August 24, 2025 • 47 mins
Step into the twisted mind behind one of cinema's most disturbing masterpieces as we explore the dark parallels between Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" and Hollywood's real-life occult connections. Through never-before-heard interviews and restored footage, we expose how this controversial director channeled real Hollywood darkness into his supernatural thriller. From secret Satanic circles in the Hollywood Hills to the tragic Sharon Tate murder that followed, discover how this film's creation eerily foreshadowed real horror. This episode reveals the unsettling connections between the movie's themes and the actual occult practices of Hollywood elites, while examining how Polanski's own demons influenced this landmark of psychological horror.
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✨ Thanks for tuning in to Lights, Camera… Scandal!: Hollywood Exposed – your all-access pass to Hollywood’s juiciest secrets.
📲 Stay connected: Facebook Mk-Ultra CAST | X @MkUltracast
💬 Share your thoughts, theories, and favorite scandals with us online.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
There are three sides to every story, yours, mine and
the truth, and no one is lying. Memory shared surveys differently.
I remember my part, but remember this is close to
a half a century ago, and it can't be right
in every detailed or anybody connected with this film be
(00:32):
actually correct. With the militia that went into it. I
remember vividly because it remains one of the high points
of my career, both the film and the people in it,
especially Rowan Pulaski.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I mean, the whole film reflects Roman's vision, and I
think that in other hands we would have a very
very different film. I mean, the massster fullness, if you will,
of this film comes out of Roman. Yes, it's a
great yarn, but it's a Roman who told it well
and in his own style, in his own vision of everything,
(01:11):
in the precision of every shot. I know this film
is taught in film schools all around the world. There
was a time just before the film that William Castle
called me and he said, you know, I can't wait
for you to do The Power Bubble, and he was
the producer. He said, but I think we might be
doing it without Roman. And he said, and I will
direct it, and he was also a director, and my
(01:34):
heart sank not you know, a lovely man, but I
knew that the power of the film would lie in
Roman telling the tale.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Bill Castle, a very professional producer at Paramount, got the
option of Rosarie's Baby. Bill Castle was a producer of
B films there and the very one, but the quality
of his films where it's not the quality of films
(02:08):
I wanted to make. At the time, I had become
head of the studio and I was half his age,
so he resented me a bit to begin with, and
I don't blame I read his submission of Rosmie's Baby
and I loved it. I loved it because it's really
(02:31):
a horror film, but brilliantly written and really wasn't a
horror film, but it was. It was too good for
the Castle, So I gotta have a special kind of
person to put Rosmie's Baby onto a screen. There's one
director who I had seen his work for Knife in
(02:54):
the Water to close the Sack. Fascinated with him. This
is a talent. He could make this jump out of
the screen.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Robert Evans knew that I was very much into skiing
and racing, and he had a project called downhill Races.
He called me in suggested that I come over to
talk about it. I was in America skiing somewhere, but
(03:27):
he had the script of Downhill Racers and a bunch
of galleys of a book called Rossmary's Baby, and he said,
I would like you to read this also first. I
went to the hotel after that meeting and started reading.
It really looked to me very much like a kitchen
(03:49):
metal drama, you know, for television. But I as I read,
I got deeper and deeper into it, and the suspense
was such that I didn't stop until before in the morning.
And next day I came back to the studio. I said, okay,
it's do this one first.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
And that started the drama from casting to style to
schedule because nobody at the studio Number one wanted to
make the picture. To Polatski, you crazy, He's never made
a picture in America. You're really give him his first
(04:28):
picture making a horror picture. No way. When I said
to Charlie Bludor, who was the chairman of the board,
Pulaski is the man I want. I'm here as the
head of the studio, and that's the only man I
will let make the film.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Rosbery's Baby was the first film for me made from
already existing material, and so it was a bit different.
It was new to me. I read the book and
it seemed to me natural that I should make the
screen play off it. So I took it back to
London and it was extremely easy because the book has
(05:08):
a very good construction. It did not need much fixing.
It just needed to be turned into a shooting script virtually.
It took me a few weeks. I can't remember exactly
what it was, something about a month, I would say.
And I returned with the script and I didn't know
how it was going to be received by right away
(05:32):
next day because they read fast. Everybody told me that
it's a good script and just too long. It was
indeed bit long. So I started cutting it down and
it was much more difficult than adapting the book in
the first place.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
After many mess roman very casting fights. He wanted it
first to the day, Well I wanted me and this
is I don't know. I don't know. She's on a
television show and Peyton place. I don't want to go
out of television show playing Rosemary.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
I having worked on the script and having had an
idea after reading the book the first time, have you
imagined a girl more sort of all American milk fed,
you know, by the way, that's how aral Levin describes Rosemary.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Me.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
I was more fragile, more sort of a baby like.
But you know, I auditioned a few actresses about finding
I thought myself that there's nobody better than than Mia Farah.
And I knew how much Bob was counting on it.
He thought she was very talented, and he was right.
(06:59):
I mean me, I was terrific in this film.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
What stuck out in my mind was there was a
nude scene. You know, there was this this rape and everything.
I was like, oh, you know, I don't think I
could do that, but we'll work around that.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
I'm sure, I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
And I was then married to Frank Sinatra, and I
gave him the script that night, and it was about
eleven o'clock. He was on his side of the bed reading,
reading the script, and I was the nervously looking for
his reactions. And then about whatever time he finished the script,
he sort of snapped it closed and I said, what
do you think? And he said, I can't see you
(07:37):
in that part. And suddenly I couldn't see me in
that part, you know, and which added to my insecurity
starting the film that the person who knew me best
couldn't see me in the role.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Me it was a little left of center. That's the
reason whyn't. She wasn't just another pretty verse. She has
something different, attractiveness pretty, It doesn't make a part she had.
(08:13):
He looked at her and she had another dimension and
what she didn't have rooman got out of her.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
I worked with with via the same way I worked
with other actress or actresses I made already a few
films before, in particularly Repulsion, where I worked with Katherine
Danev and she was in practically every shot in the
same way than me I was in Rosmarries Baby. Sometimes
(08:45):
it works, sometimes it doesn't, you know. It's easier somehow
for a male director, I think to work with female
actress because they don't resent being led. Like in a dance,
you know, traditionally is the man who leads, you know,
not the other way around. When a man resents a
(09:10):
little bit, and if you want to dance with the men,
it's always you know a little bit of this before
you stop swinging around. Good actors don't have this problem.
They know that the director gives them this look from
outside that they don't have. I know that to act well,
(09:31):
you have to forget about the outside world to certain extent,
but what you are producing acting it's not necessarily what
you feel. Sometimes there's a little discrepancy between what you
feel from inside and what it looks like for somebody
(09:55):
looking at you. And that person who can supper fly
that look from the outside is the director, of course,
because he's there and it is his role.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
In fact, rummen wouldn't say, look, I think this scene
is about this, or I want this from this scene.
He would say, she does Rosemary, she goes here, she
does this, and he would. He's an actor as well,
and a very fine actor. He would act out the scene.
He does it in a way that might be extreme,
but you totally get what he wants. So I found
(10:28):
it to be a helpful shorthand I know exactly what
he wanted. There was a rehearsal period, and they had
put in detail all these tape marks on the ground
to illustrate where the rooms and all this were, and
the bed and the corridors and the doors opened this way,
and it was a mass of tapes. You know, I
can't see anything without my glasses, so I put on
(10:50):
my glasses and I'd be looking at these tapes and
I really never quite got the.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Layout, you know.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
But we were in a big sound stage and on
cassavetties and I we did rehearse some scenes because we
knew we were going to jump right in in New York.
