Mama Mia! "Rosemary's Baby" (1968)

Tony Maietta:
Hello. I'm film historian, Tony Maietta.
Brad Shreve:
And I'm Brad Shreve, who's just a guy who likes movies.
Tony Maietta:
We discuss movies and television from Hollywood's golden age. We go behind the scenes and share our opinions too.
Brad Shreve:
And of course, being the average guy, my opinions are the ones that matter.
Tony Maietta:
As does your self delusion. Welcome to Going Hollywood.
Intro Clips:
Tony, I gotta tell you something
Brad Shreve:
that really surprised me about Rosemary's baby. I wanna tell you about my experience with Rosemary's baby.
Tony Maietta:
Oh, what? Oh, oh, are we? Oh, this is no dream. This is really happening. Wait a minute. Are we recording?
Brad Shreve:
We are indeed.
Tony Maietta:
La la la. Oh my god. That I can't get it out of my head. It okay. It's been in my head for, like, 3 weeks. Ever since the first time I watched it. I've that damn la la la la. So so Krzysztof Komeda, who who scored this film, thank you.
Tony Maietta:
I'll never get it out of my head now.
Brad Shreve:
I I thought you were experiencing too much tannus root drink.
Tony Maietta:
You know, I look for tanus root. It doesn't exist.
Brad Shreve:
It's not real. Because I
Tony Maietta:
was like, damn. We have an election coming up. I really like to be able to influence some people with some tanus root. But, of course, it doesn't exist.
Brad Shreve:
I know. I was really surprised because I I've looked up, and I'm like, what? There's no such thing because it sounds very real.
Tony Maietta:
I know.
Brad Shreve:
And they showed the graphic in their book, you know, when she was looking at the book of herbs.
Tony Maietta:
So much.
Brad Shreve:
It looked very real.
Tony Maietta:
God. This movie this movie. Hey, everybody. We're talking about happy Halloween, everybody. We're talking about if you haven't figured it out yet, our second baby episode in a month, but to me, the most frightening of all, we are talking about Rosemary's Baby. Wow. Wow. That's all I gotta say is wow.
Tony Maietta:
I love this movie if that's not too weird to say.
Brad Shreve:
Well, I was gonna tell you my experience because you just said this terrifying movie. I have seen this movie probably a 100 times. I I don't know the number. Let's say a 100 times. Wow. And I've always thought, well, it's kinda creepy, but I don't get this whole scary thing. It's it's a good movie. I like it, but I don't find it all that scary.
Brad Shreve:
And I really watching this movie, I'm like, when did they put that dream sequence in? I don't remember the dream sequence. And then they had another one. And then when they showed the one with, her getting on with Satan, I'm like, oh, I have never watched this other than network television.
Tony Maietta:
Oh, well, that's oh my god. That's
Brad Shreve:
That's when I I'm like, I didn't realize that. I'm like, they cut all that out. And that's why I never found all that I know. Because I watched that scene. I'm like, holy shit. That's scary.
Tony Maietta:
Yeah. I'm remind me, Mia Mia Farrow tells a very funny story about the whole Satan that whole scene.
Brad Shreve:
It was it was a whole different experience this time.
Tony Maietta:
Oh, god.
Brad Shreve:
It it creeped out. And I I never got I've always thought it was creepy and weird and interesting, and I enjoyed it. Always liked it, but I never found this deep, like, scary that people talk about. And now I
Tony Maietta:
get it. Well, you know, I think we we talked about how I avoided horror films for for years years years years years, you know, and especially this one, because this one I just thought sounded and looked so frightening. Just the image of the baby carriage on the mountain top with Mia Farrow in green, you know, freaked me out. But I I love, like like, every gay man of a certain age. I love Ruth Gordon. I saw my first experience with Ruth Gordon, and this is not a great reference, but was in that Clint Eastwood movie, Every Which Way But Loose. She plays his mother, and she's so hysterically funny in that film. Goddamn ape, eating all my Oreos, crapping all over the place, Twelve ribs my ass.
Tony Maietta:
And I you know, when I was a kid, I would laugh so hard. I would cry. I should just I thought she was so funny. So then I was like, well, I have to watch her Oscar winning performance now. So Ruth Gordon actually brought me to Rosemary's Baby. And I gotta tell you, the first time I saw it, and I didn't see it on TV. I I'm sure it was on a DVD or I stream I don't think we're streaming by that point. It totally freaked me out.
Tony Maietta:
Totally freaked me out, and that's what's the genius thing about this film is. Is it a horror film? It's horror film because it scares the shit out of me, but it doesn't play like a horror film. There's no gore. There's one see there's blood in one scene, but it is the freakiest movie ever. It has it has influenced horror films from 1968 on, which I think is astounding.
Brad Shreve:
I would say it's not a horror film, but it is horrific.
Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Well, it's in your mind because Polanski, such a genius, Roman Polanski, such a genius filmmaker that he knew that the mind is the most terrifying place in the world. So everything that happens happens in your mind because you don't see anything. And that's what's so incredible about Rosemary's Baby. There's many incredible things about Rosemary's Baby, which we're gonna talk about, but I just think that the way that he crafted it and Rick and Richard Silbert, the production designer, who we talked about during Chinatown, said that Roman Polanski said this movie was basically, this movie starts like a Doris Day movie, and it does. This young couple coming to see this fabulous apartment, and that's what makes it so scary is because it's so everyday.
Brad Shreve:
Very true. It's one of the reasons why this is a totally different movie, different genre, everything. But the movie Poltergeist, I think one of the reasons why people found it so terrifying is it was a traditional home. Yeah. It wasn't a haunted house looking thing like you see in the old movies. Right. So people related to it. And I feel that's just very similar here.
Brad Shreve:
We had a very simple couple, happily married, you know, getting their lives started, wanting to have a baby, and then, oh, do things take a turn.
Tony Maietta:
Oh, yeah. It was funny. Yeah. Because there's nothing more terrifying than the ordinary because we think this could happen to us.
Brad Shreve:
Yes. Exactly.
Tony Maietta:
I don't know that I could ever rent an apartment in the Dakota.
Brad Shreve:
No. But
Tony Maietta:
it could happen to us. And I wanna say something first right off the bat that before Rosemary's Baby, you know, the scariest thing in the Dakota was Lauren Bacall. And now we have the devil in his coven living in the Brantford, also known as the Dakota in New York. I in have you ever seen the Dakota? Have you been have you ever, like, experienced it or gone there and and seen it?
Brad Shreve:
I've been to New York numerous times, but they've always been very quick trips and then I'll go see a show, get out Mhmm. That kind of thing.
Brad Shreve:
it's So I have never really I've been I only did the touristy thing, like, one afternoon. Otherwise, they're very quick trips in and out. So I've never experienced New York. So, no, I have not.
Tony Maietta:
Yeah. It's it's quite a building. It's quite a building. It's on 72nd in Central Park West, and it's called the Dakota because when it was built in the 18 eighties, it was the only thing up there. It was like the Oh, it was
Brad Shreve:
out in the middle of nowhere.
Tony Maietta:
Nowhere. It was when New York was quote, unquote rural. And so it was called the Dakota for the Dakota territories, which were just being brought into the United States. So when you think about New York now and you think about the mass metropolis it is, think about the Dakota standing there by itself amongst all this farmland. Now, of course, it's not called the Dakota in Rosemary's Baby. It's called the Bramford. But clearly, Ira Levin was thinking about a building very similar to the Dakota when he wrote this film, because it's really another character in the story.
