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''Rosemary's Baby'' is a 1968 American psychological horror film written and directed by
Roman Polanski Raymond Roman Thierry Polański (; born 18 August 1933) is a Polish and French filmmaker and actor. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Roman Polanski, numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, three Britis ...
, based on Ira Levin's 1967 novel. The film stars
Mia Farrow Maria de Lourdes Villiers "Mia" Farrow ( ; born February 9, 1945) is an American actress. She first gained notice for her role as Allison MacKenzie in the television soap opera ''Peyton Place (TV series), Peyton Place'' and gained further recogn ...
as the titular Rosemary, a newlywed living in
Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
who becomes pregnant, but soon begins to suspect that her neighbors have sinister intentions regarding her and her baby. The film's supporting cast includes
John Cassavetes John Nicholas Cassavetes (December 9, 1929 – February 3, 1989) was an American filmmaker and actor. He began as an actor in film and television before helping to pioneer modern American independent cinema as a writer and director, often self- ...
, Ruth Gordon,
Sidney Blackmer Sidney Alderman Blackmer (July 13, 1895 – October 6, 1973) was an American Broadway theatre, Broadway and film actor active between 1914 and 1971, usually in major supporting roles. Biography Blackmer was born and raised in Salisbury, ...
, Maurice Evans,
Ralph Bellamy Ralph Rexford Bellamy (June 17, 1904 – November 29, 1991) was an American actor whose career spanned 65 years on stage, film, and television. During his career, he played leading roles as well as supporting roles, garnering acclaim and award ...
, Patsy Kelly, Angela Dorian, and Charles Grodin in his feature film debut. The film deals with themes related to
paranoia Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety, suspicion, or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of co ...
,
women's liberation The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminism, feminist intellectualism. It emerged in the late 1960s and continued till the 1980s, primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which resu ...
,
Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
, and the
occult The occult () is a category of esoteric or supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of organized religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving a 'hidden' or 'secret' agency, such as magic and mysti ...
. While it is primarily set in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
, the majority of principal photography for ''Rosemary's Baby'' took place in
Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
throughout late 1967. The film was released on June 12, 1968, by
Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount ...
. It was a critical and
box office A box office or ticket office is a place where ticket (admission), tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through a hole in a wall or window, or at a Wicket gate, wicket. ...
success, grossing over $30 million in the United States, and received acclaim from critics. The film was nominated for several accolades, including multiple
Golden Globe Award The Golden Globe Awards are awards presented for excellence in both international film and television. It is an annual award ceremony held since 1944 to honor artists and professionals and their work. The ceremony is normally held every Janua ...
nominations and two
Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...
nominations, winning Best Supporting Actress (for Ruth Gordon) and the Golden Globe in the same category. Since its release, ''Rosemary's Baby'' has been widely regarded as one of the greatest
horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...
s of all time. In 2014, the film was selected for preservation in the United States
National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation (library and archival science), preservation, each selected for its cultural, historical, and aestheti ...
by the
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The movie successfully launched a franchise, which includes a 1976 made-for-TV sequel, '' Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby'', a 2014
miniseries In the United States, a miniseries or mini-series is a television show or series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. Many miniseries can also be referred to, and shown, as a television film. " Limited series" is ...
adaptation sharing the same title, and a streaming exclusive prequel, '' Apartment 7A'' (2024).


