Devilishly good (Rosemary's Baby (DVD))

Member Name: x_elff_x

Product:	Rosemary's Baby (DVD)
Date:	11/01/02 (184 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Ruth Gordon, 'making of ' extra, chilling

Disadvantages: bit characters, age of print used for dvd

Director Roman Polanski

Stars Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer, Maurice Evans, Ralph Bellamy, Patsy Kelly

Certificate 18

Running time 131 minutes

Made US 1968

Rosemary's Baby is one of those well-crafted movies that reminds the viewer that horror doesn't necessarily have to equate to gore. The recent success of The Others only goes to prove that this tense type of thriller is just as effective now as it was back in the Sixties when Ira Levin's Baby was adapted for the screen by director Roman Polanski.

It gets off to a seemingly innocuous start, resembling soap opera more than horror, as Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and her newly-wed actor husband Guy (John Cassavetes) - "He's been in two plays and a commercial", she tells anyone who'll listen - move into a massive gothic apartment building in New York. So far, so soapy, and certainly their enthusiastic, if a tad nosey neighbour Minnie Castevet (Ruth Gordon on hilarious Oscar-winning form) doesn't initially give cause for concern.

However, Rosemary meets a girl in the laundry room, who later dies in mysterious circumstances, and things become more sinister. Minnie and her husband Roman (Sidney Blackmer) start to pay her more and more attention, but it quickly becomes apparent that it isn't just Rosemary they are interested in.

When she falls pregnant after a night when she eats half of Minnie's specially prepared chocolate 'mouse' and begins to experience the same worries, sicknesses and doubts of many first-time expecting mums, the film begins to take on a satanic twist. What is in that "lovely" vitamin drink that Minnie makes each day, not to mention the odd-smelling herb Rosemary carries in a pendant around her neck? Is it merely coincidence that Guy's career has suddenly begun to soar and was that nightmare Rosemary had about being surrounded by naked elderl
y folk something less than benign?

This film ingeniously lays a horror tale over what are, for the most part, perfectly normal events often experienced by pregnant women and it is its subtlety which is its strength. The characters are thoroughly believable - we have all had elderly, friendly neighbours who we like but sometimes wish would leave us alone, or a friend that has ceased to socialise because they got married and fell pregnant.

Farrow and Gordon are superlative in their roles. Gordon's ditzy delivery is both funny and spooky by turns, while Farrow's descent into near madness is perfectly executed without being over-played. If there is a criticism, perhaps some of the lesser characters are a tad wooden - Polanski admits in the retrospective interview, also on the DVD, that he cast people for their looks rather than their ability - but none of this gets in the way of a film that is as chilling now as it was back in 1968.

--DVDetails--

The presentation of this DVD is a bit of a mixed bag. The picture is clear enough, although I suspect it suffers from the age of the source material, with some shots being a little grainy. The sound, however, is clear as a bell, lending all the more weight to Christopher Komeda's eerie score.

The opening menu, however, is supremely unimaginative, with no music overlayed, something Paramount must be a bit embarrassed about too, one presumes, as when you put the disk in your machine it takes you straight to the film, following language selection, without showing you the main menu at all.

The extras, on the other hand, are minimal but great fun, particularly the "Making of" featurette, made in 1968, that has dated considerably more than the movie itself. It features comments from Mia Farrow revealing her to be a bit of a dippy hippy back then, as she describes Polanski's directing as "groovy" and explains how the cast decorated their tra
ilers with paintings of flowers and mottos of peace and love. Much of the dialogue is layed over footage of the filming, once or twice revealing elements which were obviously left on the cutting room floor.

The retrospective interview with Polanski, designer Richard Sylbert and production executive Robert Evans is also interesting for casual watchers and fans alike and filled with trivial titbits. For example, Polanski reveals that he originally intended to cast a much more robust actress in the role of Rosemary - apparently he had Tuesday Weld in mind, and Sylbert explains how they instantly settled upon New York's Dakota as the gothic setting for the film. Most interesting for me, was to see how little Polanski's opinions about the cast, the book and the film have changed down the years, with many of his comments supporting what he had said all those years ago, albeit in a more flower-drenched setting.

Worth buying for the film alone, there is certainly enough in the way of extras and improvement to the presentation to justify adding this Baby to your collection.

Film is definitely worth four stars, DVD I'd say three and a half, so have given it benefit of the doubt.

Summary: