ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968 - HORROR / WITCHCRAFT FLICK) **** out of ***** OR 8 out of 10
(I've heard of selling your soul for fame, but this is just a little too literal....)
CAST: Mia Farrow, John Cassavettes, Ruth Gordon, Sydney Blackmer, Ralph Bellamy, Patsy Kelly, Angela Dorian, Elisha Cook, Jr.
DIRECTOR: Roman Polanski
IT'S LIKE THIS: If the movies are any indication, apartment-living in Manhattan must fucking suck. In SLIVER, we watched sleek, sophisticated book editor Carly Norris (Sharon Stone) move to a luxurious, skinny tower and into a flat that seemed to be the pad of her dreams - only to discover it (and all the other flats in the building) is bugged with hidden cameras and and a killer is going around bumping tenants off, and she just might be next.
Then, we saw what happened to Allie Jones (Bridget Fonda) in SINGLE WHITE FEMALE when she had to take out an ad for a roommate just to make rent - only to discover the girl she chose (Jennifer Jason Leigh) was about three fries short of a Happy Meal. Actually, make that two dozen fries short - and maybe even a burger, too.
Then we witnessed yuppie couple George and Linda Gergenblatt (Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston) in WANDERLUST plunk down some serious dough for what is essentially a broom closet with a kitchenette attached to it - only to discover they can't afford it after all (even as tiny as it is) and find themselves unable to offload it because, surprisingly, no one except idiots like them is interested in purchasing ridiculously-expensive broom closets with kitchenettes attached to them.
However, before all those nightmares came along, the ultimate "New York Apartment Building Nightmare" happened in 1968, in our next "31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN" review. It's titled ROSEMARY'S BABY, and after seeing it you may never want to live in an apartment building ever again. Our protagonists are Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) and her actor husband, Guy (John Cassavettes), and they are trying to find an affordable apartment that can actually fit both of them in it without walking sideways all the time.
They luck out and discover a two-bedroom unit has opened up in the historic Bramford building. The apartment manager gives Rosemary and Guy a tour, and it soon becomes clear to them that the former tenant just passed away recently and her stuff is still in the place. From the looks of it, she liked to grow her own herbs. And from even more looks of it, she was a fucking weirdo. Why else would someone move a heavy-ass dresser and block a perfectly-usable closet with it? I mean, come on, this is New York - where people routinely sell their souls to the Devil just for another 2 square feet of closet space.
Ahem.
Anyhow, Rosemary and Guy accept the apartment and eventually move into it. As they are getting settled, though, they're discover that the Bramford isn't all it's cracked up to be. A lot of it has to do with the fact that they're next door neighbors are the two most annoying assholes to ever stain the silver screen. They are Roman and Minnie Castavet (Sydney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon), and if I lived next to them I would seriously consider releasing a sack full of Black Mambas into their ventilation ducts. You have to see these two pieces-of-work in action to believe it.
For starters, Roman is your basic egotistical windbag who says he's been everywhere and done everything there is to do. Except maybe learn how to shut the fuck up, eh Roman? Then there's Minnie, who sports what is probably the most grating voice known to human civilization. You know how it sounds when you've foolishly allowed your brake pads to wear away to the point that the calipers themselves are scraaaaaaaaaaping against the rotors of your wheels? Well, fuse that awful noise with the sound of a crazed monkey discovering someone stole his last banana, then toss in the moaning of an out-of-tune trumpet, and maybe you will begin to understand the heinous blare that pours out every time Minnie Castavet opens her fucking mouth. Hell, I'd rather put up with a psycho roommate or a killer-voyeur-landlord than live next to these two.
Sure enough, Roman and Minnie insinuate themselves into Guy and Rosemary's lives. Surprisingly, Guy eventually starts hanging out with the insufferable couple. Even more surprisingly, Rosemary suddenly finds herself pregnant - after having a truly bizarre dream in which it looked like a very hairy person with horns pretty much fucked her five days past Monday. And why doesn't Guy seem over the moon about being a Da-Da? Why does he seem to be just pretending to be happy? And why has his career suddenly skyrocketed? Does it have something to do with his connection to the Castavets?
Soon, Rosemary's suddenly starts feeling odd stabbing pains in her stomach, as if her baby is tap-dancing with spiked heels. And why is she suddenly losing weight and going pale? What's in those strange drinks that Minnie make for her? And can she trust her gynecologist, the renowned Dr. Abraham Sapirstein (Ralph Bellamy)? And what happens when her good friend Hutch (Maurice Evans) informs her that the Bramford building has a grim history of murder, witchcraft, cannibalism, and murder? What does it all have to do with her and her baby? What will happen once she gives birth? And why are all her neighbors so interested in her pregnancy? What is going on in the Bramford?
Who cares. They should've moved out the minute the Castevets showed their scary mugs.
BUT SERIOUSLY: Watching ROSEMARY'S BABY is like traveling back to a time when movies were made carefully and stories were told differently. This film and many other classics from the 60s, 70s, and even the 80s and part of the 90s, regardless of genre, are more satisfying than their "modern" counterparts from the last decade or so. Quite frankly, the rise of the Internet and social media has significantly changed cinema, and not for the better. Suffice it so say, movies like ROSEMARY'S BABY wouldn't get made today with all the short attention spans in existence.
Indeed, the recent remake of this classic had to be turned into a cable mini-series starring Zoe Saldana and Patrick J. Adams which, if you're going to do it, is the right platform to do it in. On cable TV, told over several nights, the story can retain the slow-burn build up that made the source novel (by Ira Levin) and its 1968 adaptation by Roman Polanski so memorable. Ultimately, this year's TV remake, despite being solid and well-acted, is simply not as compelling as ROSEMARY'S BABY 1968.
Director Roman Polanski orchestrates a masterful symphony of gradually-increasing terror. A lot of his stories (REPULSION, THE TENANT, FRANTIC, KNIFE IN THE WATER) deal with psychological ambiguity wherein the protagonists may or may not be just imagining what is happening. It's often not until much later that their fears are validated, but the build-up to that revelation is genuinely suspenseful. It also helps immeasurably that Mia Farrow turns in a uniquely quirky performance that is odd, endearing, and compelling - all at the same time. Quite frankly, no one else could've done it quite the way that Farrow does it, and that helps the movie considerably.
In fact, this is essentially a stellar showcase for Farrow, who owns the movie. Of course, it also helps that all the supporting roles, from major to minor, are vividly cast. John Cassavettes is handsome in a way that is both facile and sincere at the same time, and that's key to the slippery nature of Guy. Sydney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon are spot-on as the seemingly-ordinary (if also highly annoying) next-door neighbors. If there's something this year's remake does right, it's update these characters to be more sleek and seductive in the forms of handsome British thesp Jason Isaacs and gorgeous former Bond Girl, Carole Bouquet. This made them more menacing. In the original, Roman and Minnie come across as innocuous, even though that's what Ira Levin intended in his novel. Sometimes, though, you have to diverge from the source novel to make a story work better onscreen.
In the end, though, what makes ROSEMARY BABY 1968 work better than ROSEMARY'S BABY 2014 is the fact that Roman Polanski understands how to create a gradually-rising atmosphere of paranoia, tension, and understated horror. But it may not have been as effective as it ultimately is without Mia Farrow's one-of-a-kind performance that is singularly empathic and empathetic. Sadly, it's the kind of movie that we won't likely see in movie theaters anymore. However, cable TV and the mini-series format will offer a ray of hope...
