Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Rosemary’s Baby movie storyline. Desirous of starting a family, Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow), a young Catholic housewife, and her husband, Guy Woodhouse, a struggling actor, move into the Bramford, a New York building with an unpleasant history of obscure dwellers and ghastly occurrences.

Before long, the young couple is befriended by their elderly and somehow eccentric next-door neighbours, Roman and Minnie Castevets, and shortly afterwards, Rosemary finally gets pregnant. However, little by little, as the inexperienced mother becomes systematically cut off from her circle and friends, alarming hints of a well-planned and sinister conspiracy will begin to emerge, enfolding Rosemary in a shroud of suspicion and mental agony. In the end, why is everyone so conveniently eager to help, furthermore, why is Guy allowing this?

Roman Polanski’s first American film, from Ira Levin’s best-seller – a convincing, creepy, psychological, Satanist horror/thriller about a young pregnant wife who suspects and has strange premonitions about diabolical forces (a witches’ coven) threatening her unborn baby. Young newlywed couple Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and aspiring, out-of-work actor / husband Guy Woodhouse (Cassavetes) move into a gothic NYC apartment complex, with intrusive, elderly next-door neighbors Roman (Blackmer) and nosy Minnie Castevet (Gordon). With a fertile imagination, Rosemary gradually believes that she hasn’t been impregnated by her husband but by the Devil.

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Rosemary’s Baby is a 1968 American psychological horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on the bestselling 1967 novel of the same name by Ira Levin. The cast features Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer, Maurice Evans, Ralph Bellamy, Angela Dorian, Clay Tanner, and, in his feature film debut, Charles Grodin. The film chronicles the story of a pregnant woman who suspects that an evil cult wants to take her baby for use in their rituals.

Rosemary’s Baby earned almost universal acclaim from film critics and won numerous nominations and awards. In 2014, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, being deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

When Farrow was reluctant to film a scene that depicted a dazed and preoccupied Rosemary wandering into the middle of a Manhattan street 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.[4]

One scene that was shot but was later deleted involved Farrow’s character attending an Off-Broadway production of The Fantasticks and encountering Joan Crawford and Van Johnson, who were playing themselves. The lullaby played over the intro is the song “Sleep Safe and Warm” and was composed by Krzysztof Komeda and sung by Mia Farrow.

Rosemary's Baby Movie Poster (1968)

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Directed by: Roman Polanski
Starring: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, , Maurice Evans, Ralph Bellamy, Sidney Blackmer, Victoria Vetri, Patsy Kelly, Emmaline Henry, Charles Grodin, Hanna Hertelendy, Hope Summers
Screenplay by: Roman Polanski
Production Design by: Richard Sylbert
Cinematography by: William A. Fraker
Film Editing by: Sam O’Steen, Bob Wyman
Costume Design by: Anthea Sylbert
Set Decoration by: Robert Nelson
Art Direction by: Joel Schiller
Music by: Krzysztof Komeda
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: June 12, 1968

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