We walking into the building I think was the very
first scene we shot John and I walking in to
look at the apartment.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
I get a call ten days later from New York.
Bill Castle is there as the producer, and he's telling
all the top brass in New York and this guy's
going to cast a company of fortune and you better
get rid of them. I flew to New York, got
(11:33):
to get ahold of Romas. Listen, you bet pick up
the pace in the first ten days. You're ten days late.
You're on your way back to Poland. If you don't
pick up your pace, just taxis are rolled. This is
this is I can't work this way. To start working
(11:54):
this way, well, he did.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Bob supported Roman, even though it did take longer, but
he also saw the results. You know. He used to
come on the sentence to say how great everything looked,
and people were thrilled, and it looked unusual, and it
was unusual, and not only for the content, but it
was the quality of the shot.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
So he stayed with it.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
I don't know what it cost the studio, and I
don't know what the pressures were, but I would imagine
they were considerable.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
I think that Robert Eavis had a flat I don't
know how much different or artistic he wanted his films
to be, but he trusted the talent very much, and
he was a great enthusiast of motion pictures. He loved
a good movie, and he was trying to inject new
(12:47):
blood into the old system which was started getting slightly sclerotic,
you see. And it paid off.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Rowan was quite a bit over schedule with it all.
I think the picture costs two million, two or of
thousands or something like that, and what do you get
on the screen is not normal. You have to be
a little not bent, but a little different, and he's
(13:22):
a little different and Britain.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
At the same time, Bob was supported by the way
with all those executives who had to justify their existence somehow,
you know, And in making My Life miserable. But one
person that I liked very much is seeing often who
was one of Paramount's leading directors, who Auto Auto Preminger,
(13:52):
and I bumped into him on the lat and he says,
what's the matter with you? Looks so gloomy. I said,
I had just getting out of a meeting and I
have so many problems. As what's your problem? He says,
I'm behind the schedule. And he says, what about the Russians?
We want about the Russians? Do they like them? I said,
(14:12):
they delighted with the Russians, So what do you care?
He says, they never They never fired anyone because of
the schedule, because of lagging behind. But if they don't
like the Russians, you out very soon. And so then
there was the case. I mean, they really liked the
(14:34):
material very much, and we pushed forward. But I was
always very much concerned, you know, coming from Europe, from
the independent pictures where every zent counts and you don't
have much chance of new finances coming if you if
(14:59):
you have no more money to finish the picture.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
For my own part, there was pressure to leave the
film because I was supposed to do book two films
back to back and or integrated and then move over.
And this was my role in the movie The Detective
with Frank Sinatra, and that date kept getting pushed back
until in the end, really my then husband just said,
(15:25):
you know, I did this rosme's baby or mate, and
I every weekend I was flying to New York and
trying to make peace and saying, oh, you know, don't
let it come to this, you know. But you know,
he was Sicilian and it was aout. It was about
you know, doing what he wanted, you know. And I
(15:45):
loved him and we remain friends to the day he died.
But I couldn't leave a movie. My mother was an actress,
a terrific actress, my father a screenwriter and director. I
didn't come from the kind of people that would walk
out after three months working out a movie, so it
was never in question, but it was an agonizing think
(16:05):
and I just hoped that.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
He didn't mean it right since his lawyer Mickey Rudin,
right in the middle of a scene at Paramount with
divorce papers, You're not mississ Sinatra.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
Anymore, you know.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I just signed everything that day through a blur of tears,
and I don't know. We shot something afterward, and I
don't know how I did it. And then Roman and
Sharon and his group of friends were really embracing and
they invited me to their house on the weekends, and
(16:42):
you know, they were great.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
They've sort of helped me together.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Suddenly she's at Missus Sinatra and she did the part,
and I believe she was nominated for the Academy Award
for it, and she should have worn it. She was
wonderful in it. I mean wonderful. Frank and I didn't
talk for four years. As a matter of fact, it
got so heated before I go to a restaurant. I
(17:11):
call it majorjus is nature there. The Detective and Rosarie's
Baby opened it the same day in June. The Detective
opened good business, but Rosenie's Baby was a blockbuster. It
made me an established film star in their first flick out.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
It's such a compelling and strange tale. It was a
big best seller, and you totally get why you can't
put it down. The book was helpful for me because
we didn't shoot in sequence. As it turned out, The
very first dialogue scene that we shot was in New
(17:57):
York City in a fake phone booth, and it was
I don't know how many pages long.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
It was a long, long, long.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Take, and I'm at the height of you know, calling
doctor Hill and this frantic scene. And we had very
limited time and access to that spot and traffic and
all of these factors, and that was the first scene
we shot, so I really had to have digested the
hole in order to come in at such a peak moment.
(18:24):
It's a brilliant scene where I'm doing the phone both
and I turn around and I think it's the doctor,
the doctor Soepristine, and he turns and then he walks away,
and then I look again and it was actually William Castle,
who looks like doctor Sapristin from behind.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
So I just thought that was so clever.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Bill Castle was a wonderful man. He was really a
great fellow, Big Whitehurst cigar, always hanging out of his lips.
But as a director, because he directed to her, he was,
you know, he did this schlocky be pictures, scary with
(19:05):
all kind of gimmicks and devices, sometimes smoke in the cinema,
you know, or seats that shakes or whatever. But as
a producer, Bill was always defending me. It was really
very very good experience. The whole thing.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Right after their phone boo scene, Roman and I walked
right into traffic, and I remember Roman saying, don't worry
about it. Nobody will hit a pregnant woman, and I said, okay.
But he operated the camera himself because you can't ask somebody.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
Other than me.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
But we would have probably been killed had they not.
We just walked into moving traffic and they did indeed
screech to a hall, and we did it like three times.
He wanted the oncoming traffic and he wanted, you know,
people to shot all that.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
The building is a big character, and this was no
Orddary building. It really isn't. I went to dinner there
a few years ago. I got an ereie Philly just
going in there. It's got more character possibly any building
in New York.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Dick Silbert when he started working on the film, he said,
I know the building in which it happens, and there
was the Dakota. I never heard of the Dakota. I
must have passed the Dakota many times without even noticing it.
So we went on the location scout and we've seen
(20:48):
few strange buildings of New York and Dakota amongst them.
It was clear from the start that that's where we're
going to set up the action.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
The interiors were made in the studio and the exteriors
were allio. Dick Silbert looked at the apartments all over
the world. That's why he ended up at the studio.
We couldn't get the inny windows and the nuances. Something
(21:25):
that's just a little weird.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
I was already admiring his first film, Baby Doll and
that house, I thought, and I still think, that he
was one of the most talented American designers. I did
not have the means to use a production designer like
(21:52):
Dick Silburn in my previous films, but when the opportunity
came with Rosemary's Baby, this was my first request in
Bob's office when I accepted to make a film, I said,
I want Dick Silver to design the film. He had
a twin brother, Paul Silver, who was a designer as
(22:13):
well and the director. And Paul was married to Anthea Silver,
who Dick suggested as a costume designer. And that was
the beginning of this group, because we all became a
bunch of friends, you know, for years and years afterwards.
They designed Rosemary's Baby and subsequently Chinatown.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
You know, she had all these sketches we talked about
ahead of time. But one of the dresses was mine
in prat was just a mumu orange like a Hawaiian
momo you see in the movie. The shoes were mine.
