Rosemary's Baby (film) Reception What is Rosemary's Baby reception? In 2014, Rosemary's Baby was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Did Rosemary's Baby receive any awards? Ruth Gordon won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in this film. Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? Rosemary's Baby was one of Stanley Kubrick's favorite films, according to his brother-in-law and assistant Jan Harlan.
Did the critics say anything about the film?
Did the critics say anything about the film Rosemary's Baby?
From 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." Variety stated, "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." The Monthly Film Bulletin stated that "After the miscalculations of Cul de Sac and Dance of the Vampires" Polanski had "returned to the rich vein of Repulsion". 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."  Ruth Gordon won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in this film.  Today, the film is widely regarded as a classic; the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gave the movie a 99% rating (68 out of 69 reviews), with the site's consensus describing 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".  In 2014, Rosemary's Baby was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.  Rosemary's Baby was one of Stanley Kubrick's favorite films, according to his brother-in-law and assistant Jan Harlan. CANNOTANSWER
Today, the film is widely regarded as a classic; the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gave the movie a 99% rating (68 out of 69 reviews),
Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 American psychological horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, and starring 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 follows a young, pregnant wife in Manhattan who comes to suspect that her elderly neighbors are members of a Satanic cult, and are grooming her in order to use her baby for their rituals. It is based on the 1967 novel of the same name by Ira Levin.

Though set in New York City, the majority of principal photography of Rosemary's Baby took place in Los Angeles throughout late 1967. It was released in June 1968 by Paramount Pictures, and was a box-office success, grossing over $30 million in the United States. The film received numerous accolades, including multiple Golden Globe Award nominations and two Academy Award nominations. Ruth Gordon won both the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as well as the Golden Globe in the same category.

Rosemary's Baby deals with themes related to paranoia, women's liberation, Christianity (Catholicism), and the occult. The film earned almost universal acclaim from film critics and won numerous nominations and awards. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest horror movies of all time. In 2014, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Plot
Guy Woodhouse, a stage actor and his wife, Rosemary, move into the Bramford, a large Renaissance Revival apartment building in New York City. They disregard their friend Hutch's warning about the Bramford's dark past with witchcraft and murder.

Rosemary meets Terry Gionoffrio, a young recovering drug addict whom Minnie and Roman Castevet, the Woodhouses' elderly neighbors, have taken in. One night, Terry apparently jumps to her death from the Castevets' 7th-floor apartment, distressing the Castevets. Guy grows close to them, but Rosemary finds the couple annoying and meddlesome. Minnie gives Terry's pendant to Rosemary as a good luck charm, saying it contains "tannis root".

Guy is cast in a prominent play after the lead actor inexplicably goes blind. With his acting career flourishing, Guy wants to have a baby with Rosemary. On the night that they plan to conceive, Minnie brings over individual cups of chocolate mousse for their dessert. When Rosemary complains hers has a chalky "under-taste" and does not finish it, Guy criticizes her as being ungrateful. Rosemary consumes a bit more to mollify him, then discreetly discards the rest. Soon after, she grows dizzy and passes out. In a dreamlike state, she hallucinates being raped by a demonic presence (Satan) as Guy, the Castevets, and other Bramford tenants watch. None, including Rosemary, are clothed. The next morning, Guy explains the scratches covering her body by claiming that he did not want to miss "baby night" and had sex with her while she was passed out.

Rosemary becomes pregnant, due the last week of June. The elated Castevets insist that Rosemary go to their close friend, Dr. Abraham Sapirstein, a prominent obstetrician, rather than her own physician, Dr. Hill. During her first trimester, Rosemary suffers severe abdominal pains and loses weight. By Christmastime, her gaunt appearance alarms her friends and also Hutch, who has been researching the Bramford's history. Before sharing his findings with Rosemary, he falls into a mysterious coma. Rosemary, unable to withstand the pain, insists on seeing Dr. Hill, while Guy argues against it, saying Dr. Sapirstein will be offended. As they argue, the pains suddenly stop and Rosemary feels the baby move.

Three months later, Hutch's friend, Grace Cardiff, informs Rosemary that Hutch is dead. Before dying, he briefly regained consciousness and said to give Rosemary a book on witchcraft, All of Them Witches, along with the cryptic message: "The name is an anagram". Rosemary eventually deduces that Roman Castevet is an anagram for Steven Marcato, the son of a former Bramford resident and a reputed Satanist. She suspects that the Castevets and Dr. Sapirstein belong to a Satanic coven and have sinister intentions for her baby. Guy discounts this and later throws the book away, upsetting Rosemary and making her suspicious of him.

Terrified, she goes to Dr. Hill for help. Assuming that she is delusional, he calls Dr. Sapirstein, who arrives with Guy to take her home. Rosemary locks herself into the apartment, but coven members somehow infiltrate and restrain her. Dr. Sapirstein sedates a hysterical Rosemary, who goes into labor and gives birth. When she awakens, she is told that the baby was stillborn. As Rosemary recovers, she notices her pumped breast milk appears to be saved instead of disposed of. She stops taking her prescribed pills, becoming less groggy. After Rosemary hears an infant crying, Guy mentions that new tenants with a baby have moved into the building.

