight an impulse to change it...once you're in "the club", you know). They do it in religious texts for Supreme Beings in the religions that I know, anyway, so...)