There was little sandals that I were throughout my pregnant
time in the movie. Those were my shoes. The style
of the day was a hippie time, and I just
(23:01):
wanted it to be a classic look and she did too.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
So simple.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Anthya Silver makes your cost of his background not for
a ground sent her geniuses. In other words, you don't say, gee,
what costumes there are? She fits into this story.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
There were a lot of wardrobe tests, and I remember
Anthea and put one of the pregnant like belly on me,
and Ruman was very very detailed about how it should
feel and should it move, and oh, my breast should
be bigger if I get pregnant. You know, he knew
things I didn't even know. And they had several different
sizes of this leotard with stomachs that they would put
(23:46):
on me, and all of them had boobs of varying sizes,
and so, I mean, everything was planned and we were
set to bout. John Cassavetti's was on at the time,
as he was this older guy and I had seen
two of his films and I knew him to be
a brilliant director also, and I didn't even want to
call him John. I mean, to me, he was, you know,
(24:08):
mister Cassavettes and I think I avoided calling him anything.
And he was lovely to work with. When we were rehearsing.
He and Roman got along so well, and they were
each given a Yamaha motorbike and they would tear it
around and I got on the back of sometimes John's
motorbike and sometimes Roman's a little bit. But it was
(24:31):
a guy thing. There were guy guys. They related to
each other. They were gud jokes, they were paling around.
But as the movie went on, John had issues. If
you've seen John Cassavetti's movies, you will know that they're
very freewheeling, that people can improvise, and I think move
around a lot, and there's a lot of leeway. The
(24:52):
way he shoots for improv Roman is absolutely the opposite.
If you are doing a scene and you're lifting a glass,
if your glass is to the right eighth of an
inch left or a little. I don't mean this, I
mean a tiny, tiny bit, tiny bit. The cameras lined
up in a certain way, the exactness of his shots.
(25:17):
John wanted to improvise and John wanted to move around.
John felt it and Rama said no. And so I'm oversimplifying.
But over time, the tensions between the two different styles
of acting and directing, because we have two superb directors
with very very different ways of approaching something, that the
(25:39):
tension got more and more.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
John Cassavedas was not my best experience. I must say
he didn't feel comfortable sometimes in his role. I think
when actor has no problem with the part, he's happy
and he's kind to the crew, to the director, to
(26:03):
everybody around him. Even act as struggles, he becomes a
pain in the ass. Cassavettas was a pain from time
to time. I can't say that he was difficult constantly.
He had problems whenever you needed to dress him, for example,
dress him up and his role required that, you know,
(26:24):
he felt the best in the sneakers. You know, he
took off his snickers. He had problems with his acting.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Well, John wasn't our first choice. Robert Redford was Unfortunately,
my head of business affairs at Paramount served him with
papers of was seeing him. On the other hand, I
was trying to get him for the picture. He got
this motorcycle and never came back. But he was a
(26:57):
type that he wanted all our and uh, very straight type.
John Cassaveti's was not ordinary casting. For John was a
terribly talented man. Had his own interpretation of it. I
think he did a very good job on it. But
(27:18):
Roman he there's no honeymoon.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Well. I liked John, I knew him, and he was
not the favorite of the studio. I suggested him and
we hired him on my request. It's not like he
was thrown upon me. You know. I know that being
(27:43):
a director, he may have imagined differently certain scenes or
his character. But I'm a director too, and I acted
as well, and sometimes I acted for other directors. When
I do so, I forget my concept and let them
(28:04):
lead to me. And you know, I just have to serve,
so to speak.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
That must be the partition that's the back part of
the original ten was a dining and there's there's a
closet over here, and then there's a closet over here.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
I still didn't want to get naked, so they got
They tried to persuade me that I was you know,
I was this Catholic girl. I couldn't do that, you know.
And there were two naked sequences. There's one where Rosemary
is in her dream walking on a.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
Ship or something and sits down.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
And we actually did go out on a boat somewhere
near Catalina and shot that. But the girl walking away
from the camera actually isn't me. They found a girl
who was willing to do it.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
You'd better go down by lowly.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Walking away would have been okay, but the being tied
to a bed for days on end with no clothes on,
I just couldn't.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
I just couldn't. I couldn't do it. So she did
all that. Sydney Blacker was funny.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
He said it was a little awkward, he said, because
you know, he had to paint on her chest. And
he said, I just had to see it as if
I were painting on a canvas or you know, the
way you know a butcher carves meat. They don't think
of it as an animal. And he had some way
of dissociating himself from painting on a girl's chest. I
was actually also tied to the bed for some part
(29:22):
where you know, I see the Jacqueline Kennedy like person
coming and I kissed the Pope's ring and oh, actually
it's a funny story. A guy gets on top of
me with he has vertical contact lenses on and he's skinning.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
I mean, he's the devil.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
So he gets on me and he's grinding away and
I say something, you know, this isn't a dream, this
is really happening. Or I have several lines there while
he's grinding away on top of me. And at the
end of it all, he stands up and he puts
out his hand and he said, Missus Farrell, it was
a pleasure to work with you. This is a nice
(30:00):
actor man, you know, with these vertical lenses and her meaning,
I was lovely to work with you too, you know.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
But you mustn't show too much of those elements of
fantasy that she goes through in her dream. You know,
it has to feel like a dream, you know, it
has to be ambiguous or ambivalent rather. You know, you
just don't know whether it's for real or not. She
(30:31):
has a scratch on her body, but you don't know
who scratched her. You mustn't show it too well, and
the audience should not be able to analyze the details
of it. It has to be an impression. The important
thing is in the sound, you know, the sound as
in the dream. Some of her dreams are based on
(30:52):
what she hears vaguely through the wall where Mini is
screaming something on the other side, and she combines it
into a dream. So it should not be too much
in sync, and the lips sync should be a little
bit off.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
I told you another coward.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Then I told you it wouldn't be open mind. I
remember I was always thinking that if I do a dream,
it would be very silent, very quiet, because that's what
you really feel when you dreaming. It's never loud, you know,
And when people talk, it's a sort of this table
(31:34):
atmosphere and this sort of voice. And in fact comes
probably from the fact that in that sequence of sleep,
when you dream, you're totally paralyzed.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Roman was so young and so full of ideas and enthusiasm,
you know that he was on fire with making this
happen in the best possible way. So his imagination was
all all his artistic sensibilities were at the foe, and
it was fun to watch him and Bill Fraker, the cinematographer.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Bill Fraker was such a wonderful person, such a good
guy to have around, so gentle and so scared of
the studio because his experience was linked with the universal.
A universal in those times was like all studios out
(32:31):
at today. You just had to obey executives in charge
of various partsive production, read the notes and follow and
coming from that studio, he had this discipline and didn't
know that he can allow himself much more freedom. Every
(32:53):
cinematographer has his style, and his style was revealed in
this movie.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Actually, Bill Fraser, I had a feel debeous. You worked
with the director who knew he wanted. Bill Fraser was
usually better than most of the directors he worked with.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
It was probably the first film where he had this
total freedom and time to do what he wanted to do. Listen,
you tell him I won't take note and said, oh
here's your nail.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
And I knew Ruth Gordon before the movie for Mutual
Friends for maybe a year or two, so I couldn't
wait till she came and joined all this, all these guys.
