In Rosemary’s Baby Roman Polanski and cast deliver not just a great “scary movie”, but a great movie. The pervasive feel of the film is paranoia tinged with the eternal presence of darkness. Few films have ever delivered such an amusing, yet horrifying, portrait of the banality of evil. Watch Ruth Gordon‘s performance in the role of Minnie Castevet, for which she justly won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. One scene sticks in my mind: After Rosemary drops a kitchen knife which she has grabbed to defend herself against the evil next door, and it sticks in the floor of Minnie’s apartment, Minnie rubs the floor to assess the damage. This is in the middle of the penultimate and apocalyptic scene of the movie.
Mia Farrow is perfect as Rosemary Woodhouse. Her eventual frailty and that very short Vidal Sassoon haircut are just right. The famed Dakota on Manhattan’s Upper West Side provided the exterior shots for the Bramford apartment building which is the setting for most of the film. Manhattan itself, `a la 1967, provides the perfect indifferent setting for Rosemary’s anxious struggle.