Brad Shreve:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Tony Maietta:
It starts with the the aerial shots of the Dakota, and it ends with the aerial shots of the Dakota. But let's talk about what happens in between that beginning and that ending. So you you said
Brad Shreve:
I'm gonna go I wanna steer us a little direction somewhere because you brought up Ruth Gordon. Yes. I don't know if you're familiar with apartment 7 a. I don't wanna deep dive into it, but are you familiar with apartment 7 a?
Tony Maietta:
I know I know about it. I haven't watched it.
Brad Shreve:
I didn't realize it was a brand new film. It just released in September.
Tony Maietta:
It's it's about Terry. It's it's the prequel.
Brad Shreve:
It's about Terry, a very interesting concept.
Tony Maietta:
Yeah.
Brad Shreve:
What I wanna bring up is Diane West, who is one of my favorite actresses. Mhmm. She plays the Ruth Gordon role.
Tony Maietta:
Oh, does she really? How funny.
Brad Shreve:
Yes. And where she failed is she played Ruth Gordon.
Tony Maietta:
Aw. Nobody can play Ruth Gordon.
Brad Shreve:
She didn't do her own take on it, and it it really kinda I didn't even know it was her. I was when I found out it was her after the film, I'm like, oh my god. That was Diane West. I didn't have a clue. And the fact that I did have a clue. But she tries to play Ruth Gordon, and it does not work. That's She didn't do her own take on.
Tony Maietta:
Can't do that. You who else can No. I got a 2 inch thick sirloin steak sitting defrosting right this minute. Why don't you and God come over and have supper with us tonight? What do you say? I mean, Ruth Gordon gets more words in one sentence than any other actress ever did.
Brad Shreve:
Which is one of the brilliance of this film. The the the normalcy of this couple, annoying couple that lives across the hall or next, I guess, next door.
Tony Maietta:
They live next door because they can get in their apartment through a secret of yeah, which I love.
Brad Shreve:
Yeah. Get bickering, doing the just acting like a normal couple, like everyday couple. A comedic. They just happen to be an everyday couple that worship Satan.
Tony Maietta:
Well, that's yes. That's one of the brilliant things that Roman Polanski did in this movie is he cast comedic actors to play the satanic witches. Because and Patsy Kelly, somebody I know what I mean. Ralph Bellamy, who did comment, it was, the awful truth, his girl Friday. I mean, these were not only Hollywood established Hollywood actors, but they were mostly known for their comedic roles. And so that's what you're like that's what takes away the onus of it. You're like these if they were, like, scary devil people, you would be it would be too on the nose. They're funny people.
Tony Maietta:
They're funny up until the final scene. The Yeah. Final scene is one of the has some of the best comic lines in the whole movie. You're like, am I watching a horror film or am I watching a comedy? But, anyway, we're in good way ever at myself talking about talking about this. So you said the first time that you saw Rosemary's Baby was on television.
Brad Shreve:
Yeah. It was always on reruns growing up throughout the seventies.
Tony Maietta:
How many It
Brad Shreve:
was it was on I think it was on pretty quickly. I can't tell you the first time I ever saw it. Mhmm. But I remember I think I was pretty young, and then I watched it a lot when it was on. And I always enjoyed it, but I never found it because it I found it fascinating. I did find it creepy.
Tony Maietta:
Yeah.
Brad Shreve:
But I never found it terrifying until just the other night. I'm like, oh, I get it now.
Tony Maietta:
Wow. That's funny. Well, you know, it's kinda funny that we're we're doing Rosemary's Baby because this whole you know, it kinda ties back to Chinatown. Because remember how I talked about Chinatown being when the great the second golden age of Hollywood ended with Chinatown because you had Roman Polanski, you had Robert Evans, Paramount, Richard Silver, the same crew. Well, it kind of started with Rosemary's Baby. So Rosemary's Baby is really the beginning of this incredible period between 1968 1974, the 2nd golden age of Hollywood, in which these incredible films, like The Godfather Saga, like Harold & Maude, like The Last Picture Show, they were just it was an incredible period, and it ended with Chinatown. But this is the beginning of it. This is the beginning of this great period.
Tony Maietta:
You have Robert Evans who had just recently taken over Paramount as the production chief, hiring Roman Polanski to adapt and direct this film. You have the iconic Richard Silbert, the incredible production designer, who's giving it this look that is so distinctive. I mean, you watch Rosemary's baby. The the production designer of Rosemary's baby is astounding. You have his sister-in-law and Thea Silbert doing these wonderful costumes. I mean, another thing about Ruth Gordon, Ruth Gordon's costumes. So colorful, so out there. She looks like the least threatening person you would ever meet in your life, and she's a satanic cult in a satanic cult.
Tony Maietta:
That's what's so brilliant about this. So I love that. And but I would also love about this film is, you know, it deals with bigger themes. It's just not to scare you. I mean, it deals with themes like paranoia. It deals with women's liberation. Obviously, it deals with religion and Catholicism and the occult, men controlling women. It's just it's incredible to me all the subversive ideas which are planted in this film that we can look at as a horror film, but you can also look at it as like a real excuse this thing.
Tony Maietta:
You can look at it as a quote unquote omen for what was going to happen in the world over the next few decades.
Brad Shreve:
I I agree.
Tony Maietta:
Don't you think so?
Brad Shreve:
I I definitely agree. It, I one thing that I thought was weird, I was reading, it wasn't so much as a review as so much as a a thesis on the film. Mhmm. And they called it a classic feminist horror film. And I'm like, feminist? Horror feminist? Where did that come in? Yeah. If anything if anything, one of the things that did annoy me is Rosemary was extremely weak, but not in a not in a annoying way. But I thought, where did they get the feminist thing from?
Tony Maietta:
Well, I think it's it's it's the battle for her own will. You know? It's the way she's manipulated by the men in her life. I mean, it's you know, the only the only thing this woman does on her own is when she throws a party. I mean, that's her first act of rebellion is throwing a party for and the only criteria for coming to this party is you have to be under 60. Yeah. So, I mean, I love that she says that. And that's her first act of rebellion. That's the first time she's not letting a man control her.
Tony Maietta:
And I it's it's absolutely a statement on how men control women. I mean, this woman is basically used as a surrogate for Satan. I don't know that you can get much more black and white about men controlling women than having a a, you know, Satan come up to the earth impregnating this woman to have his child. So it's it's it's it's got all these things. It's got all these but most of all, it's a brilliant horror film. And I'm gonna go a little bit about the background of it, but do you wanna talk a little bit about what it's about? What is Rosemary's Baby about?
Brad Shreve:
Certainly. Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 suspense horror thriller film. I guess suspense horror written by Ira Levin and Roman Polanski based on, Levin's 1967 book. Was directed by Polanski. It stars Mia Farrow, John Casavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sydney Blackmer, the wonderful Maurice Evans. I love Ralph Bellamy.
Tony Maietta:
Oh, I know.
Brad Shreve:
I love IMDB's description of this film because it made me laugh. Here's what it says. A young couple trying for a baby moves into an aging ornate apartment building on Central Park West where they find themselves surrounded by peculiar neighbors. That's the description. Peculiar to say the least. So my description my description is Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse AKA Satan worshippers. Yeah. Exact how peculiar.
Tony Maietta:
 
Brad Shreve:
They worshiped Satan. Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse moved into New York City apartment, and soon after deciding they decided to have a baby. They're befriended by their kind and annoying neighbors, Roman and Minnie Castavette, and they are manipulating Rosemary and makes her world very insular. They there it's the ultimate cock blocking. Every time she's trying to do something, they they redirect her somewhere else.
