ROSEMARY'S BABY, the novel(s), the film, (now) the miniseries

Without doubt, the crowning achievement of a 15-year online Scrabble addiction (you'll have to scan the board):

http://phildellio.tripod.com/ectopic.jpg

This Is No Dream: Making Rosemary's Baby wasn't what I really expected. The text basically stops halfway through, and most of the rest of the book consists of Bob Willoughby's on-set photos. It's a coffee-table book as much as a making-of account. Many of the photos are great, though, so if you're able to get hold of a library copy like I was--I certainly wouldn't pay the $40+ it would cost you on Amazon--it's worth the time. The making-of part is pretty straightforward, with at least one great story. The script originally had a scene where Rosemary and her friend actually go to see The Fantasticks. They wrote Joan Crawford and Van Johnson, part of the production, into the scene. (Bad idea.) But when Polanski heard, or was told, something Johnson said about him--"Who's that, Pinocchio?"--he scrapped the scene.

Discovered the TV remake on Tubi, giving it a go...The first 90 minutes is pointless but passable (reverse that if you want), until they get to the impregnation scene--terrible.

Next to zero discussion of the sequel itt, shameful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9_MqhkRPr8

I've seen it! Possibly even when it first aired.

I could be wrong, but I thought there was a subtle Rosemary's Baby allusion in The Night House (which is good most of the way, then gets a little too lofty/metaphysical near the end).

I'm reading Michael Newton's BFI book that came out a couple of years ago, which I didn't know anything about till a friend gave it to me for Christmas this year. So I'm going to throw on the Criterion DVD to bring in the new year. To 2023--the Year One!

i was once chatting to a photographer very active on the same beat as me in the 80s (jazz and african music) and he spoke knowledgeably at length about the story being ENTIRELY BASED ON FACT and was in fact made as an attempt to get an important truth out into the world (possibly about the pope? this guy was something of a hippie-era conspiracy theorist and you never knew where a conversation would take you before you successfully edged away: in another he lovingly described the number of turds the queen received every week in the mail) (not sure how he knew this unless he was also posting them…)

tbf he was a nice enough guy personally and professionally an excellent photographer

and was in fact made as an attempt to get an important truth out into the world

All of them witches--it's a fact.

The book was okay. I read the coffee-table book mentioned above a few years ago, also Ed Sanders' Sharon Tate biography, so most of the background here I knew. The analysis was all over the place. He draws an interesting connection--never thought of it before, thought it seems obvious--between the baby and Kubrick's star-child. One new thing to me was that that's Mia Farrow herself singing the lullaby.