Plot

In 1965, Rosemary Woodhouse and her husband,
stage actor An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...
Guy, tour the Bramford, a large Renaissance Revival apartment building in Manhattan. They notice the previous tenant, an elderly woman who recently died, displayed odd behaviors. For example, she moved heavy furniture in front of a linen closet she had still been using. Despite warnings from their current landlord and friend, Hutch, about the Bramford's dark past, Rosemary and Guy move in. In the basement laundry room, Rosemary meets a young woman, Terry Gionoffrio, a recovering drug addict whom Minnie and Roman Castevet, the Woodhouses' elderly neighbors, have taken in. The Woodhouses first meet the Castevets when they return home to find Terry dead of an apparent suicide, having jumped from the Castevets' seventh-floor apartment. The Woodhouses have dinner at the Castevets' apartment the following evening, but Rosemary finds them meddlesome. She is bothered when Minnie offers her Terry's pendant as a
good luck charm "Good Luck Charm" is a song recorded by Elvis Presley and published by Gladys Music, Elvis Presley's publishing company, that reached number 1 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 list in the week ending April 21, 1962. It remained at the top of the lis ...
, claiming it contains "tannis root". Unexpectedly, Guy, initially reluctant to socialize with the Castevets, becomes seemingly fascinated with Roman, visiting him repeatedly. Guy is cast in a prominent play after the lead actor inexplicably goes blind. With his career flourishing, Guy wants him and Rosemary to procreate. On the night that they plan to conceive (October 4, 1965 - Pope Paul VI is visiting Yankee Stadium that day), Minnie brings over individual cups of chocolate mousse for their dessert. When Rosemary complains that it has a chalky "undertaste", Guy angrily brands her as ungrateful. Rosemary consumes a bit more to mollify Guy, then discreetly discards the rest. Soon after, she grows dizzy and passes out. In a dream state, Rosemary hallucinates being raped by a demonic presence. The next morning, Guy explains the scratches covering her body by claiming that he did not want to miss " baby night," and that she simply did not remember them having sex, having passed out from exhaustion. He stated he had since cut his nails. Rosemary becomes pregnant, with the baby due on June 28. 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 a considerable amount of weight. By Christmas, her gaunt appearance alarms her friends as well as Hutch, who has been researching the Bramford's history. Before Hutch can share his findings with Rosemary, he falls into a mysterious
coma A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to Nociception, respond normally to Pain, painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal Circadian rhythm, sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate ...
. Rosemary, unable to withstand the pain, insists on seeing Hill, while Guy argues against it, perceiving Sapirstein will be offended. As they argue, the pains suddenly stop and Rosemary feels the baby move for the first time. Three months later, Hutch's friend, Grace Cardiff, informs Rosemary about his death. Prior to passing away, he briefly regained consciousness and instructed to give Rosemary a book on
witchcraft Witchcraft is the use of Magic (supernatural), magic by a person called a witch. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic to inflict supernatural harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meanin ...
, ''All of Them Witches'', along with the cryptic message: "The name is an
anagram An anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase, typically using all the original letters exactly once. For example, the word ''anagram'' itself can be rearranged into the phrase "nag a ram"; which ...
." Using
Scrabble ''Scrabble'' is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a Board game, game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, re ...
tiles, Rosemary works out 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 Sapirstein belong to a
coven A coven () is a group or gathering of Witchcraft, witches. The word "coven" (from Anglo-Norman language, Anglo-Norman ''covent, cuvent'', from Old French ''covent'', from Latin ''conventum'' = convention) remained largely unused in English lan ...
and want her baby. Guy discounts this and later throws the book away, making Rosemary suspicious. Terrified, she goes to Hill for help, but Hill deduces she is hysterical and calls Sapirstein. He arrives with Guy to drive her home and the pair threaten to commit her to a psychiatric hospital if she does not comply. Rosemary locks herself into the apartment. Somehow, coven members infiltrate it, and Sapirstein sedates Rosemary, who goes into labor and gives birth. When Rosemary awakens, she is informed the baby was stillborn. As she recovers, though, she notices her pumped
breast milk Breast milk (sometimes spelled as breastmilk) or mother's milk is milk produced by the mammary glands in the breasts of women. Breast milk is the primary source of nutrition for newborn infants, comprising fats, proteins, carbohydrates, and a var ...
is being saved rather than discarded. She stops taking her prescribed pills, becoming less groggy. When Rosemary hears an infant crying, Guy claims tenants with a newborn have moved in upstairs. Believing her baby is alive, Rosemary discovers a hidden door in the linen closet leading directly into the Castevets' apartment, the same closet the previous tenant had blocked and the same hidden door the coven members had used to access the Woodhouses' apartment. Guy, the Castevets, Sapirstein and other coven members are gathered around a
bassinet A bassinet, bassinette, or cradle is a bed specifically for babies from birth to about four months. Bassinets are generally designed to work with fixed legs or caster wheels, while cradles are generally designed to provide a rocking or glidi ...
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, Adrian, is the son of
Satan Satan, also known as the Devil, is a devilish entity in Abrahamic religions who seduces humans into sin (or falsehood). In Judaism, Satan is seen as an agent subservient to God, typically regarded as a metaphor for the '' yetzer hara'', or ' ...
and the supposed
Antichrist In Christian eschatology, Antichrist (or in broader eschatology, Anti-Messiah) refers to a kind of entity prophesied by the Bible to oppose Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ and falsely substitute themselves as a savior in Christ's place before ...
, who inherited his father's eyes. Roman urges Rosemary to mother her child, promising she does not have to join the coven, and that Adrian will spare her life in the future. When Guy attempts to calm her, assuring they will be rewarded, she spits in his face. Upon hearing the infant's cries, Rosemary is drawn to the cradle and starts looking upon the infant as a mother. The film closes with Rosemary gently rocking Adrian's cradle and singing a lullaby.


