STACK #242 December 2024

MOVIE FEATURE

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REMEMBERING ROSEMARY’S BABY With the release of the Rosemary's Baby prequel Apartment 7A now available to own, we thought it the perfect opportunity to revisit Roman Polanski's seminal classic, recently treated to a stunning new 4K restoration. Words Bob J

The Curse of Rosemary’s Baby Rosemary’s Baby has been voted as one of the most cursed movies of all time. • During filming Mia Farrow was unexpectedly served divorce papers by her then husband Frank Sinatra causing composer and close friend of Polanski’s - Krzysztof Komeda - died following an accidental fall in Warsaw. • The producer of the movie William Castle almost died during an operation to remove painful gallstones that he was suddenly afflicted with. • Most infamously, that same year Polanski’s pregnant wife Sharon Tate and four friends were murdered by the Manson family, their ritualistic killing spree prompted by the Beatles 1968 song Helter Skelter . • In 1980 ex-Beatle member John Lennon was murdered outside the Dakota building where he lived in New York her to collapse on set. • A year later the film’s

inexperienced in the Hollywood system, was completely unaware that he could alter any of the novel’s text to suit his film. Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and her husband Guy (John Cassavetes) are an ambitious young couple who move into an apartment in a large New York tenement block. Rosemary’s old friend Hutch tells her the building was once the site of a witchcraft cult. Rosemary soon becomes agitated and frightened of a tranche of ambiguous and sinister-looking aged characters who live in the same building. The basic theme then becomes whether Rosemary is unknowingly prostituted by her husband to a Satanist group in exchange for him having a sparkling career as an actor. Whilst heavily drugged during a naked ritual, Rosemary firmly believes Satan himself has impregnated her. But is she just hallucinating, which her doctor refers to as pregnancy hysteria? The most important ingredient of this outstanding horror movie is not the usual blood and gore but the sheer terror that exists in Rosemary’s fragile mind believing that she is about to give birth to the Antichrist. Polanski’s astute and skilful direction slowly builds on that terror, scene by scene, all the way through to an unusual yet frightening climax. Regardless of whether audiences buy into the supernatural or the psychological explanation, Polanski’s film remains one of the most paranoid dramas ever put on celluloid.

S chlockmeister moviemaker William Castle instinctively knew he had a hit on his hands when he bought the rights to Rosemary’s Baby - a novel written by Ira Levin. The theme of the book dwelt on the subject of modern-day Satanism and the occult. Castle approached Paramount production chief Robert Evans requesting studio finance to turn the book into another of his quirky low-budget horror movies. Evans read the advanced copy of Levin’s thriller novel and immediately agreed to put up the money but on one condition, although he would allow Castle to

films, Repulsion (1965) and Cul De-Sac (1966), had been directed by the young Polish-French filmmaker Roman Polanski, and the subjects of both movies had caused shock waves amongst the auteur filmmaker elite in Europe. Following the private screening of both films, Paramount Studios invited Polanski to Director Roman Polanski (L) and Mia Farrow (R)

America with an offer to direct his first Hollywood movie. The Rosemary’s Baby shooting script Polanski wrote is considered the most faithful adaptation of a novel ever written for the screen. Whole sections of dialogue, colour schemes, even the clothes the characters wear, etc, are exactly as described in the book. This was primarily because Polanski,

produce the movie, he did not want him to direct it. Evans instinctively knew that the movie version of Rosemary’s Baby was going to need a much more sophisticated filmmaker than Castle, and Evans already had a certain new director in mind. Two foreign

and where the majority of Rosemary’s Baby had been filmed.

DYK?

A made-for-television sequel, Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby , was released in 1976. It follows Rosemary’s now-adult son as he struggles to resist his evil birthright.

Available now

18 DECEMBER 2024

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