Rosemary's Baby is wonderful in so many ways. I'm an avid reader, and having loved Ira Levin's novel, I find this is one of the very few movies that I enjoyed as much as the book. One thing they got so right with this film was sticking to the novel almost completely, even down to the dialogue. Ira Levin's words through Roman Polanski's eyes are truly perfected.
Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) and her struggling actor husband Guy (John Cassavetes) move to a beautiful old apartment building where they are befriended by an eccentric, nosey old couple next door. When Rosemary falls pregnant, strange circumstances hand Guy his big break, and he becomes very close to the Castavets next door. Roman Castavet (Sidney Blackmer) is an intelligent sage who has been to any place you can name. His wife Minnie (Ruth Gordon in her Oscar-winning performance) is noisy and colourful, but somehow maternal. Through the course of her pregnancy, strange stories about the Castavets and who they really are terrify Rosemary, and she comes to suspect the neighbours have bribed Guy into their Satan-worshipping coven, in order to use the baby in their rituals.
Polanski takes a supernatural theme, and makes it believable in a natural environment. A band of Satan-worshippers is a very medieval fear, but the director and cast bring it realistically into the 20th Century.
Mia Farrow makes a wonderful Rosemary. She is sweet, bordering on childish, and naively struggling with her belief in God as demented atrocities occur, and she seems to be the only one who sees them. She makes Rosemary's fears very real, and hints of hysteria make her especially vulnerable. We feel for her, and share her fears.
John Cassavetes plays Guy suitably asymmetrically. He is a loving, hard-working caring husband. But he won't let his wife see another doctor, on the basis of it not being fair to her current one. "What are you talking about?" cries an agonised Rosemary, "What about what's fair to me?!" Could he really be plotting against his own wife?
Set design stands out. They craft a seemingly normal, middle class apartment block, which only looks sinister when you look at it the right way. Rosemary's old friend Hutch warns her of the building's macabre past of mysterious murders, cannibalism and Satanism, shortly before falling into a sudden coma. The Branford is enticing and beautiful, but the cold shudders that haunt the basement soon start rising, along with the heat.
The cast and crew have demonstrated the ability to present everyday things and occurances, with the subtlest hint of menace, making it missable to the people Rosemary turns to for help.
Rosemary's Baby is the product of absolute experts at work. From a fantastic novel, along came a fantastic director, fantastic cast and crew, and ultimately, a fantastic film.
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