Cast


Production


Development

In ''Rosemary's Baby: A Retrospective'', a featurette on the DVD release of the film, screenwriter/director
Roman Polanski Raymond Roman Thierry Polański (; born 18 August 1933) is a Polish and French filmmaker and actor. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Roman Polanski, numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, three Britis ...
,
Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount ...
executive Robert Evans, and
production designer In film and television, a production designer is the individual responsible for the overall aesthetic of the story. The production design gives the viewers a sense of the time period, the plot location, and character actions and feelings. Work ...
Richard Sylbert reminisce at length about the production. Evans recalled William Castle brought him the
galley proof In printing and publishing, proofs are the preliminary versions of publications meant for review by authors, editors, and proofreaders, often with extra-wide margins. Galley proofs may be uncut and unbound, or in some cases electronically tra ...
s of the book and asked him to purchase the film rights even before
Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...
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 film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...
s, could produce but not direct the film adaptation. He makes a cameo appearance as the man at the phone booth waiting for
Mia Farrow Maria de Lourdes Villiers "Mia" Farrow ( ; born February 9, 1945) is an American actress. She first gained notice for her role as Allison MacKenzie in the television soap opera ''Peyton Place (TV series), Peyton Place'' and gained further recogn ...
's character to finish her call.
François Truffaut François Roland Truffaut ( , ; ; 6 February 1932 – 21 October 1984) was a French filmmaker, actor, and critic. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of the French New Wave. He came under the tutelage of film critic Andre Bazin as a ...
claimed that
Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featu ...
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 1967 novel by Ira Levin 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. Polanski originally envisioned Rosemary as a robust, full-figured, girl-next-door type, and wanted
Tuesday Weld Tuesday Weld (born Susan Ker Weld; August 27, 1943) is a retired American actress. She began acting as a child and progressed to mature roles in the late 1950s. She won a Golden Globe Award, Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Female Newcome ...
or his own fiancée Sharon Tate to play the role.
Jane Fonda Jane Seymour Fonda (born December 21, 1937) is an American actress and activist. Recognized as a film icon, Jane Fonda filmography, Fonda's work spans several genres and over six decades of film and television. She is the recipient of List of a ...
,
Patty Duke Anna Marie Duke (December 14, 1946 – March 29, 2016), known professionally as Patty Duke, was an American actress. Over the course of her acting career, she was the recipient of an Academy Awards, Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, three ...
and
Goldie Hawn Goldie Jeanne Hawn (born November 21, 1945) is an American actress, producer, dancer, and singer. She achieved stardom and acclaim for playing lighthearted comedic roles in film and television. In a career spanning six decades, she has received ...
were also reportedly considered for the role. 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. Farrow, with a supporting role in '' Guns at Batasi'' (1964) and the yet-unreleased ''
A Dandy in Aspic ''A Dandy in Aspic'' is a 1968 British spy film directed by Anthony Mann and starring Laurence Harvey, Tom Courtenay and Mia Farrow, with costumes by Pierre Cardin. It was written by Derek Marlowe based on his 1966 novel of the same title. It w ...
'' (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 Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Honorific nicknames in popular music, Nicknamed the "Chairman of the Board" and "Ol' Blue Eyes", he is regarded as one of the Time 100: The Most I ...
. 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 Charles Robert Redford Jr. (born August 18, 1936) is an American actor and filmmaker. He has received numerous accolades such as an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and two Golden Globe Awards, as well as the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1994, the ...
was the first choice for the role of Guy Woodhouse, but he turned it down.
Jack Nicholson John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an American retired actor and filmmaker. Nicholson is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of the 20th century, often playing rebels fighting against the social structure. Over his five-de ...
was considered briefly before Polanski suggested
John Cassavetes John Nicholas Cassavetes (December 9, 1929 – February 3, 1989) was an American filmmaker and actor. He began as an actor in film and television before helping to pioneer modern American independent cinema as a writer and director, often self- ...
, 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 veteran stage/film actors Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon. Veteran actor Ralph Bellamy was cast as Dr. Sapirstein. (Many years earlier, Bellamy and Blackmer had appeared in the pre-Code 1934 film, '' This Man Is Mine''.) 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 Tony Curtis (born Bernard Schwartz; June 3, 1925September 29, 2010) was an American actor with a career that spanned six decades, achieving the height of his popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in more than 100 films, in roles co ...
. 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 Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as the ...
for ''Rosemary's Baby'' began on August 21, 1967, in New York City.
The Dakota The Dakota, also known as the Dakota Apartments, is a Housing cooperative, cooperative apartment building at 1 West 72nd Street (Manhattan), 72nd Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The Dakota was constru ...
's exteriors served as the location for the fictional Bramford. Levin modeled it on buildings like the Dakota. In the novel, Hutch even urges Rosemary and Guy to move into "the Dakota" instead of the Bramford. When Farrow was reluctant to film a scene that depicted a dazed and preoccupied Rosemary wandering into the middle of
Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan in New York City. The avenue runs south from 143rd Street (Manhattan), West 143rd Street in Harlem to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. The se ...
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 Paramount Studios in
Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...
, where interior sets of the Bramford apartments had been constructed on
sound stage A sound stage (also written soundstage) is a large, soundproof structure, building or room with large doors and high ceilings, used for the production of theatrical film-making and television productions, usually located on a secured movie or te ...
s. 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 his 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 In filmmaking, the rough cut (also known as the first cut or editor's cut) is the second of three stages of offline editing. The term originates from the early days of filmmaking when film stock was physically cut and reassembled, but is still ...
and assuring her she would receive an
Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...
nomination for her performance. Filming was completed on December 20, 1967, in Los Angeles.