But then what I didn't know she came. I thought she,
you know, she would play with me or something, because
you know, I was such a kid and all this
energy pent up to be indoors month after months, so
(33:48):
they gave me a ping pong table. I thought, great,
Ruth will play with me, you know, just clueless Ruth,
when she wasn't working, went into her little room and
called them huts, her hut on the soundstage, and she correctly,
you know, she didn't want to goof around. You know,
she approached the role in her own immaculate way, you know,
(34:10):
from her years of experience and roman so thoroughly enjoyed
everything she was doing, you know, her her drawl, her
lip talking. I don't know if it was written in
the script when she when I dropped the knife, which
was a feet in itself, to from a like oh God,
with raised hands to drop a knife so that it
goes blade into the ground and Ruth picks it up
(34:31):
and does that on the floor to because that's her floor.
You know, I don't I think she made that up.
But everything she did, you know, the way she ate
in our in our sequence of eating, you know, a
certain thing of turning the floor. She was just it
was so much fun to watch her. It was way
extreme because I wasn't playing it extreme like that, but
(34:55):
I think it was, you know, comic relief, but it
was also quite.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
It was also real in its way.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
You're up and around on my part. Yeah, the film
needed some humor, and Ruth Gordon and Patsy Kelly's supply it.
You know, he's seen they appear. There's you know, a
bit of humor in the film, like in life Patty Kelly.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
I think it's my favorite line in the movie is
that patt kel is saying, shut up with your own God,
it will kill your milk or no milk. I just
love that. I love the way she said it. I
love the line itself.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
For me, the right casting is always more important than
having the perfect actor. I think the greatest actor when
he's not cast right, it's a mistake. And I really
wanted those characters around Rosemary to be the way I
(35:48):
have seen them when I was working on the script.
So I made the drawings of each character and showed
it to the person who was in charge of casting
at the studio. In those times, they still had a
casting a director attached to the studio, and because they
(36:08):
had even actors on the contract in those times, and
they presented me photos of factors that would look more
or less like my drawings, and that's how we went
about it.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Sidney Blackmer was the kindest man you could ever meet,
and I remember him saying he had to do Hail Satan,
Hail Satan. Somebody on the set, and I think it
was Sydney said, no good will come of all this,
all this hail Satan business, and I fortunately I didn't.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
Have to say Hail Satan. I'd say, oh God, oh God.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
I asked a Catholic who not very much earlier had
wanted to become a nun, there was an ed genus
for me to some of that stuff.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
The devil part.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
I mean I thirteen years of Catholic education and a
very devout family. I mean, good Friday was on our
knees with the drape drawn and statues covered in my house.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
So this thing of the devil, you know, and also.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Especially I guess the end with everybody Hill Satan and
the birth of the Devil, and that's the way it's
kind of left. It was.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
It was unsettling when I read the book. What was
upsetting me that there was you know a real devil,
and it's somehow behind and you know, being philosophically a
realist and agnostic at that time, I would say it
(37:44):
bothered me. So I thought that I can get around
it by creating a film in which the idea of
devil could be conceived as Rosmari's folly. We never see
anything supernatural in it, and everything that occurred that has
(38:08):
any kind of supernatural look a cursin her dream us
in the book, by the way, and it could have
been all question of her paranoia, of her suspicions during
the pregnancy and postpartum.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Craze I felt in seeing the movie that it was
clear that it wasn't in her mind that we didn't
see the baby.
Speaker 4 (38:37):
We have her. He has his father's eyes, you know
that kind of thing. I think you.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Roman's choice probably was that they didn't have the kind
of tricks that they have now that where he could
create such a baby.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
Clearing by tomorrow night, or maybe.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
It was the wiser thing just not to show it
and imagine it. But it was great that you that
it isn't spelled out, that there's leeway to think, oh,
she having you know, some hallucinations.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
I thought that showing the baby would be a great mistake,
and did show me, and that there is a subliminal
moment when she remembers the eyes she saw in her dream.
I see. But other than that, the film that's totally realistic.
(39:35):
There's nothing supernatural in the film, and everything that occurred
could have happened in real life.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Really copal out your mind.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
Dick Silbert one day, he said, what are you going
to do about the editor, And he told me about
Samus Tine, who was finishing Mike Nichols The Girl to It.
Sam was not free enough because he was still finishing
Michael's film, so he suggested to share the credit with
(40:10):
one of his assistants. And that's how I started the
relationship with Samustin, who was the greatest editor I've ever
met and from whom I learned. If I ever learned anything,
I learned it from from from Sam. The first cut
(40:33):
after we finished the film was about four hours, and
we didn't know exactly how to deal with it all.
And I said to to to to some listen, you
do this first, because I wouldn't know, you know, from
from which end to to to approach that problem. And
(40:57):
that's what he did. He cut it down to about
two and a half hours, and then I started working
daily with him until we got the result that you now. No.
I tell you what Sam taught me was to be
really tough with myself that sometimes you have great scenes
(41:20):
of great shots which are in themselves phenomenal and could
be kept for the posterity, but they don't do much
for the film. See that the storyline or rhythm suffers
if you leave them in the movie. And my editing
(41:41):
improved from a film to film because and thanks to Samustine.
Even now, very often I think of him.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Germany first film, The Front Office, which was in New
York at the time, didn't worry release. He didn't have
to sell it. So I went to a friend of
mine who was president of Young rubricun it's a very
large advertising agency. I told him my problem, but I
(42:12):
can't release this picture because the whole advertising department doesn't
have to sell it. It Pictures Brilliant goes to see it.
He says, well, I'm going to give it to you straight.
It's not an easy picture to sell, and I'm not
(42:32):
going to take one dime from you to give you
a whole campaign on it. But if you buy, would
I give you? I want one hundred thousand dollars. I
walking the chairman of the board in Charles Pluton's office.
Just take a look at this, and you tell me
if you want to write a check for out one
(42:53):
thousand dollars. And I turned the board around and there
it is, and a carriage. As just pray for Rosary's baby,
that's all. And he looks at it and he becomes
so pale, but he's as white as these shoes that
(43:14):
are wearing. I have to pay him one hundreds of
thousand dollars or three words, that's right, And he did,
and Pray for Rosary's baby became the end of the year.
It made the picture. Without that pray for Rosie's baby
(43:35):
with a carriage, people would know what it is. And
they still didn't know, but they were intrigued. Its opened
the first weekend too. The because business paramound a dozen years.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
You know, you can't really judge anything you're in. But
I was stunned by what Roman had done. I mean,
I knew it would be great, but I couldn't. I
couldn't have imagined the LFE and how the shots really
looked and moving with the camera and everything. Yeah, I
thought it was wonderful.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
It was the beginning of a new genre. Oh the Exorcist, follow,
the omen follow. There are several films that rosaliees baby
he versionized. What they have today at this place is
to me very watered down, non human. It's a digital
(44:34):
there's one big machine. It's not people. That's why there's
nothing quite like it. I went to a screening of
it about nine months ago. It's scared of living shit
out of the people there.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
Yes, it's a horror movie, and maybe the theme isn't
so serious, but I think it's a great movie. And
I don't think I've done another, and I don't think
I ever got another role. I know I didn't get
another role as fine as that asked as much of me,
And I know I've never worked with a director that
was as precise with me. Because his almost silly little
(45:19):
cartoon saying go here and we do this, and we
do this media. How we worked so well together, how
I gleaned from that exactly what he wanted. You know,
we worked really well together and we never had to
talk about it. It was the happiest work experience, most
fulfilling that I've ever had.
