Rosemary's Baby

UPC: 715515100816

Studio: Criterion

MPAA Rating: R   Contains:[Violence, Adult Situations, Not For Children]

Summary: In Roman Polanski's first American film, adapted from Ira Levin's horror bestseller, a young wife comes to believe that her offspring is not of this world. Waifish Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) and her struggling actor husband, Guy (John Cassavetes), move into the Bramford, an old New York City apartment building with an ominous reputation and only elderly residents. Neighbors Roman and Minnie Castevet (Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon) soon come nosing around to welcome the Woodhouses to the building; despite Rosemary's reservations about their eccentricity and the weird noises that she keeps hearing, Guy starts spending time with the Castevets. Shortly after Guy lands a plum Broadway role, Minnie starts showing up with homemade chocolate mousse for Rosemary. When Rosemary becomes pregnant after a mousse-provoked nightmare of being raped by a beast, the Castevets take a special interest in her welfare. As the sickened Rosemary becomes increasingly isolated, she begins to suspect that the Castevets' circle is not what it seems. The diabolical truth is revealed only after Rosemary gives birth, and the baby is taken away from her. Polanski's camerawork and Richard Sylbert's production design transform the realistic setting (shot on-location in Manhattan's Dakota apartment building) into a sinister projection of Rosemary's fears, chillingly locating supernatural horror in the familiar by leaving the most grotesque frights to the viewer's imagination. This apocalyptic yet darkly comic paranoia about the hallowed institution of childbirth touched a nerve with late-'60s audiences feeling uneasy about traditional norms. Produced by B-horror maestro William Castle, Rosemary's Baby became a critically praised hit, winning Gordon an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Inspiring a wave of satanic horror from The Exorcist (1973) to The Omen (1976), Rosemary's Baby helped usher in the genre's modern era by combining a supernatural story with Alfred Hitchcock's propensity for finding normality horrific. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Category: Horror

Awards: Best Director – Directors Guild of America Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama – null Best Supporting Actress – null Best Screenplay – null Best Original Score – null Best Adapted Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Supporting Actress – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Original Score – Hollywood Foreign Press Association Best Screenplay – Hollywood Foreign Press Association Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama – Hollywood Foreign Press Association Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Moti – Hollywood Foreign Press Association

Features: Disc Two: New documentary featuring interviews with Polanski, actress Mia Farrow, and Producer Robert Evans
Interview with Author Ira Levin from a 1997 broadcast of Leonard Lopate's public radio program New York and Company, about his 1967 novel, it's sequel, and the film

Komeda, Komeda, a feature-length documentary on the life and work of jazz musician and Composer Krzysztof Komeda, who wrote the score for Rosemary's Baby

Plus: a Booklet featuring an essay by critic Ed Park; Levin's afterword to the 2003 New American Library edition of his novel; and Levin's rare, unpublished character sketches of the Woodhouses and floor plan of their apartment, created in preparation for the novel

Rosemary's Baby

Format: DVD

Release Date: 10/30/2012

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Theatre Wide-Screen

Audio: DD1 Dolby Digital Mono

Runtime: 136 Minutes

Sides: 2

Number of Discs: 2

Language(s) English

Subtitles: English

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Disc #1 -- Rosemary's Baby
1. "Lullaby" [2:39]
2. The Bramford [6:07]
3. New Neighbors [7:18]
4. Tragedy [4:09]
5. Minnie and Roman [10:16]
6. Tannis Root [7:10]
7. Dreams and Nightmares [10:53]
8. Good News [8:43]
9. Dr. Sapirstein [10:50]
10. The Outside World [1:56]
11. Rosemary's Party [4:38]
12. All of Them Witches [8:31]
13. Farewell to the Castevets [10:32]
14. Casting Spells [2:05]
15. Dr. Hill [10:37]
16. Early Delivery [7:00]
17. Recuperation [7:14]
18. "Hail, Adrian!" [4:27]
1. Color Bars [11:34]

Mark Deming

Roman Polanski took the traditional gothic horror story and moved it to New York in the 20th century (where it finds a home with surprising ease) in this superb adaptation of Ira Levin's best-selling novel. While trading in the frankly unbelievable throughout, Polanski always keeps one foot firmly in reality while the other gingerly dips its toe into the pool where things aren't quite right. Rosemary Woodhouse (played with perfect small-town reserve by Mia Farrow) is nearly the only recognizably "normal" character in the film (much more so than her self-absorbed actor husband, Guy, played with just the right touch of slime by John Cassavetes), and nearly everyone around her seems a tiny bit odd, especially her neighbors Roman (Sidney Blackmer) and Minnie (Ruth Gordon), an eccentric older couple whose interest in Rosemary and her expectant child seems strange without being obviously evil. Ultimately, Polanski's greatest strength in this film is his subtlety; his pacing and sense of mood are masterful without calling attention to themselves, letting the horror of the premise sink its claws in so slowly and quietly that you don't notice how far deep they've gone until it's too late. It wasn't until The Exorcist that a horror film connected with audiences quite as strongly as Rosemary's Baby, and while The Exorcist threw a variety of wild and brutal shock tactics at its audience, Rosemary's Baby lured its victims in with such tender loving care that the horrible logic of its conclusion was all the more effective; it may well be the best and smartest horror movie of the 1960s. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Roy Barcroft  Actor 
Josh Peine  Actor 
Elmer Modlin  Actor 
Bill Baldwin  Actor 
Gordon Connell  Actor 
John Halloran  Actor 
Patricia O'Neal  Actor 
Clay Tanner  Actor 
Floyd Mutrux  Actor 
Carol Brewster  Actor 
Michaél Shillo  Actor 
George Savalas  Actor 
William Castle  Actor 
Joyce Davis  Actor 
Paul Denton  Actor 
Jean Innes  Actor 
Joan T. Reilly  Actor 
Gail Bonney  Actor 
Walter S. Baldwin  Actor 
Patricia Ann Conway  Actor 
Marilyn Harvey  Actor 
Robert Osterloh  Actor 
Angela Dorian  Actor 
Mona Knox  Actor 
Charlotte Boerner  Actor 
Almira Sessions  Actor 
Tony Curtis  Actor 
Frank White  Actor 
Sebastian Brooks  Actor 
Natalie Masters  Actor 
D'Urville Martin  Actor 
Bruno Sidar  Actor 
Ernest Harada  Actor 
William Castle  Producer 
Krzysztof Komeda  Composer (Music Score) 
Roman Polanski  Director 
Roman Polanski  Screenwriter 
Mia Farrow  Actor 
John Cassavetes  Actor 
Ruth Gordon  Actor 
Sidney Blackmer, Sr.  Actor 
Maurice Evans  Actor 
Ralph Bellamy  Actor 
Patsy Kelly  Actor 
Elisha Cook, Jr.  Actor 
Hanna Landy  Actor 
Emmaline Henry  Actor 
Marianne Gordon  Actor 
Phil Leeds  Actor 
Charles Grodin  Actor 
Hope Summers  Actor 
Wende Wagner  Actor 

Country: USA