I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

Classy Classic Hollywood



Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Before I totally trash this movie (and believe me I'm gonna) I'd like you all to meet the cuddle boy of my life and the reason I can keep my cool and my head more times than not. Every time I think of him the song Your My Best Friend by Queen goes through my head. His name is Max, and the time we get to spend together is time I never thought I'd get. See, a chemical in a common flea collar made him gravely ill. We were sure since he lost his sight completely, half his body weight and any interest in eating or drinking that we pretty much had lost him. That was several months ago. 

My underweight, blind and cuddliest boy in the world.

His eyes are... a horror movie in themselves. They need removed but at his age we're not sure he'd even survive the surgery. So he's adjusted very well to the blindness and miraculously (no credit given to the vet - he just about killed him) has regained his appetite, drinks plenty of water, and cuddles on the table with me while I do my reviews. That makes it extra hard to type, but puts a smile on my face anyway. However many days he has left I will cherish every single one of them.

How did we get this HUGE place so cheap? Hmm...

Now... If you're thinking oh, she's doing a classic movie that was soooo scary, sorry my dears, this movie sucked on such a major level I literally got a massive headache by the time I was done with my notes and my fast forward button. This shouldn't have been either, because actually it is a classy type movie, set in the beautiful (in 1968 anyway) building The Dakota in New York, being written and directed by Roman Polanski and produced by William Castle (his last and the crowning achievement of his career) along with the superior talents of both actors and actresses who made it work. 

The Dakota, called The Bramford in the movie...

In other words, this should have been terrific. It bored the hell out of me. The tag line is "Pray For Rosemary's Baby". It should have been "Pray you don't fall asleep after spending your money watching this drek".

I feel like the devil himself has been all over me...

Yes, it's not an outright shriek-your-head-off horror film, but more of a psychological thriller. I just thought they could get this story done much better and so much faster than 136 minutes. Over two hours of Mia Farrow going out of her little mind and constantly whining was not my idea of entertainment. This is supposed to be a scary movie about her baby and what happens to it, right? What happens to it anyway? You're not going to find out, 'cause they don't even show the little brat. It's implied that it is the spawn of the devil, but do we get to see it? I mean hey, don't we deserve a payoff for sticking with this pile? I guess not...

Drink this or I'll get naked again...

Not that this thing wasn't popular to the max and produced a ton of Farrow lookalikes with short-short hair, and it made a huge amount of  money, but phew, what a stink. It was made for 3.2 million (that's $21,052,631.58 today) and made over 33 million in the US ($219,706,750.00 in 2012 dollars), all for the privilege of watching Mia Farrow lose her pretty little mind very, very slowly.

You can't blame me for selling the baby,
look what you did to your hair!

Rosemary (called 'Ro') wants a baby very badly. Her husband, an actor, wants a better career very badly. So when the tenants in their new building, which apparently has a nasty history of witches, baby eating (Baby eating? Now if they'd shown a little of that...) and other sordid happenings, make a deal with him to secure his career and he says okay (stupid bastard) we get a rather hazy scene of a naked and doped up 'Ro' being painted with what we assume is blood by a bunch of old, naked people (ewwww) and more hazy scenes of a devil, uh, sealing the deal with her. And that's all the excitement you're gonna get. Really, that's it. She wakes up with a bunch of scratches and seems to totally forget what she faintly knew was happening. The rest of the movie is her being a victim, getting suspicious but not being very proactive about it, in fact for a 60's type of woman she's a real wuss. Women in the 60's were starting to feel their empowerment, realizing they were equals to their male counterparts.... 'Ro' just whines and takes her nasty medicine even though she supposedly doesn't want to, which turns out to be some sort of herb to further along her, uh, demon seed (yeah I know that's another movie, probably better too).

She does ask a couple of people for help, but they all mysteriously die soon after - she doesn't get the hint. Or a clue. Or the courage to get the hell out of there. Or kick her bastard of a husband out. Or.... fill in the blank, there's a million things she could have done but no, we continue to watch her whine. She does find out  (thanks to her soon-dead friend) that the old dude who's wife has been feeding her the icky stuff is the progeny of a rather nasty witch that got the New York witch treatment (And that was what exactly? And wouldn't he have been a warlock?).

Like an idiot, instead of going to her original doctor and simply saying she thinks she's being mistreated and please give her shelter she goes on about the witches and nasty herbs so he (an understated performance by Charles Grodin) of course thinks she's nuts, calls her husband and doctor and she's right back where she started. Finally the birth begins and she's given something to knock her out. When she wakes, they tell her the baby's dead, which she doesn't believe for a second (doesn't do anything about it either). 

MY BABY IS A GINGER!!!

FINALLY she gains access to a secret room located on the other side of her closet (please don't ask, the whole building was supposed to be a maze of rooms and... yawn) and finds a room full of people, a black covered bassinet and the sound of her baby crying. She looks at it and we get this great reaction shot, but that's it. Supposedly the thing has weird eyes, hands and feet but you don't get to see it. She finally does spit in her husband's face, the only reaction she's given to him over his 'you can have another, we get so much from giving them this one' speech. She slowly (and I do mean slowly) starts to rock the bassinet and...

KABLAM!!!! SMOKE AND NASTY HORRORS AS SHE PICKS UP THE BABY AND WITH A WILD YELL TOSSES IT AROUND THE ROOM LIKE A FOOTBALL, BLOOD SPURTING EVERYWHERE...

Nah, that doesn't happen. Nothing happens. Except the credits of course, and our time is up - at least <shudder> until the sequel...