Speaker 3 (45:38):
I was happy to do rosmus Baby. That was one
of the best moments of my personal and professional, of
course life. It was the discovery of the Hollywood film
industry for me and a lot of people around me,
particularly me a pharaoh. Both of us had this great
(46:02):
experience of doing first Hollywood movie together.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
There's no couldn't play nonsense, no machinery. It's the mind
and he knew how to manipulate the mind, and to
manipulate the mind on film and make it work is
(46:30):
one piece of art.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
M
There are three sides to every story, yours, mine and
the truth, and no one is lying. Memory shared surveys differently.
I remember my part, but remember this is close to
a half a century ago, and it can't be right
in every detailed or anybody connected with this film be
(00:32):
actually correct. With the militia that went into it. I
remember vividly because it remains one of the high points
of my career, both the film and the people in it,
especially Rowan Pulaski.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I mean, the whole film reflects Roman's vision, and I
think that in other hands we would have a very
very different film. I mean, the massster fullness, if you will,
of this film comes out of Roman. Yes, it's a
great yarn, but it's a Roman who told it well
and in his own style, in his own vision of everything,
(01:11):
in the precision of every shot. I know this film
is taught in film schools all around the world. There
was a time just before the film that William Castle
called me and he said, you know, I can't wait
for you to do The Power Bubble, and he was
the producer. He said, but I think we might be
doing it without Roman. And he said, and I will
direct it, and he was also a director, and my
(01:34):
heart sank not you know, a lovely man, but I
knew that the power of the film would lie in
Roman telling the tale.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Bill Castle, a very professional producer at Paramount, got the
option of Rosarie's Baby. Bill Castle was a producer of
B films there and the very one, but the quality
of his films where it's not the quality of films
(02:08):
I wanted to make. At the time, I had become
head of the studio and I was half his age,
so he resented me a bit to begin with, and
I don't blame I read his submission of Rosmie's Baby
and I loved it. I loved it because it's really
(02:31):
a horror film, but brilliantly written and really wasn't a
horror film, but it was. It was too good for
the Castle, So I gotta have a special kind of
person to put Rosmie's Baby onto a screen. There's one
director who I had seen his work for Knife in
(02:54):
the Water to close the Sack. Fascinated with him. This
is a talent. He could make this jump out of
the screen.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Robert Evans knew that I was very much into skiing
and racing, and he had a project called downhill Races.
He called me in suggested that I come over to
talk about it. I was in America skiing somewhere, but
(03:27):
he had the script of Downhill Racers and a bunch
of galleys of a book called Rossmary's Baby, and he said,
I would like you to read this also first. I
went to the hotel after that meeting and started reading.
It really looked to me very much like a kitchen
(03:49):
metal drama, you know, for television. But I as I read,
I got deeper and deeper into it, and the suspense
was such that I didn't stop until before in the morning.
And next day I came back to the studio. I said, okay,
it's do this one first.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
And that started the drama from casting to style to
schedule because nobody at the studio Number one wanted to
make the picture. To Polatski, you crazy, He's never made
a picture in America. You're really give him his first
(04:28):
picture making a horror picture. No way. When I said
to Charlie Bludor, who was the chairman of the board,
Pulaski is the man I want. I'm here as the
head of the studio, and that's the only man I
will let make the film.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Rosbery's Baby was the first film for me made from
already existing material, and so it was a bit different.
It was new to me. I read the book and
it seemed to me natural that I should make the
screen play off it. So I took it back to
London and it was extremely easy because the book has
(05:08):
a very good construction. It did not need much fixing.
It just needed to be turned into a shooting script virtually.
It took me a few weeks. I can't remember exactly
what it was, something about a month, I would say.
And I returned with the script and I didn't know
how it was going to be received by right away
(05:32):
next day because they read fast. Everybody told me that
it's a good script and just too long. It was
indeed bit long. So I started cutting it down and
it was much more difficult than adapting the book in
the first place.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
After many mess roman very casting fights. He wanted it
first to the day, Well I wanted me and this
is I don't know. I don't know. She's on a
television show and Peyton place. I don't want to go
out of television show playing Rosemary.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
I having worked on the script and having had an
idea after reading the book the first time, have you
imagined a girl more sort of all American milk fed,
you know, by the way, that's how aral Levin describes Rosemary.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Me.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
I was more fragile, more sort of a baby like.
But you know, I auditioned a few actresses about finding
I thought myself that there's nobody better than than Mia Farah.
And I knew how much Bob was counting on it.
He thought she was very talented, and he was right.
(06:59):
I mean me, I was terrific in this film.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
What stuck out in my mind was there was a
nude scene. You know, there was this this rape and everything.
I was like, oh, you know, I don't think I
could do that, but we'll work around that.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
I'm sure, I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
And I was then married to Frank Sinatra, and I
gave him the script that night, and it was about
eleven o'clock. He was on his side of the bed reading,
reading the script, and I was the nervously looking for
his reactions. And then about whatever time he finished the script,
he sort of snapped it closed and I said, what
do you think? And he said, I can't see you
(07:37):
in that part. And suddenly I couldn't see me in
that part, you know, and which added to my insecurity
starting the film that the person who knew me best
couldn't see me in the role.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Me it was a little left of center. That's the
reason whyn't. She wasn't just another pretty verse. She has
something different, attractiveness pretty, It doesn't make a part she had.
(08:13):
He looked at her and she had another dimension and
what she didn't have rooman got out of her.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
I worked with with via the same way I worked
with other actress or actresses I made already a few
films before, in particularly Repulsion, where I worked with Katherine
Danev and she was in practically every shot in the
same way than me I was in Rosmarries Baby. Sometimes
(08:45):
it works, sometimes it doesn't, you know. It's easier somehow
for a male director, I think to work with female
actress because they don't resent being led. Like in a dance,
you know, traditionally is the man who leads, you know,
not the other way around. When a man resents a
(09:10):
little bit, and if you want to dance with the men,
it's always you know a little bit of this before
you stop swinging around. Good actors don't have this problem.
They know that the director gives them this look from
outside that they don't have. I know that to act well,
(09:31):
you have to forget about the outside world to certain extent,
but what you are producing acting it's not necessarily what
you feel. Sometimes there's a little discrepancy between what you
feel from inside and what it looks like for somebody
(09:55):
looking at you. And that person who can supper fly
that look from the outside is the director, of course,
because he's there and it is his role.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
In fact, rummen wouldn't say, look, I think this scene
is about this, or I want this from this scene.
He would say, she does Rosemary, she goes here, she
does this, and he would. He's an actor as well,
and a very fine actor. He would act out the scene.
He does it in a way that might be extreme,
but you totally get what he wants. So I found
(10:28):
it to be a helpful shorthand I know exactly what
he wanted. There was a rehearsal period, and they had
put in detail all these tape marks on the ground
to illustrate where the rooms and all this were, and
the bed and the corridors and the doors opened this way,
and it was a mass of tapes. You know, I
can't see anything without my glasses, so I put on
(10:50):
my glasses and I'd be looking at these tapes and
I really never quite got the.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Layout, you know.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
But we were in a big sound stage and on
cassavetties and I we did rehearse some scenes because we
knew we were going to jump right in in New York.
We walking into the building I think was the very
first scene we shot John and I walking in to
look at the apartment.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
I get a call ten days later from New York.
Bill Castle is there as the producer, and he's telling
all the top brass in New York and this guy's
going to cast a company of fortune and you better
get rid of them. I flew to New York, got
(11:33):
to get ahold of Romas. Listen, you bet pick up
the pace in the first ten days. You're ten days late.
