Rosemary’s Baby is Almost Perfect, The Book is Still Better
By: Jason Almenas
Tags: Books, New York, Film, Rosemarys Baby, Horror

Rosemary’s Baby is near perfect cinema. As graceful a terror as Hollywood has ever seen, the story of Rosemary and her ill-gotten baby has captivated me my entire life.

In my early years, my fascination is with Mia Farrow’s performance as Rosemary. She has a soft-spoken allure that veils the fierce survivor she proves herself to be later on. She is earnest, which is disarming, so when Rosemary’s world begins to spiral out of control, I find myself spiraling with her.

Yet, Rosemary is not a defenseless damsel. She’s naturally curious and is perpetually pulling at loose ends of the conspiracy, forcing the aging cabal to adjust their plot every few scenes. Her sleuthing against the coven is one of the film’s greatest strengths.

As I get older, another aspect of the film connects with me; the framing of New York City. Call it a proximity infatuation, but I give extra points for movies set in my home town. I’ve crossed Black Bramford on the upper West Side countless times. I’ve stood where Terry lay dead, head split open. For me, the story is woven into the fabric of the city. I think of Rosemary when I cross Rockafeller Center during the holidays, remembering her early lunch with Hutch that never happened. I’ve heard the stories about the Pope’s visit to Yankees stadium in the sixties from my family. There is DNA in Rosemary’s Baby that makes it feel like it could have been a historic occurrence.

Because I’m making an effort to read more, I’ve recently finished the book by Ira Levin. To no one’s surprise but mine, it is even more gripping than the film. Levin is a concise writer, never bogging down in detail for too long. His description of New York is vibrant and better lived in than the film, and Rosemary and Guy are more realized as a couple. It’s no fault to the movie, but the book fully embraces what it merely touches on. There are story differences, too, like Rosemary spending a weekend at Hutch’s cabin. It adds context to her relationship with Guy but in no way should it be considered essential.

What draws me into the book is the level of context Levin is continuously revealing throughout. It borders on obsessive. In and around New York City, real-world locations and events place us unmistakably alongside its sidewalks in the sixties. There are references to The Russian Tea Room, a famous bar on 57th Street. William Buckley’s 1965 mayoral campaign, the newspaper strike of ’66, and countless other accessories that encapsulate the world Rosemary lives in. One of the more fascinating world-building aspects that Levin uses comes as the first act closes.

In the story, Rosemary’s due date is June 28, 1966, yet the baby is born a few days early. That date is only eluded to in the movie, but Roman is explicit about the birthdate in the book. The devil child is born on June 25, exactly half the length of the year as “you-know,” but that simple detail doesn’t do justice to the level of context at play. Levin wanted June 25 because of what it represented (though as far as I can tell, there is no prior relation to that date and the Devil); from there, he counted backward nine months, which places conception in October. With October circled, Levin needed a real-life world event he could tie to the consummation. What better than one of the holiest days of the year, when the Pope visited Yankee Stadium on October 5, 1965. The city was jubilant. What we have here is the Catholic church ostensibly presiding over the consummation of the antichrist.

One of the more intriguing moments comes the day Rosemary goes into labor. She visits Doctor Saperstein’s office. While in the waiting room, Rosemary picks up Time magazine with an evocative cover asking, “Is God Dead?” When I was younger, I assumed that the cover was fabricated for the film, an eerie detail to further torment Rosemary and the viewer. But of course, the issue is genuine. This Time magazine issue came out in April 1966, making it a perfectly timed, perfectly out-of-date publication you’d typically find at the doctor’s office.

Not all details from the book make it to the screen. Perhaps my favorite is when Hutch matches wits with Roman at Rosemary’s apartment. In both versions, there is backchat, though in the book, just as Hutch readies himself to leave, he observes two large black candles on Rosemary’s mantle. Hutch questions, and Rosemary explains that ‘during the power outage,’ the Castavets brought them candles. There isn’t much more to go on, but if you know a little bit of history (or have Google), you’d know that on November 9, 1965, the Northeastern power outage left thirty million people without electricity for thirteen hours. If we already know Rosemary became pregnant in October and is supposed to meet Hutch close to the holidays, that lines up the fictional outage with our real-world one, perfectly.

The most interesting question of any story for me is whether or not it could happen in real life. Ira Levin, and then Roman Polanski after him weaved a remarkable tale that, besides invoking Satan, is still grounded in the real world we live in now. A world where our very tenants could be devil-worshippers baby thieves. The story, of course, hit a nerve with the broader population. Over the decades, Rosemary’s story has been repackaged a million times over in pop culture. We’ve seen reimaginings like The Astronauts Wife, and most recently, a mini-series remake starring Zoe Saldana. It seems, perhaps, I’m not alone in being captivated by the world of Rosemary and all of them witches.