Classic Movie Review Rosemary's Baby

Rosemary's Baby (1968) 

Directed by Roman Polanski 

Written by Roman Polanski 

Starring Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Ralph Bellamy

Release Date June 12th, 1968 

Published September 10th, 2017 

Rosemary’s Baby is one of the most sneakily ingenious psycho-dramas ever made. Director Roman Polanski, a quite correctly demonized figure today, was a masterful director in his day. In Rosemary’s Baby, arguably his finest film, Polanski uses film technique and his unique sensibilities to take seemingly normal and mundane things and use our perceptions of those things against us. The most obvious and blatant of these mundane things is using the elderly as the film’s villains, especially the grandmotherly Ruth Gordon.

Rosemary’s Baby is set in New York in 1965. Rosemary is an aspiring housewife to Guy (John Cassavetes), an actor looking for a big break on Broadway while making a living as an actor in commercials. Rosemary and Guy have just landed a beautiful new apartment in a venerated old building with a very creepy history. According to a friend, the building was the home to several disturbing deaths and rumors of occult activities.

This, however, does not put off Rosemary, at least not until she meets the neighbors. Minnie (Gordon) and her husband Roman (Sidney Blackmer) seem like the doting grandparent types by the look of them but when they begin to force their way further and further into the lives of Rosemary and Guy we completely understand why Rosemary feels as uncomfortable as she is. Roman, by some luck, is a producer and when Guy begins spending more time with him his career begins to turn around.

Meanwhile, the couple is trying to get pregnant and here is where Polanski pulls off a really neat and disturbing trick. In what seems as if it could be a dream, Rosemary finds herself slowly beginning to pass out and dream that she is on a yacht with friendly people having a nice time. However, the edges of her dream seem to be tearing away and a bizarre sort of reality is seeping into the fantasy, a dark disturbing reality that finds a nude Rosemary tied to a bed in a room full of nude old people and her freaked out husband. She is then raped by the Devil himself, a cloven hooved demon who climbs on top of her while the old folks chant creepily.

Find my full length review in the Horror Community on Vocal. 

Classic Movie Review The Killers (1964)

The Killers (1964) 

Directed by Don Siegel 

Written by Gene L. Coon 

Starring Lee Marvin, John Cassavetes, Angie Dickinson, Ronald Reagan 

Release Date July 7th, 1964 

Published July 14th, 2023 

1964's The Killers shifts away from Ernest Hemingway's source material while maintaining a little of the framing device used in the 1946 version of The Killers from director Robert Siodmak. Director Don Siegel's biggest change however, came from beefing up the role of the titular Killers. Where Siodmak sidelines the killers after they've served their purpose, killing Burt Lancaster's Swede, Siodmak hired Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager to bring attention to these killers who also take on the role of the killers but also the role of the investigators, the role played by Edmond O'Brien in 1946. 

That's not the only change to the story of The Killers. Don Siegel's vision of The Killers has a new protagonist as well. Johnny North (John Cassavetes) is a race car driver who partially loses his sight following a racing accident. Desperate for work, he's working demolition derby's under a fake name when his former lover, Sheila Farr (Angie Dickinson), approaches him with an offer. Sheila's new lover, a gangster named Jack Browning (Ronald Reagan, yes THAT Ronald Reagan), needs a getaway driver for a heist he's pulling with a small crew. 

We know that Johnny agrees because by the time we see the heist coming together, in the modern timeline, Johnny is dead. While working as a shop teacher at a school for the blind, Johnny is approached by Charlie (Lee Marvin) and Lee (Clu Gulager), who kill him where he stands. Johnny seems to hardly react to his own death and his resignation in the face of life threatening danger and eventual death, haunts Charlie. Charlie becomes obsessed with knowing why Johnny was so willing to die at his hands? 

From here, Charlie, and a reluctant but loyal Lee, begin working backwards through the life of Johnny North to uncover Johnny's motivation while also, perhaps, seeking the whereabouts of the treasure that seemingly caused someone to hire Charlie and Lee to kill him. First on the interrogation list is Johnny's former partner and mechanic, played by Claude Akins in a haunting and soulful performance. Akins explains Johnny's relationship with Sheila and how he warned Johnny about her duplicitousness only to end up losing his friendship and his business partner. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media