Believing her baby is alive, Rosemary discovers a hidden door leading into Minnie and Roman's apartment. The Castevets, Guy, Dr. Sapirstein, and other coven members are gathered around a bassinet draped in black with an upside down cross hanging over it. Peering inside, Rosemary is horrified and demands to know what is wrong with her baby's eyes. Roman proclaims that the child is Adrian, Satan's son. He urges Rosemary to mother her child, promising her that she will not have to join the coven. When Guy attempts to calm her, saying that they will be rewarded and can conceive their own child, she spits in his face. After hearing the infant's cries, however, Rosemary gives in to her maternal instincts and gently rocks the cradle.

Cast

Production

Development
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 to finish her call.

François Truffaut claimed that Alfred Hitchcock was first offered the chance to direct the film but declined. Evans admired Polanski's European films and hoped he could convince him to make his American debut with Rosemary's Baby. 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. 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. 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.

Polanski completed the 272-page screenplay for the film in approximately three weeks. 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.

Casting

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

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

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

Polanski wanted to cast Hollywood old-timers as the coven members but did not know any by name. He drew sketches of how he envisioned each character, and these helped the casting director fill the roles. In every instance, the actor cast strongly resembled Polanski's drawing. They included Ralph Bellamy, Patsy Kelly, Elisha Cook, Jr., Phil Leeds and Hope Summers.

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.

Filming

Principal photography for Rosemary's Baby began on August 21, 1967, in New York City, where location shooting commenced. 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.

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 soundstages. Some additional location shooting took place in Playa del Rey in October 1967. 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. 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. The shoot suffered significant scheduling problems as a result, and ultimately went $400,000 over budget. In November 1967, it was reported that the shoot was over three weeks behind schedule.

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. 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. Filming was completed on December 20, 1967, in Los Angeles.

Music
The lullaby played over the intro is the song "Sleep Safe and Warm." It was composed by Krzysztof Komeda and sung by Mia Farrow. The song "Für Elise" is also frequently used as background music throughout the film. The original film soundtrack was released in 1968 via Dot Records. Waxwork Records released the soundtrack from the original master tapes in 2014 which included Krzysztof Komeda's original work.

Release

Critical response
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."

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."

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". 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."

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." Metacritic reports a weighted average score of 96 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Accolades

Home media 
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. Mia and Roman was screened originally as a promo film at Hollywood's Lytton Center, and later included as a featurette on the Rosemary's Baby DVD. It is described as a "trippy on-set featurette" and "an odd little bit of cheese."

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

Legacy
Following the film's premiere, a string of other films focusing on Satan worshippers and black magic were produced, including The Brotherhood of Satan, Mark of the Devil, Black Noon, and The Blood on Satan's Claw.

The scene in which Rosemary is raped by Satan was ranked No. 23 on Bravo's The 100 Scariest Movie Moments. In 2010, The Guardian ranked the film the second-greatest horror film of all time. In 2014, it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Sequels and remakes
In the 1976 television film Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby, Patty Duke starred as Rosemary Woodhouse and Ruth Gordon reprised her role of Minnie Castevet. The film introduced an adult Andrew/Adrian attempting to earn his place as the Antichrist. It was disliked as a sequel by critics and viewers, and its reputation deteriorated over the years. The film is unrelated to the novel's sequel, Son of Rosemary.

A remake of Rosemary's Baby was briefly considered in 2008. The intended producers were Michael Bay, Andrew Form, and Brad Fuller. The remake fell through later that same year.

In January 2014, NBC made a four-hour Rosemary's Baby miniseries with Zoe Saldana as Rosemary. The miniseries was filmed in Paris under the direction of Agnieszka Holland.

In 2016, the film was unofficially remade in Turkey under the title Alamet-i-Kiyamet.

The short "Her Only Living Son" from the 2017 horror anthology film XX serves as an unofficial sequel to the story.

In popular culture
The film inspired the English band Deep Purple to write the song "Why Didn't Rosemary?" for their third album in 1969, after the band had watched the movie while touring the US in 1968. The song's lyrics pose the question, "Why didn't Rosemary ever take the pill?"

The movie was parodied in the 1996 Halloween episode of Roseanne, "Satan, Darling".