Music

The
lullaby A lullaby (), or a cradle song, is a soothing song or piece of music that is usually played for (or sung to) children (for adults see music and sleep). The purposes of lullabies vary. In some societies, they are used to pass down cultural knowl ...
played over the intro is the song " Sleep Safe and Warm", composed by
Krzysztof Komeda Krzysztof Trzciński (27 April 1931 – 23 April 1969), known professionally as Krzysztof Komeda, was a Polish film score composer and jazz pianist widely regarded as one of the most influential Polish jazz musicians. He is best known for writin ...
and sung by Farrow. A tenant practicing " Für Elise" is also frequently used as background music throughout the film, the skill improving throughout the film to demonstrate the progression of time. The original
film soundtrack A soundtrack is a recorded audio signal accompanying and synchronised to the images of a book, drama, motion picture, radio program, television program, or video game; colloquially, a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured ...
was released in 1968 via Dot Records. Waxwork Records released the soundtrack from the original master tapes in 2014, including Krzysztof Komeda's original work.


Track listing


Release


Box office

''Rosemary's Baby'' was given a wide theatrical release by Paramount Pictures, opening in the United States on June 12, 1968. The film was a major box-office hit for the studio, grossing a total of $33,397,080 worldwide against its $3.2 million budget.


Critical response


Contemporary

In contemporary reviews, Renata Adler wrote in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' 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." Stanley Eichelbaum of the ''
San Francisco Examiner The ''San Francisco Examiner'' is a newspaper distributed in and around San Francisco, California, and has been published since 1863. Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-owner William Randolph Hearst and the flagship of the He ...
'' called the film "a delightful witches brew, a bit over-long for my taste, but nearly always absorbing, suspenseful and easier to swallow than Ira Levin's book. Its suggestions of deviltry in a musty and still-respectable old apartment house on Manhattan's Upper West Side are more gracefully and appealingly related than in the novel, which I found awfully silly, when it wasn't downright noxious. The very idea of a contemporary case of witchcraft, in which an innocent young housewife is impregnated by the Devil, is to say the least unnerving, particularly when the pregnancy is marked by all degrees of mental and physical pain." '' 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 The ''Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 until April 1991, when it merged with '' Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those wi ...
'' 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".