Tony Maietta:
Oh, god.
Brad Shreve:
Yeah. And in the end, she gives birth to not guys, but to Satan's babies. Satan's babies. And if you haven't seen that, sorry, I just gave it away.
Tony Maietta:
Well, that's a huge spoiler alert, but I think we kinda yeah. I know.
Brad Shreve:
I really think I would hope even if they haven't seen the movie, they know that by now.
Tony Maietta:
I would think so. I would hope so.
Brad Shreve:
Say that you mentioned the the the poster. That poster is iconic. It's it's it's creepy. Just look at it, especially after you see the film.
Tony Maietta:
Well, yeah. Well, you know, Robert Evans tells a story about how the after the film was finished, he didn't know how to market it. He's like, how the hell are we gonna market this thing? So he went to an advertising agency, and the guy said, I'll I'll, you know, I'll give you my idea, but you have to give me a $100,000 for it. And I think it was a 100,000. I don't know. Not exact, but it was a it was a lot of money. And he said, okay. And he looked at the poster, and it was simply that.
Tony Maietta:
It was the baby carriage, the mountain top, the green, and just the famous tagline, which is pray for Rosemary's baby. And it was a blockbuster. I mean, it was huge. It's opening weekend. So it it obviously worked and was obviously worth, however, 1,000 how many ever hundreds of thousands that Robert Evans paid, the advertising agency.
Brad Shreve:
It it made 10 times more than it would cost to make.
Tony Maietta:
Isn't it amazing?
Brad Shreve:
It earned 10 times more than it cost to make.
Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Yeah. And it got a little Oscar love. It had 2 Oscar nominations. It won. Ruth Gordon was nominated for best supporting actress, and, Roman Polanski was nominated for best adapted screenplay from Ira Levin's book. Now Ira Levin wrote this book, but it hadn't been published yet. It was just the galleys, and it was actually brought to Robert Evans by William Castle.
Tony Maietta:
Do you know who William Castle is, Brad? Do you know any of his any of his,
Brad Shreve:
I know the name.
Tony Maietta:
He was very famous for his schlock. He was a big schlock horror person. He did straight jacket, which was Joan Crawford's follow-up to whatever happened to Baby Jane. So he's also one of these guys who'd like to do a lot of gimmicks. You know, he liked to put buzzers in the seats, and he was he was very, very it was a schlock schlock jock. But he had the rights to this book, and he wanted to direct it. And Robert Evans said, I will buy the book from you, which hasn't been published yet. I will buy the book, and we can do it, but you're not gonna direct this.
Tony Maietta:
We need he needs somebody else. And Robert Evans, first, for a minute, thought about Hitchcock. Hitchcock passed. And then Robert Evans thought immediately of Roman Polanski. Roman Polanski had not made a Hollywood film yet. He had done films in Europe, but he was very impressed. Evans was very impressed with Repulsion, Cul De Sac, The Fearless Vampire Killers. These are some of Roman Polanski's films in Europe.
Tony Maietta:
And he knew that Polanski was obsessed with skiing. So he he contacted Polanski and said, I wanna talk to you about making a film about skiing. So come come visit me. So he did, and he he gave him, what was eventually ended up being downhill racer, the film downhill racer, which Polanski did not direct. And something else, he said, and if you we have time, read the galleys for this book we just purchased called Rosemary's Baby. Well, apparently, Polanski read the book in 1 night and contacted, Edmunds immediately and said, I wanna do this. So that's how he got Polanski on board with it. And Polanski had a lot of ideas about what exactly he envisioned Rosemary's Baby to be.
Tony Maietta:
But for his first movie, you know, Polanski was very much even though he was a European director, he was very much in the great tradition of the Hitchcocks, George Stevens, and the people who really, really planned their films out. You didn't mess with the script with Roman especially when Roman Polanski was writing the script, which he did. He adapted the book. And this is one of the most faithful scripts to an original source material ever written, because Polanski basically took chunks of dialogue and just put them in the script. So it's it's really amazing how he did that. But but Polanski envisioned it as it as it appears. The film has a very ambiguous quality. We're not really sure from the big from the Doris Day beginning to the end.
Tony Maietta:
Is this really happening, or is this all Rosemary's fantasy? Because we don't really know for sure. She could be she could be imagining all this or could really be happening. And I think that's what's fascinating about his take on this film is we're not really sure up until the end if this is really happening. Did you find that?
Brad Shreve:
No. And actually that's maybe it's because I knew the film, and I actually would like listener, if if you'll let us know what your feeling was on this or I never felt like I was watching a dream. That is where I felt like Pulaski failed. Really? I knew all along. This is done. This is not a dream. And I felt like they could have made it much better. Like, is this is this really happening to her, or is she imagining I and I didn't feel like that was believable in any way, and it could be just because I'd seen it before many times.
Brad Shreve:
And this is the first time I really analyzed it. So I'm I'm curious what others think. Yeah. I I I feel like that was that I feel like that was a a downfall of the film. There are other downfalls. It's it's hard. You know, I gotta tell you, working 20 years in the hotel industry, it's really hard for me to go to a hotel and enjoy myself because I'm always because in the hotels, when you're walking through a hotel, you're always trying to find out what's wrong. What can I, you know, move around? What kind of trash can I pick up? And I go on vacation, and I do the I'd like I'm finding everything wrong that I need to I wanna tidy up.
Brad Shreve:
I'm finding now writing when I watch these things, I have a hard time enjoying them the way I want to because I'm like, no matter how good it is, I'm like, you know, they could have made that better. Mhmm. They could have made that better.
Tony Maietta:
So that's how you feel about the film? That's what you feel about Rosemary?
Brad Shreve:
Yeah. Like, almost any film I watch. So Could
Tony Maietta:
have made it.
Brad Shreve:
The the the the the things that I think could be better are few and bar between and probably minor. Mhmm. But one of them I feel like is the, I didn't feel like I ever thought it was a dream.
Tony Maietta:
See, I this is the thing about rosemary's baby to me is is that I do feel that it could be a dream because just the way Roman does some shots. Now there's a couple dream sequences in this film in which he does something astounding, which always strike me every time I watch Rosemary's Baby is how the reality and the fantasy blends in together. As Mia Farrow is starting to drift off in the first dream, you hear Ruth Gordon's voice coming out of a nun. And I don't know if this has ever happened to you, but there are many times when the real when I'm, like, kind of in that netherworld between dreaming and sleep, when the reality of what's really happening kinda blends into my sleep, and I've never seen that in any other movie but this movie. I'm like, oh, that's so because that happens all the time. Well, not all the time, but it happens. And I thought that's such a great that is such a great detail. And that's to me and if you watch the film, there's never a point where she could be dreaming all this.
Tony Maietta:
I in my opinion, she could be dreaming all this. Now when she's actually raped by the devil, I mean, you see his hands, you see his nails. He's actually you know, he's it's it
Brad Shreve:
And, obviously, that was not on network television.
Tony Maietta:
No. That was not on network television. But then she wakes up and then guys immediately like my my, you know, I base guy real nice guy, by the way, basically raped his wife while she was sleeping because he didn't wanna miss baby day. So you're like, well, there's always a justification, which you're like, for me, the first time I saw this, I'm like, oh, maybe maybe she is just imagining this. Maybe she's not. But, again, this was 68, so you have to give, you know, you have to give him some credit. This is the first time anything like this was really attempted in Yeah. In a film in a in a Hollywood film.
Tony Maietta:
So I give Polanski some some I give him a little bit of slack. I actually find it very ambiguous up until the end.
