RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES
By Raymond Benson
"Pray for Rosemary's Baby..."
That
tag line for Roman Polanski’s 1968 horror classic is an example of brilliant
marketing. Until it was created,
Paramount’s head of the studio, Robert Evans, admits not knowing how to sell
the picture. Yes, it’s a horror film,
but not like anything we’ve seen. Yes,
it’s produced by William Castle, the schlock-meister who was famous for B-movie
scare flicks utilizing gimmicks such as the selling of insurance policies in
the theater lobby for patrons who feared they’d be scared to death. But the film is also an ingenious thriller
outside of the horror genre; a crime story, in many ways, about a cult that
drugs and rapes a woman for fiendish purposes. The subject is taken seriously, despite an undercurrent of dark
humor. It was also very adult and frank
for its time, and it had the potential to offend some audiences. Indeed, how does one sell that in the late
sixties? The tag line intrigued enough
people that it worked, for Rosemary’s
Baby was a hit and the picture still resonates today.
It
was Polanski’s first American film, and it remains an essential entry in his oeuvre. His early trademark style was doing a Hitchcock but taking it a few
steps farther into more bizarre, creepy-crawly, and supernatural territory. That’s on full display in Rosemary’s Baby. We’d had devil movies before, but nothing as
realistically-portrayed as this one. It
certainly held the reign of Satan movies until The Exorcist came along five years later. In my book, it’s the better of the two. AFI is well justified in naming Rosemary’s Baby in their “Top Thrillsâ€
top ten list.
While
brilliantly directed and written, a good deal of credit for the success of the
film goes to the excellent cast. Mia
Farrow has never been better as Rosemary. John Cassavetes is dead-on as the frustrated actor/husband who literally
makes a deal with the devil. Ruth
Gordon, the multiple award winner for the picture, is a revelation. She brings much of the necessary comic relief
to the proceedings, for the film is an exemplary model of tension-building to a
near-unbearable level.
As
usual, the Criterion Collection does a magnificent job. Polanski approved the new, restored digital
transfer, and it looks marvelous. Extras include a new documentary featuring
interviews with Polanski, Farrow, and Robert Evans. Original novel author Ira Levin is showcased
in a 1997 radio interview and original drawings and other prose in the enclosed
booklet. Also of interest is a
feature-length documentary about the film’s talented jazz composer, Krzysztof
Komeda.
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