Retrospective

Today, the film is widely regarded as a classic; it has an approval rating of 97% on review aggregator website
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
based on 86 reviews, with an average rating of 8.8/10. 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 Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
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 on October 3, 2000 by Paramount Home Entertainment, contains a 23-minute
documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...
, '' Mia and Roman'', directed by Shahrokh Hatami, which was shot during the making of the film. The title refers to
Mia Farrow Maria de Lourdes Villiers "Mia" Farrow ( ; born February 9, 1945) is an American actress. She first gained notice for her role as Allison MacKenzie in the television soap opera ''Peyton Place (TV series), Peyton Place'' and gained further recogn ...
and
Roman Polanski Raymond Roman Thierry Polański (; born 18 August 1933) is a Polish and French filmmaker and actor. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Roman Polanski, numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, three Britis ...
. 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 In the American film industry, a featurette is a kind of film that is shorter than a full-length feature, but longer than a short film. The term may refer to either of two types of content: a shorter film or a companion film. Medium-length film ...
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 The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of art film, arth ...
released the film for the first time on
Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
. It was released for the first time on 4K Ultra HD for its 55th Anniversary on October 10, 2023.


Legacy

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 ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' 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 The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
and selected for preservation in the
National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation (library and archival science), preservation, each selected for its cultural, historical, and aestheti ...
. The film inaugurated cinema's growing fascination with
demon A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in folklore, mythology, religion, occultism, and literature; these beliefs are reflected in Media (communication), media including f ...
s and related themes in the coming decades, and the novel's author Ira Levin wondered in a 2003 afterword whether his idea for ''Rosemary's Baby'' ultimately led to an increase in religious fundamentalism.


Sequels and remakes

In the 1976
television film A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie, telefilm, telemovie or TV film/movie, is a film with a running time similar to a feature film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a Terrestr ...
'' Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby'',
Patty Duke Anna Marie Duke (December 14, 1946 – March 29, 2016), known professionally as Patty Duke, was an American actress. Over the course of her acting career, she was the recipient of an Academy Awards, Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, three ...
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 1997 sequel, '' Son of Rosemary''. After the success of '' Friday the 13th Part III'' series producer Frank Mancuso Jr. was assigned to work on another
3D film 3D films are motion pictures made to give an illusion of three-dimensional solidity, usually with the help of special glasses worn by viewers. 3D films were prominently featured in the 1950s in American cinema and later experienced a worldwide r ...
with one of the projects considered being a 3-D remake of ''Rosemary's Baby'' before Mancuso ultimately deciding to produce '' The Man Who Wasn't There''. Another attempt to remake ''Rosemary's Baby'' was briefly considered in 2008. The intended producers were
Michael Bay Michael Benjamin Bay (born February 17, 1965) is an American film director and producer. He is best known for making big-budget high-concept action films with fast cutting, stylistic cinematography and visuals, and extensive use of special eff ...
, Andrew Form, and Brad Fuller. The remake fell through later that same year. In January 2014, NBC made a four-hour miniseries with
Zoe Saldaña Zoë Yadira Saldaña-Perego ( , ; ; born June 19, 1978) is an American actress. Known primarily for her work in science fiction film franchises, she has starred in four of the seven List of highest-grossing films, highest-grossing films of al ...
as Rosemary. The miniseries was filmed in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
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. The film was followed by a prequel in 2024, '' Apartment 7A''. The prequel takes place a year prior to the events of ''Rosemary's Baby'', and expands on Terry Gionoffrio - a minor character in the original film.


In popular culture

The film was satirized in 1969 in Mad magazine as "Rosemia's Boo-boo". The film inspired the English band
Deep Purple Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in London in 1968. They are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal music, heavy metal and modern hard rock, although their musical style has varied throughout their career. Originally for ...
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 film was parodied in the 1996 Halloween episode of ''
Roseanne ''Roseanne'' is an American television sitcom created by Matt Williams (producer), Matt Williams that originally aired on American Broadcasting Company, ABC from October 18, 1988, to May 20, 1997, and briefly revived from March 27, 2018, to May ...
'', "Satan, Darling". The film was turned into a parody musical in the ninth episode of '' RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars season 9,'' titled ''Rosemarie's Baby Shower.'' It featured horror movie icons like Blair, Pennywise, and M3GAN. The TV show '' What We Do in the Shadows'' parodies the film’s ending as part of an alternate series finale.


See also

* List of American films of 1968 * List of cult films * Satanic film * Anton LaVey * ''
The Omen ''The Omen'' is a 1976 supernatural horror film directed by Richard Donner and written by David Seltzer. An international co-production of the United Kingdom and the United States, it stars Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Harvey Sp ...
''


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 The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of art film, arth ...
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