Brad Shreve:
Tony, you and I get excited when we get messages and emails and texts from listeners that tell us how much they enjoy the show.
Tony Maietta:
We do.
Brad Shreve:
But, you know, I think we should push it a little bit and ask them to go a little bit further. Oh, challenge. If you enjoy this show, let others know. Five stars are great. Whatever you wanna give except 1 star. If if you have 1 star, say, you know, that show is not for me and move on. We accept that.
Tony Maietta:
Yeah. You don't need to don't give us 1 star because just say, no. Not for me. Just skip it. Or tell your friends. That's the best way too. Right? Tell your friends, hey. I have this great fun podcast with these 2 kooky guys who talk about movies and TV.
Tony Maietta:
We run the gamut. We have everything.
Brad Shreve:
Yeah. We're all over the place.
Tony Maietta:
We're all over the place is
Brad Shreve:
a better way to put it. But in a good way. So do it right now before you forget. One of my challenges with this film is Guy. I find Guy very dull and boring, and I think you probably know they originally wanted Robert Redford.
Tony Maietta:
Yeah.
Brad Shreve:
Well, I think it would have been outstanding.
Tony Maietta:
Wouldn't that have been amazing? Yeah.
Brad Shreve:
Yeah. Yeah. It would have been he would have been perfect. He would have given Guy more life. I wanted to like Guy, and I never I never disliked him. I just didn't care about Guy.
Tony Maietta:
I think Cassavetes was an interesting choice. Guy is played by John Cassavetes, who we now know is a mythic director actor. And I think Polanski Polanski knew Cassavetes. And when Redford either turned it down or was not able to do it, he thought of Cassavetes because Guy is this is a little shade to New York actors. Guy is a typical New York actor. You know, he's one of these method actors who's just who's he wanted Palancey was making a comment, I think, about these ambitious New York actors, you know, these these method actors who who will go to any length to get a part right. Even, you know, basically selling their wife to the devil, impregnating so he can have a career. So I think that was kind of Polanski's comment on on New York actors, which I thought was really was really kind of funny.
Tony Maietta:
I like Cassavetes. I think, you know, there are the battles that Cassavetes and Polanski had during the making of this are legendary because you have 2 different people. You have Roman Polanski, who was very much by the book. You say every line, you every period, you move he used to position Mia Farrow's hands, you know, just slightly if she was off. I mean, he was that controlling. And you have Cassavetes, who's all about inspiration. You have all about, you know, what moves you at the moment. And Polanski would do 40, 50 takes, which is anathema to somebody like Cassavetes.
Brad Shreve:
Yeah.
Tony Maietta:
Which is one of the reasons why this film went so over schedule and over budget because they were constantly fighting with each other. But I actually like I like Cassavetes. I I I think Redford would have been better too. But, you know, he would have fed that all American thing. And, you know, I don't know if you know about this, but Polanski also, Mia Farrow was not his first idea Yeah. For Rosemary. He wanted a real all American cheerleader type. Like, I think he was thinking of Tuesday Weld.
Tony Maietta:
I think Jane Fonda. I think Patty Duke even was was considered for this. But Evans wanted Mia. And do you know the stories about why, Evans wanted wanted Mia in this?
Brad Shreve:
No. I didn't. I don't.
Tony Maietta:
The book had not been released yet, so there was no buzz about this story at all because the book hadn't been published, so they were just going off. They needed a name. And believe it or not, when this in 1967, Mia Farrow was a big name because of a little TV show called Peyton Place Yeah. But also because she was married to Frank Sinatra. And this this this marriage between Mia and Frank was I mean, we think about, Angelina Jolie and we and Brad Pitt and all this bullshit we deal with today. No. This was a sensation. Mia Farrow was 30 years younger than Frank Sinatra.
Tony Maietta:
So can you imagine in the sixties, they literally were the generation gap personified.
Brad Shreve:
Yeah.
Tony Maietta:
Yeah. And when when they got married, it just the paparazzi went nuts. So Mia was a media sensation at this time, and Evans knew that that would give publicity to this film. It also spelled the end of Mia Farrow's marriage to Frank Sinatra, which we can talk about a little bit later. But the thing about Mia Farrow is and the also that Robert Evans really wanted was because Mia Farrow has this she's just left of center. You know? She's got, like, this weird kind of ambiguous, particularly at this time, incredibly vulnerable androgynous part of her, which really plays into the second half of the film after she gets her haircut. In the beginning, she's she's just a pretty blonde girl. You know, she's got the nice bob, and she's just she just wants to be happy and have this marriage.
Tony Maietta:
But after she gets impregnated with Satan's child, and she did gets that extreme haircut, which Mia Farrow had at the time, did it herself. It wasn't Vidal Sassoon. Did it herself. She takes on this otherworldly kind of weirdish quality, which I think really, really plays well into the second half of the film. What do you think?
Brad Shreve:
I agree with that. I I think her look that the fact that she changed her look, it's it fit. And I think she was great in the role. I mean, really, she was great. She she played vulnerable very well. Going back to red first of all, you mentioned Peyton Place. If you ever wanna see Ryan O'Neil in his most yummy, look, I'm told episodes of Peyton Place.
Tony Maietta:
God. Yeah.
Brad Shreve:
But I digress. One thing I think Robert Redford would have given this film is because he's so likable, you would have been more disgusted at the end that he set her up this way for his own gain.
Tony Maietta:
Oh, yeah. It would have been much more reason why I think he would have worked.
Brad Shreve:
I do. I mean, Cassavetes, I think, is I think there's problems with Cassavetes. I do agree with you on that, because
Tony Maietta:
you never really like Guy. Guy is never really likable. And what a gut punch would have been if you would had a matinee idol like Robert Redford playing as guy that basically sells his wife to the devil. I mean, that's Yeah. That's stunning. That's stunning to me. But then, unfortunately, Redford couldn't do it for whatever reason. Didn't wanna do it.
Tony Maietta:
Couldn't do it.
Brad Shreve:
Didn't ruin the film.
Tony Maietta:
No. It didn't ruin this film at all.
Brad Shreve:
Just could just could've I put a little icing on it.
Tony Maietta:
No. I agree with you. But Mia Mia is there's a there's, like, this extreme vulnerability to Mia. And, also, what I find fascinating is, you know, I don't know how much you know about Mia Farrow, the daughter of Maureen O'Sullivan and John Farrow. Maureen O'Sullivan was a classic Hollywood actress. She was Jane in the original Tarzan movies. She was also in the thin man series. So and John Farrell was a very, accomplished writer and director.
Tony Maietta:
She came from a Hollywood family, kinda like Elizabeth Montgomery. You know, she's a generation younger than Elizabeth Montgomery, but she grew up with Liza Minnelli. She grew up with Candace Bergen. These were her friends, but she was also very Catholic. There was a time when Mia Farrow seriously considered being a nun when she was growing up. Wow. And when we know now about Mia Farrow and the dozens and dozens of children that she's adopted and given homes to, and we we get that from her now. But but so think about it.
Tony Maietta:
So this is a girl who was staunchly Catholic, married to this older generation icon, playing in this devil movie. It's really kind of it's it really works because you get that staunch that that that righteousness in in Rosemary that maybe would not have you wouldn't have felt if it had been Jane Fonda. Maybe you you feel like this Catholic girl is being violated by the devil. It makes it all the more horrific in my opinion.