You're on your way back to Poland. If you don't
pick up your pace, just taxis are rolled. This is
this is I can't work this way. To start working
(11:54):
this way, well, he did.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Bob supported Roman, even though it did take longer, but
he also saw the results. You know. He used to
come on the sentence to say how great everything looked,
and people were thrilled, and it looked unusual, and it
was unusual, and not only for the content, but it
was the quality of the shot.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
So he stayed with it.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
I don't know what it cost the studio, and I
don't know what the pressures were, but I would imagine
they were considerable.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
I think that Robert Eavis had a flat I don't
know how much different or artistic he wanted his films
to be, but he trusted the talent very much, and
he was a great enthusiast of motion pictures. He loved
a good movie, and he was trying to inject new
(12:47):
blood into the old system which was started getting slightly sclerotic,
you see. And it paid off.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Rowan was quite a bit over schedule with it all.
I think the picture costs two million, two or of
thousands or something like that, and what do you get
on the screen is not normal. You have to be
a little not bent, but a little different, and he's
(13:22):
a little different and Britain.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
At the same time, Bob was supported by the way
with all those executives who had to justify their existence somehow,
you know, And in making My Life miserable. But one
person that I liked very much is seeing often who
was one of Paramount's leading directors, who Auto Auto Preminger,
(13:52):
and I bumped into him on the lat and he says,
what's the matter with you? Looks so gloomy. I said,
I had just getting out of a meeting and I
have so many problems. As what's your problem? He says,
I'm behind the schedule. And he says, what about the Russians?
We want about the Russians? Do they like them? I said,
(14:12):
they delighted with the Russians, So what do you care?
He says, they never They never fired anyone because of
the schedule, because of lagging behind. But if they don't
like the Russians, you out very soon. And so then
there was the case. I mean, they really liked the
(14:34):
material very much, and we pushed forward. But I was
always very much concerned, you know, coming from Europe, from
the independent pictures where every zent counts and you don't
have much chance of new finances coming if you if
(14:59):
you have no more money to finish the picture.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
For my own part, there was pressure to leave the
film because I was supposed to do book two films
back to back and or integrated and then move over.
And this was my role in the movie The Detective
with Frank Sinatra, and that date kept getting pushed back
until in the end, really my then husband just said,
(15:25):
you know, I did this rosme's baby or mate, and
I every weekend I was flying to New York and
trying to make peace and saying, oh, you know, don't
let it come to this, you know. But you know,
he was Sicilian and it was aout. It was about
you know, doing what he wanted, you know. And I
(15:45):
loved him and we remain friends to the day he died.
But I couldn't leave a movie. My mother was an actress,
a terrific actress, my father a screenwriter and director. I
didn't come from the kind of people that would walk
out after three months working out a movie, so it
was never in question, but it was an agonizing think
(16:05):
and I just hoped that.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
He didn't mean it right since his lawyer Mickey Rudin,
right in the middle of a scene at Paramount with
divorce papers, You're not mississ Sinatra.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
Anymore, you know.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I just signed everything that day through a blur of tears,
and I don't know. We shot something afterward, and I
don't know how I did it. And then Roman and
Sharon and his group of friends were really embracing and
they invited me to their house on the weekends, and
(16:42):
you know, they were great.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
They've sort of helped me together.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Suddenly she's at Missus Sinatra and she did the part,
and I believe she was nominated for the Academy Award
for it, and she should have worn it. She was
wonderful in it. I mean wonderful. Frank and I didn't
talk for four years. As a matter of fact, it
got so heated before I go to a restaurant. I
(17:11):
call it majorjus is nature there. The Detective and Rosarie's
Baby opened it the same day in June. The Detective
opened good business, but Rosenie's Baby was a blockbuster. It
made me an established film star in their first flick out.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
It's such a compelling and strange tale. It was a
big best seller, and you totally get why you can't
put it down. The book was helpful for me because
we didn't shoot in sequence. As it turned out, The
very first dialogue scene that we shot was in New
(17:57):
York City in a fake phone booth, and it was
I don't know how many pages long.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
It was a long, long, long.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Take, and I'm at the height of you know, calling
doctor Hill and this frantic scene. And we had very
limited time and access to that spot and traffic and
all of these factors, and that was the first scene
we shot, so I really had to have digested the
hole in order to come in at such a peak moment.
(18:24):
It's a brilliant scene where I'm doing the phone both
and I turn around and I think it's the doctor,
the doctor Soepristine, and he turns and then he walks away,
and then I look again and it was actually William Castle,
who looks like doctor Sapristin from behind.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
So I just thought that was so clever.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Bill Castle was a wonderful man. He was really a
great fellow, Big Whitehurst cigar, always hanging out of his lips.
But as a director, because he directed to her, he was,
you know, he did this schlocky be pictures, scary with
(19:05):
all kind of gimmicks and devices, sometimes smoke in the cinema,
you know, or seats that shakes or whatever. But as
a producer, Bill was always defending me. It was really
very very good experience. The whole thing.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Right after their phone boo scene, Roman and I walked
right into traffic, and I remember Roman saying, don't worry
about it. Nobody will hit a pregnant woman, and I said, okay.
But he operated the camera himself because you can't ask somebody.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
Other than me.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
But we would have probably been killed had they not.
We just walked into moving traffic and they did indeed
screech to a hall, and we did it like three times.
He wanted the oncoming traffic and he wanted, you know,
people to shot all that.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
The building is a big character, and this was no
Orddary building. It really isn't. I went to dinner there
a few years ago. I got an ereie Philly just
going in there. It's got more character possibly any building
in New York.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Dick Silbert when he started working on the film, he said,
I know the building in which it happens, and there
was the Dakota. I never heard of the Dakota. I
must have passed the Dakota many times without even noticing it.
So we went on the location scout and we've seen
(20:48):
few strange buildings of New York and Dakota amongst them.
It was clear from the start that that's where we're
going to set up the action.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
The interiors were made in the studio and the exteriors
were allio. Dick Silbert looked at the apartments all over
the world. That's why he ended up at the studio.
We couldn't get the inny windows and the nuances. Something
(21:25):
that's just a little weird.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
I was already admiring his first film, Baby Doll and
that house, I thought, and I still think, that he
was one of the most talented American designers. I did
not have the means to use a production designer like
(21:52):
Dick Silburn in my previous films, but when the opportunity
came with Rosemary's Baby, this was my first request in
Bob's office when I accepted to make a film, I said,
I want Dick Silver to design the film. He had
a twin brother, Paul Silver, who was a designer as
(22:13):
well and the director. And Paul was married to Anthea Silver,
who Dick suggested as a costume designer. And that was
the beginning of this group, because we all became a
bunch of friends, you know, for years and years afterwards.
They designed Rosemary's Baby and subsequently Chinatown.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
You know, she had all these sketches we talked about
ahead of time. But one of the dresses was mine
in prat was just a mumu orange like a Hawaiian
momo you see in the movie. The shoes were mine.
