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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - June 12th

"ROSEMARY'S BABY" was released in 1968

At the Bramford, which has quite a colorful history, you can hear through the walls. And, as Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow), and we, soon find out, strange people lurk in other parts of the building. Rosemary's Baby may start off like a rehash of a 1950's Doris Day movie, but quickly descends into hysteria, madness and horror as the veneer of normalcy is shattered for Rosemary!

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Rosemary and her husband Guy (John Cassavetes) - a struggling actor - move into an opulent but antiquated New York City apartment building, the "Bramford", next door to the eccentric but seemingly harmless old couple, the Castevets, Minnie (Ruth Gordon) and Roman (Sidney Blackmer). As time goes by, Guy's career begins to pick up (landing a role in a play when the actor who was originally cast suddenly and inexplicably goes blind!) and suggests that he and Rosemary try to conceive. After a harrowing experience, Rosemary awakens the next morning to scratch marks on her body and, sometime later discovers, is pregnant. As her preganancy progresses, strange events begin to surround Rosemary - her friend Hutch (Maurice Evans)(who originally tried to dissuade them from moving into the Bramford) mysteriously dies, eerie noises from the discovered secret closet, and the unnatural attention of the Castevets providing strange pendants and mysterious "vitamin pills". As Rosemary's comes closer and closer to giving birth, her sanity is strained to the breaking point - before she learns the shocking and horrifying truth!

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Based on the 1967 bestselling novel by Ira Levine, the film rights to Rosemary's Baby were originally purchased by famed B-movie producer/director William Castle (financed by mortgaging his house). Castle took the picture to Paramount pictures in the hopes of directing his first A-list picture. Executive Robert Evans, recognizing the commercial potential of the project, agreed but with the stipulation that Castle, who had a reputation for low-budget horror films, could produce but not direct the film adaptation (as well as making a prominent cameo appearance). Paramount instead chose European filmmaker Roman Polanski to direct his first American movie.

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Casting for this film presented its own problems: Roman Polanski at first saw Rosemary as an "All-American Girl" and sought Tuesday Weld for the lead, but she passed. Other actresses considered for the part were Sharon Tate (Polanski's real life wife), Jane Fonda, Julie Christie, Elizabeth Hartman and Joanna Pettet, before Evans suggested Mia Farrow. And John Cassavetes was cast as Guy over fellow contenders Richard Chamberlain, Jack Nicholson, James Fox, Burt Reynolds, Laurence Harvey (who begged to play the role) and Warren Beatty (who turned it down claiming "Hey! Can't I play Rosemary?").

Filmed on location in New York, The Dakota Building (1 West 72nd Street) on Manhattan's Upper West Side was used as the exterior for infamous "Bramford". While on location shooting a scene where a dazed and preoccupied Rosemary wanders into the middle of a Manhattan street into oncoming traffic, Farrow was reluctant to film the scene for "real" until 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!

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This was Roman Polanski's very first adaptation, and it is very faithful to the novel with pieces of dialog, color schemes and clothes taken verbatim from the book. Ira Levin felt that this film is "the single most faithful adaptation of a novel ever to come out of Hollywood." William Castle speculated the reasons for this were because it was the first time Roman Polanski had ever adapted another writer's work, unaware he had the freedom to improvise on the novel.

Rosemary's Baby was widely well received by critics upon its theatrical release in 1968, and has since earned almost universal acclaim from film critics, won numerous nominations and awards, and today is considered one of the greatest American horror films ever made. In her 1968 review for The New York Times, Renata Adler said, "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." In 2015, 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." Ruth Gordon would go on to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Minnie Castevet.

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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. Thirty years after he wrote Rosemary's Baby, Ira Levin wrote Son of Rosemary, a sequel which he dedicated to the film's star, Mia Farrow. Reaction to the book was mixed, but it made the best seller lists nationwide. A remake of Rosemary's Baby was briefly considered in 2008 by producers Michael Bay, Andrew Form, and Brad Fuller, before  NBC made a four-hour Rosemary's Baby miniseries, with Zoe Saldana as Rosemary, in 2014. The miniseries was filmed in Paris - in place of New York - under the direction of Agnieszka Holland.

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