Brad Shreve:
I agree. I agree. It definitely showed in the film. I didn't realize Rosemary was Catholic in the film itself. I didn't see that that didn't that's apparently wasn't very heavy handed, but I definitely can see
Tony Maietta:
Well, what about when the when the devil's raping her and the pope shows up and she has to kiss his ring while the devil's on top
Brad Shreve:
of her? I guess so. I I didn't just because who the pope symbolizes, I didn't necessarily think, oh, this is Catholic, because it doesn't matter, you know, what religion you are. You know what the pope is supposed to
Tony Maietta:
Right. No. I get it. I get it. No. I think the
Brad Shreve:
So I didn't necessarily make that that connection.
Tony Maietta:
That extra layer, I think, of the fact that, you know, Mia Farrow was so not really pious, but was was was of this staunchly Catholic background, and here she is playing, you know, the mother of the devil's child is really kind of startling. So I love I love Mia in this. I think she's wonderful. I think she's so incredibly vulnerable, and just so she's you can't take your eyes off her. Every everything that Mia Farrow does in this film, there's a reason for it. And I I I always feel that Mia Farrow is a very underrated actress, and I wanna get into the personal things with Woody and all that bullshit. But I I just feel like as an actress, Mia Farrow never has never gotten the credit that she deserves, especially in this performance, especially in this film. Because she gives a lighter to it that no other actress would have given to it.
Brad Shreve:
I really only know Mia from The Great Gatsby, and, you know, it's a very dull, slow film.
Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Not good.
Brad Shreve:
I only know the film really well because I love the book. And in high school, I actually did, did a film of the book with cat you know, actors and everything for a school project. So that's the only reason she stands out to me. Because she did she did Daisy pretty well, but the film itself was horrible.
Tony Maietta:
Well, like many people I know, Mia mostly from, the Woody Allen movies. You know? Many of which I love and many of which I'm not so crazy about. You know? And knowing what we know now, you know, they're they are kind of hard to watch, but I do enjoy Mia. I think Mia is I might I love Mia. Have you ever seen Broadway Danny Rose?
Brad Shreve:
Don't believe so.
Tony Maietta:
Oh, you have to watch it. Because if you think you if you think you know Mia Farrow, you watch she plays this ballsy, you know, one of these sopranos type characters. She's like Carmela Soprano in Broadway Danny Rose with with Woody Allen. She's so funny, and she's so un Mia Farrow like. She's not this waif who's kinda, like, twisting in the wind. She's this gutsy, ballsy, mafia, and she's wonderful in in Broadway Danny Rose. This woman has had real talent that was not plumbed enough. I don't Yeah.
Brad Shreve:
I don't know Woody Allen all that much because, you know, so many of his movies are love hate. Like like everyone in the world, I love Annie Hall. I think Crimes and Misdemeanors is a brilliant film that not enough people have seen. I used to like, Sleeper. I don't know if I would like it today. And then there's so many of his I don't like at all. So it's a everyone of us it's not Woody that you love or hate. I think it's his movies either love or hate.
Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, that's problematic. So Woody Allen's problematic right now. But, anyway, this isn't about Woody. This is about about Roman Polanski, who's also problematic, by the way. But, anyway, the film. I think Mia is wonderful, and I think new but, you know, Roman Polanski also had an idea about I think I told you that, or I mentioned that he the supporting characters are very important in Rosemary's Baby because of the the witches. Mhmm.
Tony Maietta:
Because we have to not suspect that they are threatening, and you can't get much more threatening than the annoying mini cast of vets played by the sublime Ruth Gordon. And her husband, Roman Cast of that played by Sydney Blackmer, who was a Broadway supporting actor. He did some films as well. But these are 2, like, apparently harmless people who you find out are, you know, the agents of the devil. And I think that's one of the most amazing things about this film is the fact that you have these incredible character actors, as I said, Patsy Kelly, Ralph Bellamy, Charles Grodin in his very first film role as doctor Hill. It's wonderful supporting cast who you just that's one of the great things about this movie is it's not just Rosemary, and it's not just guy. It's all these people who you're really not sure if they're good or if they're bad. And to me, that's what makes this film so brilliant.
Brad Shreve:
What I love about Roman and Minnie is she's not just suspicious of what's going on that makes it they are fucking annoying.
Tony Maietta:
Oh, yeah.
Brad Shreve:
Like, you can see her just, like, so exact like, oh god. They're here again. And you would be that way. Like, they're nice, so you can't be mean to them, but they are so annoying. You're like, the door knocked. I hope it's not them. And I think that really worked because it wasn't just the being fearful of them, but just who would want them around after, you know, maybe dinner the first time and then, you know, maybe hello in the hallway, and that's about all you'd want.
Tony Maietta:
Right. Well, you wonder why why is Guy so suddenly into this couple? Yeah. Exactly. And Polanski gives you Polanski gives you a little hints along the way as to what's going on. You know, I love that first scene where they have dinner. And if you notice, there's a lot of red in that scene, the devil color
Brad Shreve:
of
Tony Maietta:
the red. You know, the drinks he makes are red. Sydney Black Mirror, Roman is in red, and it kind of gives you, it kinda gives you, like, a heads up. Something something is going on here. We didn't talk about Terry
Brad Shreve:
Yes.
Tony Maietta:
Who, is, the young woman that Rosemary meets in the laundry room not long after she's moved in, who suddenly ends up, well, basically, you know, roadkill on West 72nd Street, who is, for some reason, either jumped or possibly pushed out, or fell out of, she was staying with the cast of vets, and they find her on the ground dead. She jumped out of the window. And she's the one who has the tanus root necklace. She shows it to Rosemary in the laundry room. And tannus root, as we talked about earlier, is a substance it's a fictional substance that is used to control the minds of people. It's it's the devil's herb, basically. And rosemary ends up with that, when she's pregnant. And it's probably what why rosemary seems to be, so malleable to the men in her life because she's under the influence of this tanus root, and plus she's also she's pregnant, and she's scared, and she has known what is going on.
Tony Maietta:
Mhmm. I really like Terry, and I think the the new prequel to this to Rosemary's Baby is about Terry. Right? Yeah. It's about what happens with Terry.
Brad Shreve:
We started Julia Gardner as Terry, and it's Terry's story. And, so what happened in the window? They're they'd give their version of what happened. And it's very interesting. Mhmm. The movie's not great. It's it's kind of weird in a, not a good way. One thing I thought they did really, really well, the scene in this film where, Terry and Rosemary meet in the basement Right. They handled it great in the the apartment 7 a because you see her in the basement and a blonde woman walks in, and they cut.
Brad Shreve:
So they didn't have that interaction because Oh. That would have really kind of ruined it.
Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Brad Shreve:
So they they kinda just skipped over that, and I thought that was handled really well because if you had Rosemary in there, it would have really taken away from Terry's story. Yeah. But as a rule, it wasn't a very good film. It it, I will say one thing. I thought Terry was good in the sense that her life was really down and out, and she was I could understand why she was more, easily manipulated.
Tony Maietta:
Well, yeah. Yeah. Well, she was a drug addict that the cast of vets took in off the street. You know? Yeah.
Brad Shreve:
I don't think they made her as down and out as they should have, but she she basically was a failed dancer because she became injured, and so she got addicted to, drugs. And, one thing I like that the the miniseries did I have not watched the 2014 miniseries where Zoe Saldanha plays Rosemary. Mhmm. I don't think I wanna see it other than I'm curious.
Tony Maietta:
Yeah.
Brad Shreve:
But what I understand, I've read some reviews about it. And where I think they did a good job was they set that movie in Paris. And part of what makes it work, they say, is because Rosemary is new in Paris and doesn't know anybody, it makes her more vulnerable. Because that's when you're like, Rosemary has a lot of friends. Why didn't she just call them more often?