There was little sandals that I were throughout my pregnant
time in the movie. Those were my shoes. The style
of the day was a hippie time, and I just
(23:01):
wanted it to be a classic look and she did too.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
So simple.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Anthya Silver makes your cost of his background not for
a ground sent her geniuses. In other words, you don't say, gee,
what costumes there are? She fits into this story.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
There were a lot of wardrobe tests, and I remember
Anthea and put one of the pregnant like belly on me,
and Ruman was very very detailed about how it should
feel and should it move, and oh, my breast should
be bigger if I get pregnant. You know, he knew
things I didn't even know. And they had several different
sizes of this leotard with stomachs that they would put
(23:46):
on me, and all of them had boobs of varying sizes,
and so, I mean, everything was planned and we were
set to bout. John Cassavetti's was on at the time,
as he was this older guy and I had seen
two of his films and I knew him to be
a brilliant director also, and I didn't even want to
call him John. I mean, to me, he was, you know,
(24:08):
mister Cassavettes and I think I avoided calling him anything.
And he was lovely to work with. When we were rehearsing.
He and Roman got along so well, and they were
each given a Yamaha motorbike and they would tear it
around and I got on the back of sometimes John's
motorbike and sometimes Roman's a little bit. But it was
(24:31):
a guy thing. There were guy guys. They related to
each other. They were gud jokes, they were paling around.
But as the movie went on, John had issues. If
you've seen John Cassavetti's movies, you will know that they're
very freewheeling, that people can improvise, and I think move
around a lot, and there's a lot of leeway. The
(24:52):
way he shoots for improv Roman is absolutely the opposite.
If you are doing a scene and you're lifting a glass,
if your glass is to the right eighth of an
inch left or a little. I don't mean this, I
mean a tiny, tiny bit, tiny bit. The cameras lined
up in a certain way, the exactness of his shots.
(25:17):
John wanted to improvise and John wanted to move around.
John felt it and Rama said no. And so I'm oversimplifying.
But over time, the tensions between the two different styles
of acting and directing, because we have two superb directors
with very very different ways of approaching something, that the
(25:39):
tension got more and more.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
John Cassavedas was not my best experience. I must say
he didn't feel comfortable sometimes in his role. I think
when actor has no problem with the part, he's happy
and he's kind to the crew, to the director, to
(26:03):
everybody around him. Even act as struggles, he becomes a
pain in the ass. Cassavettas was a pain from time
to time. I can't say that he was difficult constantly.
He had problems whenever you needed to dress him, for example,
dress him up and his role required that, you know,
(26:24):
he felt the best in the sneakers. You know, he
took off his snickers. He had problems with his acting.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Well, John wasn't our first choice. Robert Redford was Unfortunately,
my head of business affairs at Paramount served him with
papers of was seeing him. On the other hand, I
was trying to get him for the picture. He got
this motorcycle and never came back. But he was a
(26:57):
type that he wanted all our and uh, very straight type.
John Cassaveti's was not ordinary casting. For John was a
terribly talented man. Had his own interpretation of it. I
think he did a very good job on it. But
(27:18):
Roman he there's no honeymoon.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Well. I liked John, I knew him, and he was
not the favorite of the studio. I suggested him and
we hired him on my request. It's not like he
was thrown upon me. You know. I know that being
(27:43):
a director, he may have imagined differently certain scenes or
his character. But I'm a director too, and I acted
as well, and sometimes I acted for other directors. When
I do so, I forget my concept and let them
(28:04):
lead to me. And you know, I just have to serve,
so to speak.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
That must be the partition that's the back part of
the original ten was a dining and there's there's a
closet over here, and then there's a closet over here.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
I still didn't want to get naked, so they got
They tried to persuade me that I was you know,
I was this Catholic girl. I couldn't do that, you know.
And there were two naked sequences. There's one where Rosemary
is in her dream walking on a.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
Ship or something and sits down.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
And we actually did go out on a boat somewhere
near Catalina and shot that. But the girl walking away
from the camera actually isn't me. They found a girl
who was willing to do it.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
You'd better go down by lowly.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Walking away would have been okay, but the being tied
to a bed for days on end with no clothes on,
I just couldn't.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
I just couldn't. I couldn't do it. So she did
all that. Sydney Blacker was funny.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
He said it was a little awkward, he said, because
you know, he had to paint on her chest. And
he said, I just had to see it as if
I were painting on a canvas or you know, the
way you know a butcher carves meat. They don't think
of it as an animal. And he had some way
of dissociating himself from painting on a girl's chest. I
was actually also tied to the bed for some part
(29:22):
where you know, I see the Jacqueline Kennedy like person
coming and I kissed the Pope's ring and oh, actually
it's a funny story. A guy gets on top of
me with he has vertical contact lenses on and he's skinning.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
I mean, he's the devil.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
So he gets on me and he's grinding away and
I say something, you know, this isn't a dream, this
is really happening. Or I have several lines there while
he's grinding away on top of me. And at the
end of it all, he stands up and he puts
out his hand and he said, Missus Farrell, it was
a pleasure to work with you. This is a nice
(30:00):
actor man, you know, with these vertical lenses and her meaning,
I was lovely to work with you too, you know.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
But you mustn't show too much of those elements of
fantasy that she goes through in her dream. You know,
it has to feel like a dream, you know, it
has to be ambiguous or ambivalent rather. You know, you
just don't know whether it's for real or not. She
(30:31):
has a scratch on her body, but you don't know
who scratched her. You mustn't show it too well, and
the audience should not be able to analyze the details
of it. It has to be an impression. The important
thing is in the sound, you know, the sound as
in the dream. Some of her dreams are based on
(30:52):
what she hears vaguely through the wall where Mini is
screaming something on the other side, and she combines it
into a dream. So it should not be too much
in sync, and the lips sync should be a little
bit off.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
I told you another coward.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Then I told you it wouldn't be open mind. I
remember I was always thinking that if I do a dream,
it would be very silent, very quiet, because that's what
you really feel when you dreaming. It's never loud, you know,
And when people talk, it's a sort of this table
(31:34):
atmosphere and this sort of voice. And in fact comes
probably from the fact that in that sequence of sleep,
when you dream, you're totally paralyzed.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Roman was so young and so full of ideas and enthusiasm,
you know that he was on fire with making this
happen in the best possible way. So his imagination was
all all his artistic sensibilities were at the foe, and
it was fun to watch him and Bill Fraker, the cinematographer.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Bill Fraker was such a wonderful person, such a good
guy to have around, so gentle and so scared of
the studio because his experience was linked with the universal.
A universal in those times was like all studios out
(32:31):
at today. You just had to obey executives in charge
of various partsive production, read the notes and follow and
coming from that studio, he had this discipline and didn't
know that he can allow himself much more freedom. Every
(32:53):
cinematographer has his style, and his style was revealed in
this movie.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Actually, Bill Fraser, I had a feel debeous. You worked
with the director who knew he wanted. Bill Fraser was
usually better than most of the directors he worked with.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
It was probably the first film where he had this
total freedom and time to do what he wanted to do. Listen,
you tell him I won't take note and said, oh
here's your nail.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
And I knew Ruth Gordon before the movie for Mutual
Friends for maybe a year or two, so I couldn't
wait till she came and joined all this, all these guys.
But then what I didn't know she came. I thought she,
you know, she would play with me or something, because
you know, I was such a kid and all this
energy pent up to be indoors month after months, so
(33:48):
they gave me a ping pong table. I thought, great,
Ruth will play with me, you know, just clueless Ruth,
when she wasn't working, went into her little room and
called them huts, her hut on the soundstage, and she correctly,
you know, she didn't want to goof around. You know,
she approached the role in her own immaculate way, you know,
(34:10):
from her years of experience and roman so thoroughly enjoyed
everything she was doing, you know, her her drawl, her
lip talking. I don't know if it was written in
the script when she when I dropped the knife, which
was a feet in itself, to from a like oh God,
with raised hands to drop a knife so that it
goes blade into the ground and Ruth picks it up
(34:31):
and does that on the floor to because that's her floor.