See also
 List of American films of 1968
 Satanic film
 Anton LaVey

Notes

References

Sources

External links

 
 
 
 
 
 
 .
 .
 .  Collection of Rosemary's Baby posters from around the world.
 BABY, podcast by Culture.pl's Stories From The Eastern West about the making of the film.
 Rosemary’s Baby: “It’s Alive” an essay by Ed Park at the Criterion Collection

1968 films
1968 horror films
1960s pregnancy films
American films
American supernatural horror films
American pregnancy films
Films about cults
Demons in film
The Devil in film
English-language films
Fictional depictions of the Antichrist
Films about actors
Films based on American horror novels
Films based on works by Ira Levin
Films directed by Roman Polanski
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award-winning performance
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe-winning performance
Films set in 1965
Films set in 1966
Films set in apartment buildings
Films set in New York City
Films shot in Los Angeles
Films shot in New York City
Films about rape
Films about Satanism
Films with screenplays by Roman Polanski
United States National Film Registry films
Films about witchcraft
Gothic horror films
Films scored by Krzysztof Komeda
Paramount Pictures films
Photoplay Awards film of the year winners
Say Anything may refer to:

Film and television
 Say Anything..., a 1989 American film by Cameron Crowe
 "Say Anything" (BoJack Horseman), a television episode

Music
 Say Anything (band), an American rock band
 Say Anything (album), a 2009 album by the band
 "Say Anything", a 2012 song by Say Anything from Anarchy, My Dear
 "Say Anything" (Marianas Trench song), 2006
 "Say Anything" (X Japan song), 1991
 "Say Anything", a song by Aimee Mann from Whatever, 1993
 "Say Anything", a song by the Bouncing Souls from The Bouncing Souls, 1997
 "Say Anything", a song by Good Charlotte from The Young and the Hopeless, 2002
 "Say Anything", a song by Girl in Red, 2018
 "Say Anything", a song by Will Young from Lexicon, 2019
 "Say Anything (Else)", a song by Cartel from Chroma, 2005

Other uses
 Say Anything (party game), a 2008 board game published by North Star Games
 "Say Anything", a column in YM magazine

See also
 Say Something (disambiguation) Say Anything is the fourth full-length and self-titled studio album by American rock band Say Anything.

Background and recording
In late 2007, vocalist Max Bemis and drummer Coby Linder worked with Saves the Day vocalist-guitarist Chris Conley and guitarist David Soloway for the side project Two Tongues. In an online chat with fans on March 14, 2008, Max Bemis stated that the band has plans to record a new record called This Is Forever. He said it will be "about God and how we relate to him." AbsolutePunk reported on August 1, 2008, that J Records "picked up the option for Say Anything's next release." In November, alongside the announcement of Two Tongues' debut album, it was revealed that Say Anything was working on their next album, which would be released in 2009. On November 10, Bemis announced that the focus of the fourth album changed and the new record would be self-titled. He noted that the album, which was to be released in 2009, will ask "what the point of all of it was."

Though Bemis has explained that he was very proud of In Defense of the Genre, he described it as being more of an "homage to sort of a lot of the bands that we liked and, like, a style that we respected." He then explained that the new album would be "more concise and would be a bit more original, I want to say, and sort of pop out like ...Is a Real Boy did." He also explained that this CD has both the catchiest and most mature songs they've ever recorded and called it a "step forward."

During a concert at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York, on April 25, 2009, Max Bemis proclaimed to the crowd that the newest album titled Say Anything was complete, and would be released "early summer", after stating that he was married two weeks prior to the event on April 4, 2009.

According to Say Anything's In Studio website, on May 21, 2009, Bemis posted a blog entry stating "I just wanted to let you guys know we’re done recording our new record, entitled "Say Anything", and we’re moving into the mixing phase. It should be out this fall. This record is kind of a new start, or at least a new phase in the Say Anything story."

Release
After originally being scheduled to be released through RCA Records on October 13, 2009, it was delayed to November 3. Say Anything frontman Max Bemis posted a blog entry on the band's official site on July 30 announcing its release, and said the album "literally defines everything about the band we've built so far." Max Bemis confirmed through Twitter, on June 21, that the first single from the album will be "Hate Everyone". The single was released on August 25. The song impacted radio on September 15. The second single from the album was "Do Better."

On September 15, 2009 the song "Property" from the upcoming album was made available to fans who signed up for the Say Anything official mailing list on the band's official website. The complete album was uploaded to the band's Myspace page on October 29, 2009. Max Bemis stated on his Twitter that the next single from the album would be "Do Better" and that Say Anything will debut their live performance of "Do Better" on the Angels and Airwaves Spring Tour 2010. "Do Better" debuted on April 5, 2010 at The Warfield in San Francisco.

Reception

Say Anything was given a metascore of 76 on aggregator Metacritic, from 8 critics it was rated as receiving generally favorable reviews.

A review from Sputnikmusic gave the album a 4.5/5 stars stating: "Pretty much, Say Anything offers more for fans and opens up the Say Anything sound for new ‘users’ to come and enjoy."

The album debuted at  number 25 on the Billboard 200, Say Anything's highest charting record to date.

Track listing

Bonus tracks

Deluxe edition
Double Vinyl Gatefold LP
3-D Poster w/ Glasses
13 Track CD/MP3 Download
9 Track Demo CD
T-Shirt & Badge
"Hate Everyone" Lyrics Sheet
Guitar Pick Card
Iron-On Decal

Say Anything's Secret Origin

References

2009 albums
Say Anything (band) albums
RCA Records albums
Albums produced by Neal Avron