Tony Maietta:
Well, yeah, she just she just has that one party where the friends kind of, you know, surround her and say, you know, what is wrong with you? This pain isn't normal. Because Rosemary's having pain in her pregnancy, throughout her pregnancy, and they're like, this is a sign of something's wrong. And she she takes a stab at finally being independent and saying, no. I'm not gonna go to the doctor, doctor Saperstein, that the cast of vets have arranged for me. I'm gonna go back to doctor Hill, and then suddenly the pain is gone. I always wondered about that. I'm like, why is the pain suddenly gone when Rosemary's maybe because Rosemary stands up for herself. I don't know.
Tony Maietta:
That's a very that's an interesting plot point there. Why is the pain suddenly stopped so Rosemary doesn't go to doctor Hill? So she continues to see doctor Saperstein, and she starts taking the drinks that Minnie is making for her, and she's wearing the necklace again even though her friend, Hutch, who kind of gave her a background on the apartment building, the Branford 101, you know, the the witches lived there. There were a pair of sisters who ate children there. You know, you're living in a really crazy place. Now he's in a coma. Now then he's dead. God bless Maurice Evans.
Brad Shreve:
Played by wonder yeah. Wonderful Maurice Evans.
Tony Maietta:
By Maurice Evans.
Brad Shreve:
He was so lovable in that role, which he was supposed to be.
Tony Maietta:
Yeah. He was supposed to be. It's kinda funny to see him in a role that isn't Maurice on Bewitched. Even though he's a Shakespearean actor, so, I mean, he, you know, he had quite a career. But I just I think it's fascinating that suddenly she's that she feels the baby and, you know, I guess they needed to do that was a plot point. They needed to do it. But
Brad Shreve:
I see it as necessary for her to gain trust in the doctor because, you know, she he's telling her the pain is gonna go away, and her friends are like, no. This isn't normal. This isn't normal. And then all of a sudden, it stopped the pain stops just like he told her it would. She's like, okay. He's not so bad. But weeks after like that was the purpose.
Tony Maietta:
Weeks after he told her it would stop. She he said it would stop after a couple days.
Brad Shreve:
Well, that is true. It would have been
Tony Maietta:
But I just thought it was interesting because she's just about to make a stand for independence, and then suddenly she feels fine. So that independence is very short lived. She's suddenly now she's back being manipulated by these witches and by her husband, and and and, you know, just doing things to get this baby gestating. But some of the things I wanna talk about some of the things that Polanski did, which really make this film interesting. You know, there's a very famous scene in which Mia Farrow, after she finds out that Hutch is dead, Maurice Evans' character, her friend who was trying to warn her about the Bramford, the apartment building, and the people that lived in it. And he actually sent her a book from the grave called All of Them Witches, but but this is before. So after she finds out about Hutch, and Mia Farrow literally walked walks into traffic. Rosemary walks into traffic, and Mia Farrow actually did that.
Tony Maietta:
She Roman Polanski said, just walk into traffic. This is an actress doing what her director wants her to do. So, you know Yeah. No one's gonna hit a pregnant woman even though she wasn't really pregnant. And, and she did it. And Mia Farrow said it was like the biggest strangest mixture of exhilaration and dread. And, obviously, Polanski couldn't ask any cameraman to do this. So Polanski actually shot that scene with a handheld camera as as as Mia Farrow walks right in the middle of traffic, and all these people are stopping and screaming at her.
Tony Maietta:
And Polanski did that. Polanski did long scenes, long takes, and then he would intercut them with short handheld camera.
Brad Shreve:
It was disorienting. The film was disorienting.
Tony Maietta:
It was, and it's it's a reflection of Rosemary's mind. What he was doing was he was showing us he was basically illustrating us, you know, Rosemary, she's off balance. She doesn't know what the hell is going on. So Polanski did that, which I love. So we're all we're all, like, shaken up like Rosemary is. As I said, he did these incredible dream sequences where reality and, you know, the the the audio from real life is mixing in with Rosemary's mind. So you're not really sure what is going on with this. And then he also pushes the humor.
Tony Maietta:
He pushes the humor of these characters. He pushes the humor of the situation. Did you notice that after the baby's born, New York is in a record breaking heat wave? Did you happen to catch that? No. I didn't. It's like the radio says people are dying all over this. Well, that's just because the antichrist has been born. So New York is literally hell. You know, it's a record breaking heat wave.
Tony Maietta:
Everybody is dying, but I think we need to talk about the last scene. Do you wanna give a little build up to the last scene, and we can talk about what happened in the last scene? Because the last scene for me is just the best part of the entire film.
Brad Shreve:
Well, first, I wanna you mentioned hell. There's lots of little touches that I didn't know about in this film. Mhmm. For example, the phone number that Rosemary is dialing in the phone booth
Tony Maietta:
Yes.
Brad Shreve:
Which is a kind of a creepy scene. The number ends, 4377.
Tony Maietta:
Oh.
Brad Shreve:
Which anybody that had a calculator back in the old days knows if you flip 4377 upside down, it says hell.
Tony Maietta:
I did not notice that.
Brad Shreve:
There's lots of little touches like that that people are catching later that he threw in there Well as a little Easter egg.
Tony Maietta:
Can we talk about this this film was from 68, but it's set in 66. And Rosemary's due date
Brad Shreve:
Is 6 is June.
Tony Maietta:
It's the 6 66.
Brad Shreve:
Yes. Exactly. That is also.
Tony Maietta:
June's the 6th month, and it's also 6 months from Christmas. So you have to catch that too. So I'm yeah. There are these little subtle things. I never saw the 7734. That's hysterical.
Brad Shreve:
Yep. So leading up to the the final scene, Rosemary, she you did this great thing where she really her world becomes so insular, and and she's been so away from the world and and this tanner where she's been drinking and everything, she's it just becomes almost like there's Vaseline on the on the lens. It just becomes this, like, very dreamlike state that and he brings you into that. It's very uncomfortable state with the screenshots as well. And I'm not there's not literally Vaseline on the lens, which I know was a thing they did. I'm just saying you kinda have that feeling. It ends, and I know it's a little bit different in the book, it ends where Rosemary gives birth. She's told she has a boy, and then she's told the baby didn't survive.
Brad Shreve:
And they're watching over her, and this was kind of a silly point. They she hears the baby Mhmm. Crying, which we know the walls in this building are thin, but I don't know how they thought they were gonna get away with it. But she hears the baby crying, and so she walks into the room Yeah. To to find her baby, and it's like a cocktail party, right, only nobody's having It is. Let's Yeah. It's it's very normal looking people, and Guy is there. If I recall, he was sitting there when he actually walked in.
Tony Maietta:
All the neighbors are there.
Brad Shreve:
Yeah. All the neighbors are there.
Tony Maietta:
Into the cast of that apartments. Yes. She finds a secret passageway into the cast of that apartment, which has been hidden this entire time behind the wall, a fake wall of a closet.
Brad Shreve:
Yes. And yeah. Exactly. And which now we know how they got Reese's gloves so that they could do a spell on him that caused
Tony Maietta:
They did all this stuff.
Brad Shreve:
Yeah. Reese Evans. I'm sorry. Not Hutch. They take Hutch's glove. So all this stuff is they've been able to get in and out of her apartment, which I kind of knew at the beginning was going to happen because they made a big deal of a bureau being pushed in front of the door Yeah. But you very quickly forgot Yeah. Because it was because there was so much else going on, but not not not not like throwing a lot at you.