You know, I don't I think she made that up.
But everything she did, you know, the way she ate
in our in our sequence of eating, you know, a
certain thing of turning the floor. She was just it
was so much fun to watch her. It was way
extreme because I wasn't playing it extreme like that, but
(34:55):
I think it was, you know, comic relief, but it
was also quite.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
It was also real in its way.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
You're up and around on my part. Yeah, the film
needed some humor, and Ruth Gordon and Patsy Kelly's supply it.
You know, he's seen they appear. There's you know, a
bit of humor in the film, like in life Patty Kelly.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
I think it's my favorite line in the movie is
that patt kel is saying, shut up with your own God,
it will kill your milk or no milk. I just
love that. I love the way she said it. I
love the line itself.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
For me, the right casting is always more important than
having the perfect actor. I think the greatest actor when
he's not cast right, it's a mistake. And I really
wanted those characters around Rosemary to be the way I
(35:48):
have seen them when I was working on the script.
So I made the drawings of each character and showed
it to the person who was in charge of casting
at the studio. In those times, they still had a
casting a director attached to the studio, and because they
(36:08):
had even actors on the contract in those times, and
they presented me photos of factors that would look more
or less like my drawings, and that's how we went
about it.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Sidney Blackmer was the kindest man you could ever meet,
and I remember him saying he had to do Hail Satan,
Hail Satan. Somebody on the set, and I think it
was Sydney said, no good will come of all this,
all this hail Satan business, and I fortunately I didn't.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
Have to say Hail Satan. I'd say, oh God, oh God.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
I asked a Catholic who not very much earlier had
wanted to become a nun, there was an ed genus
for me to some of that stuff.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
The devil part.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
I mean I thirteen years of Catholic education and a
very devout family. I mean, good Friday was on our
knees with the drape drawn and statues covered in my house.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
So this thing of the devil, you know, and also.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Especially I guess the end with everybody Hill Satan and
the birth of the Devil, and that's the way it's
kind of left. It was.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
It was unsettling when I read the book. What was
upsetting me that there was you know a real devil,
and it's somehow behind and you know, being philosophically a
realist and agnostic at that time, I would say it
(37:44):
bothered me. So I thought that I can get around
it by creating a film in which the idea of
devil could be conceived as Rosmari's folly. We never see
anything supernatural in it, and everything that occurred that has
(38:08):
any kind of supernatural look a cursin her dream us
in the book, by the way, and it could have
been all question of her paranoia, of her suspicions during
the pregnancy and postpartum.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Craze I felt in seeing the movie that it was
clear that it wasn't in her mind that we didn't
see the baby.
Speaker 4 (38:37):
We have her. He has his father's eyes, you know
that kind of thing. I think you.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Roman's choice probably was that they didn't have the kind
of tricks that they have now that where he could
create such a baby.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
Clearing by tomorrow night, or maybe.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
It was the wiser thing just not to show it
and imagine it. But it was great that you that
it isn't spelled out, that there's leeway to think, oh,
she having you know, some hallucinations.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
I thought that showing the baby would be a great mistake,
and did show me, and that there is a subliminal
moment when she remembers the eyes she saw in her dream.
I see. But other than that, the film that's totally realistic.
(39:35):
There's nothing supernatural in the film, and everything that occurred
could have happened in real life.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Really copal out your mind.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
Dick Silbert one day, he said, what are you going
to do about the editor, And he told me about
Samus Tine, who was finishing Mike Nichols The Girl to It.
Sam was not free enough because he was still finishing
Michael's film, so he suggested to share the credit with
(40:10):
one of his assistants. And that's how I started the
relationship with Samustin, who was the greatest editor I've ever
met and from whom I learned. If I ever learned anything,
I learned it from from from Sam. The first cut
(40:33):
after we finished the film was about four hours, and
we didn't know exactly how to deal with it all.
And I said to to to to some listen, you
do this first, because I wouldn't know, you know, from
from which end to to to approach that problem. And
(40:57):
that's what he did. He cut it down to about
two and a half hours, and then I started working
daily with him until we got the result that you now. No.
I tell you what Sam taught me was to be
really tough with myself that sometimes you have great scenes
(41:20):
of great shots which are in themselves phenomenal and could
be kept for the posterity, but they don't do much
for the film. See that the storyline or rhythm suffers
if you leave them in the movie. And my editing
(41:41):
improved from a film to film because and thanks to Samustine.
Even now, very often I think of him.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Germany first film, The Front Office, which was in New
York at the time, didn't worry release. He didn't have
to sell it. So I went to a friend of
mine who was president of Young rubricun it's a very
large advertising agency. I told him my problem, but I
(42:12):
can't release this picture because the whole advertising department doesn't
have to sell it. It Pictures Brilliant goes to see it.
He says, well, I'm going to give it to you straight.
It's not an easy picture to sell, and I'm not
(42:32):
going to take one dime from you to give you
a whole campaign on it. But if you buy, would
I give you? I want one hundred thousand dollars. I
walking the chairman of the board in Charles Pluton's office.
Just take a look at this, and you tell me
if you want to write a check for out one
(42:53):
thousand dollars. And I turned the board around and there
it is, and a carriage. As just pray for Rosary's baby,
that's all. And he looks at it and he becomes
so pale, but he's as white as these shoes that
(43:14):
are wearing. I have to pay him one hundreds of
thousand dollars or three words, that's right, And he did,
and Pray for Rosary's baby became the end of the year.
It made the picture. Without that pray for Rosie's baby
(43:35):
with a carriage, people would know what it is. And
they still didn't know, but they were intrigued. Its opened
the first weekend too. The because business paramound a dozen years.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
You know, you can't really judge anything you're in. But
I was stunned by what Roman had done. I mean,
I knew it would be great, but I couldn't. I
couldn't have imagined the LFE and how the shots really
looked and moving with the camera and everything. Yeah, I
thought it was wonderful.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
It was the beginning of a new genre. Oh the Exorcist, follow,
the omen follow. There are several films that rosaliees baby
he versionized. What they have today at this place is
to me very watered down, non human. It's a digital
(44:34):
there's one big machine. It's not people. That's why there's
nothing quite like it. I went to a screening of
it about nine months ago. It's scared of living shit
out of the people there.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
Yes, it's a horror movie, and maybe the theme isn't
so serious, but I think it's a great movie. And
I don't think I've done another, and I don't think
I ever got another role. I know I didn't get
another role as fine as that asked as much of me,
And I know I've never worked with a director that
was as precise with me. Because his almost silly little
(45:19):
cartoon saying go here and we do this, and we
do this media. How we worked so well together, how
I gleaned from that exactly what he wanted. You know,
we worked really well together and we never had to
talk about it. It was the happiest work experience, most
fulfilling that I've ever had.
Speaker 3 (45:38):
I was happy to do rosmus Baby. That was one
of the best moments of my personal and professional, of
course life. It was the discovery of the Hollywood film
industry for me and a lot of people around me,
particularly me a pharaoh. Both of us had this great
(46:02):
experience of doing first Hollywood movie together.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
There's no couldn't play nonsense, no machinery. It's the mind
and he knew how to manipulate the mind, and to
manipulate the mind on film and make it work is
(46:30):
one piece of art.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
M
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