Brad Shreve:
There just was so much going on. So the great thing is she walks into this what looks like a cocktail party, and all these perfectly normal people or seem perfectly normal, start doing hail Satan. And then it becomes very surreal. Like like, you could just see her mind, like, what is going on? She can't believe it.
Tony Maietta:
Well, she she grabs a knife.
Brad Shreve:
Well, let's take it from there.
Tony Maietta:
She grabs a knife to and she's she she realizes that there's a secret passage which goes into the Cassavetes' apartment, which is how they've been getting in and out of her apartment without without people without knowing. And she grabs a knife, and she walks into this to their living room, and they're all just sitting around, and there's this huge black bassinet
Brad Shreve:
with the
Tony Maietta:
upside down cross hanging over it. And you're like, oh my, I guess that's where the devil's baby is. That must be where the antichrist is, because how could you miss it? And what I love about it is that they're all it's it's almost comic. It is comical. Yes. It's not almost comical. It's a comical scene because she's standing with a knife in her hand, and all these people are just having this cocktail party for Satan's baby because it's finally happened. They finally achieved it that Satan's baby has been born.
Tony Maietta:
And Patsy Kelly tells her that, you know, we'll murder you milk or no milk. You know, and it but it's so it's just so funny that the and remember she, Ruth Gordon goes to give her something to drink after she realizes what's happened, and she goes, what's in this drink? And she goes, it's just plain old Lipton tea. Yeah. It's just the way it's played is so funny, and it's so brilliant that Polanski did it this way, because he keeps the humor going, which makes it all the more horrific. And how about when, Sydney Blackmer is up there, and the baby's crying, and Patsy Kelly is is trying to rock him.
Brad Shreve:
Oh my god. That's the Kelly's great.
Tony Maietta:
It's too fast, and she goes, you're rocking him too fast. You're rocking him too fast. And Sydney Blackmer, Roman Castavetz, tells Patsy Kelly they let Rosemary rock her, and Patsy Kelly walks by Rosemary, and she just threatened to murder Rosemary, by the way. And she sticks her tongue out at her.
Brad Shreve:
Yes. I thought that was hysterical.
Tony Maietta:
It's like it's just so funny. So in that chilling line where Rosemary says to Roman, you're trying to get me to be his mother. And Roman says, aren't you his mother? And you're just like, oh, here we go. And so the movie ends with Rosemary rocking her baby singing the la la la la lullaby, and you're like, oh, shit. You know, this now it's on. Here we go. Now right? Rosemary's baby is now with I mean, she's got her she's she's got her son. You're really it it's kind of open ended, but you can kind of see what he was doing that.
Tony Maietta:
He was keeping it ambiguous, but you realize this is her child. And
Brad Shreve:
or not, this is her baby.
Tony Maietta:
This is her baby. And, you know, she may spit in guys' face, and I think they're pretty much done. But I have a feeling Probably. Yeah. But I have a feeling that, yeah, this baby is gonna be cared for by his mother. So it was it's a it's a really incredible ending. It's chilling. It's funny, and it's one of the reasons why this movie stays with you, I think, is because of that crazy ending.
Brad Shreve:
Yeah. The and you are absolutely right. The humor at the end is part of what makes it so horrific at the same time. And as I'm watching, I'm thinking of Jordan Peele because I saw him being interviewed. He was asked you know, he went from humor to doing these very intense horror films, and he said, there's a very fine line between humor and horror.
Tony Maietta:
Oh, yeah.
Brad Shreve:
And I got it watching this film.
Tony Maietta:
Well and humor makes the horror all the more horrific. You know, Get Out is one of those films which, you know, you can trace right back to Rosemary's Baby as you can with Hereditary, as you can with The Omen and all the more obvious ones because this is you know, but it all started with Rosemary's Baby in 68. You know, it it this mix of horror with the humor is something and that suddenly, the world's upside down in the last scene. You're like, what the hell is going on? And that's what Polanski does so brilliantly in this film. So amazingly. I wanna talk a little bit about, some of, you know, the Oscar love, and we can talk we can do stats and everything, but there are a couple funny little tidbits about Rosemary's Baby that I I that I wanted to see if you'd heard about. I think we talked about Mia's haircut. You know, Mia's actual hair was that short.
Tony Maietta:
Actually, it's much shorter. She cut it during Peyton plays. But then Rosemary goes out and comes back with this Vidal Sassoon haircut, which was basic which was basically early days of product placement for Vidal Sassoon. That wasn't that was Mia Farrow's hair. She did that herself. But it does. It gives Rosemary an androgynous and childlike quality. You know, did you know who the actor was when when after guy makes his deal with the cast of vets, his deal with the devil, and he gets this part that he was originally turned down for.
Tony Maietta:
But the guy who got the part, the actor who got the part, Donald Baumgart, suddenly goes blind.
Brad Shreve:
Yes.
Tony Maietta:
And Rosemary, as she begins to suspect something's going on, she calls Donald and has a conversation with him to try to figure out if Guy had seen him, what had happened. And the voice on the other end of the line, do you know who that was? Did you recognize that voice?
Brad Shreve:
No. At least I don't remember recognize it.
Tony Maietta:
It was Tony Curtis.
Brad Shreve:
Oh, no. I didn't know that at all.
Tony Maietta:
And so, basically, the story is is that Tony Curtis was on the set that day. He was friends with Roman Polanski. He was also friends with Mia. Mia didn't know he was there, and Roman Polanski said, would you mind doing me a favor? So Mia didn't know it was Tony Curtis on the other end of the line, which is when they're filming this scene. She just thought it was some actor. And what's amazing is is that it really affects Mia's performance, and Polanski pointed this out. It just adds another layer. There's something extra there when she's talking to him as opposed to if she was just talking to another voice, and you can really see it in Mia's performance.
Tony Maietta:
I love that. I think that's such a that's what a good director does. Mhmm. You know, he gives the actor the opportunity to add just another layer of complexity to a performance, and that's a great scene. I love that. I love that so much. And my final one is is that Patsy Kelly was in a very famous 1933 Bing Crosby musical. Now Patsy Kelly plays Laura Louise, one of the one of the witches.
Tony Maietta:
She's the funniest one, the one who can't see. Mhmm. But she was in a very famous Bing Crosby movie. I said that she was a classic film actress, did a lot of musical did a lot of comedies in the thirties. And the name of her Bing Crosby movie do you wanna take a stab at it, or is that just too esoteric for her? Yeah. I'm never gonna get it. It's called going Hollywood. Isn't that fun?
Brad Shreve:
I've heard that name.
Tony Maietta:
What a fun little fact. So do we wanna talk a little bit about you said a little bit about how this film did. How how did this film do?
Brad Shreve:
Well, it cost just over 3,000,000 to make, and it made just over 30,000,000, almost 3 $33,000,000. So Amazing. It did very well in the box office. 10% income is or 10 times your income is
Tony Maietta:
Yeah.
Brad Shreve:
Pretty good.
Tony Maietta:
Pretty
Brad Shreve:
good. Pretty good. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 97% critics score. The so the critics seem to like it a little bit okay, and the audience score is 87%, which I'm really surprised. I thought that would have been flipped a little bit. Mhmm. But still good. You can't complain about those.
Tony Maietta:
No. Absolutely not. And we said it was nominated for 2 Academy Awards. Mia was not nominated for best actress, which always surprises me, but Mhmm. We have to have that put that in perspective. So the the best actress race in 1968 was one of the most competitive races ever. It was so competitive that the result was actually a tie. So it's the infamous tie between Katharine Hepburn for Line in Winter and Barbara Streisand in Funny Girl.
Tony Maietta:
I'm not gonna take an Oscar away from either one of those actresses. They were both incredible performances. The other nominees that year were Joanne Woodward and Rachel Rachel, Vanessa Redgrave in Isadora, and Patricia Neal in the subject was roses. All wonderful performances. Unfortunately, Mia did not make the cut. If the year Lilly had come out a year earlier, I have no doubt she would have been nominated. Or even a year later, she would have been nominated. It might have even have won.
Tony Maietta:
But, unfortunately, Rosemary's Baby had that distinction of being, you know, slipping in there in that most competitive year ever of best actress nominees. It also had this has the distinction of ending Mia Farrow's marriage to Frank Sinatra. Did you know that story? Do you know what happened with that?
Brad Shreve:
No. No. I actually didn't know until the other day she'd ever been married to Frank Sinatra. I I know very little of her career, and I'm not a Frank Sinatra fan, so I certainly didn't know much of his.
Tony Maietta:
So she she was married to Frank Sinatra, and she got the offer to Rosemary's Baby. And he was like at first, he was very encouraging of it, but he said, don't forget, you're doing the movie with me beginning in November called The Detective. And so she agreed to do Rosemary's Baby. And because of the problems with Cassavetes and Polanski, and just because Polanski was a very exacting director, the film was going over time over time. And Sinatra called Robert Evans apparently and said, is she gonna be done in time for my movie? And he said, no. There's no way. This film's gonna be done before the end of the year. And Sinatra was not happy, so he gave Mia an ultimatum.
Tony Maietta:
He said, either you finish this movie it's the movie or me, basically, is what he said. And Mia, I mean, come on. How do you how do you give an actress that option? Either this movie or your marriage?
Brad Shreve:
No. No. No. That's crazy.
Tony Maietta:
I mean, hello.
Brad Shreve:
He asked for
Tony Maietta:
it. What a prick. Right? I mean, we look at that, we're like
Brad Shreve:
Yeah. Exactly. Good for her for saying the movie. If somebody gives you that ultimatum, you say, well, you just answered my question.
Tony Maietta:
Well, she had a real she had a real problem. She loved Frank. She really did love Frank, and she says this even today. I mean, you know, the questions that is Ronan Farrow really Woody Allen's son? I mean, he looks a little bit too much like Frank Sinatra to me.
Brad Shreve:
I tell
Tony Maietta:
you, you'd look at him. You're like, that's Frank Sinatra's son. Anyway, so Mia had a really difficult time, but Mia also came from a acting family. Her mother, her father, there was no way that Mia could have walked off this movie and expected to work and not be a laughing stock for the rest of her career. In fact, she probably wouldn't be able to
Brad Shreve:
work for
Tony Maietta:
the rest of her career.
Brad Shreve:
Her career would have been over.
Tony Maietta:
So she chose the film. And that prick, Sinatra, actually had his attorney serve her with divorce papers on the set of Rosemary's baby.
Brad Shreve:
Based on his ultimatum, that doesn't surprise me.
Tony Maietta:
Totally unbeknownst to her, though.
Brad Shreve:
Yeah. The only thing I've ever liked him in was, mentoring candidate. I I I'm not a fan of his, never have been. And when she gave if she if he gave me that ultimatum, I'm like, well, you just made my, you just made my choice easy.
Tony Maietta:
Yeah. You just made it easier. But, I mean, the fact that you would how cold is that? You would serve your wife with divorce papers without her knowledge? He didn't have the he didn't even have the balls to do it himself. Yeah. He had his attorney do it. So, you know, Frank Sinatra loses a lot of respect in my eyes for that bullshit. But Mia Farrow gains so much in respect in my eyes for saying, I'm doing this movie. You know what? But she stayed friends with him.
Tony Maietta:
So as There's where
Brad Shreve:
the feminist part comes in.
Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Well, it's really Mia Farrow's. So, anyway, anything more you wanna say about, Rosemary's Baby?
Brad Shreve:
No. I think that pretty much covers it.
Tony Maietta:
There was a TV sequel called look what's happened to Rosemary's Baby from 1976. It was a TV movie starring one of the original choices for Rosemary, Patty Duke, and Ruth Gordon was in it. She played Minnie. She came back.
Brad Shreve:
Yeah. I did I did see that. I also know that, a book was Levin wrote a a sequel to the book He did.
Tony Maietta:
Which was Son of Rosemary.
Brad Shreve:
Son of Rosemary. Yeah. I I I'm not familiar with it.
Tony Maietta:
I haven't I haven't read I haven't read the first one. Because this movie basically scared the shit out of me, but I can watch it now with so much more appreciation for the artistry that went in it. So, yeah, I'm really glad that, that we we we chose the scariest one of all for our final Halloween episode. And
Brad Shreve:
I don't know if you know the difference between the book's ending and the movie's ending.
Tony Maietta:
No. Tell me. What?
Brad Shreve:
The movie the book ends the same, but Rosemary is thinking about how is she gonna, kill the baby and then commit suicide.
Tony Maietta:
Aw. I like the movies.
Brad Shreve:
And that's how the that's how the book ends.
Tony Maietta:
I like the movies ending better.
Brad Shreve:
I kinda had that in my head maybe in the book in the movie anyway, but it does show her, like, looking at her baby in a very tender way.
Tony Maietta:
Yes.
Brad Shreve:
And I'm glad they didn't show the baby. That would've really ruined it. I was at the apartment 7 a. It's interesting. Watch it if you want. I I it's not a great movie in any way. I just liked hearing seeing Terry's story.
Tony Maietta:
Mhmm.
Brad Shreve:
But they did show a little bit more of Satan, not a whole lot, and it kinda ruined it as well.
Tony Maietta:
It does really.
Brad Shreve:
I like that Rosemary's baby only showed his hands for the most part.
Tony Maietta:
I mean, there's only there's nothing scarier than your mind.
Brad Shreve:
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Tony Maietta:
You know? So I think that's that's a brilliant choice. So well, thanks everybody for listening to our very scary Halloween episodes. We have some fun episodes coming up, before we ended this first season of going Hollywood. I'm very excited about some of the other episodes we have with a couple special guest stars. At least one very special guest are coming up soon. And don't forget our Spotify playlist and, to rate and review us and leave a leave a review. We really appreciate it.
Brad Shreve:
And reach out to us. You can do it through going hollywood podcast atgmail.com, or, actually, just go to the website, going hollywood podcast.com, and there's a contact page there. You can leave a voice message, or we'd never really explained how they can text us. Oh. In the show notes, there is you don't have to dial a number or anything. In the show notes, there is a link. Click that link, and you can type out your text. It's very simple.
Brad Shreve:
We can't respond, unfortunately, back the way the system works, but we'll bring it up on the air. Yeah.
Tony Maietta:
Oh, and one quick story I forgot to tell. Remember I said I was gonna talk about the, actor who played Satan that was raping Rosemary? Yes. So Mia Farrow is incredibly uncomfortable. She's got she was not naked. She did not knew the nude scene. She had a covering, but still very Catholic woman, very, very young Catholic woman, and this devil this guy's actor in this devil makeup with horns and with scales and with claws is grinding on top of her. And Roman Polanski yells, cut, print, moving on. And according to Mia Farrow, the actor who was playing the devil got up, stuck his hand out, and said, it was a pleasure working with you, miss Farrow.
Tony Maietta:
So I don't think we can top that. So Brad, even though I don't wanna say it, let's not say goodbye. Let's just say avoir.
Brad Shreve:
No, Tony. I disagree. Let's just say goodbye.
Tony Maietta:
Goodbye, everybody.