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| RETURNING AS PART OF OUR NYC NOIR SERIES FRIDAY & SATURDAY, AUGUST 10 & 11, 2007 |
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(1968) Despite their fab new Upper West Side apartment in the venerable
Dakota (doubling for the infamously storied “BramfordÓ), complete
with eerily avuncular neighbors Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon (the
latter in an Oscar-winning performance by turns hilarious and chilling),
nice kid Mia Farrow’s career-obsessed actor husband John Cassavetes
is still looking for that big break. But then a Broadway lead looms
when the star mysteriously goes blind, and Farrow gets in the family
way after an evening of wild love-making – but wait...was that
hubby, or some sort of horned beast? Suddenly every harried mom-to-be’s
nightmare seems true, with Farrow getting no help even from her obstetricians,
30s fifth-wheel legend Ralph Bellamy (here beardedly creepy) and weasly
Charles Grodin. Horror-gimmick-meister William Castle (The
Tingler, Homicidal, Macabre) took his one shot at bigtime producing
when he bought Ira Levin’s bestseller, then only got to kibbitz
when Paramount studio chief Bob (The Kid Stays in the Picture)
Evans handed the directorial reins to Polish wunderkind Roman Polanski,
bringing his penchant for no-exit situations and crumbling sanity amid
banal settings (Knife in the Water, Cul-de-Sac, Repulsion) to
mainstream, big-budget horror, and garnering umpteen awards and huge
box-office. Revitalizing and legitimizing a once-B-grade genre, Rosemary
paved the way for future blockbusters like The Exorcist, Jaws
and Alien. “Freaky-scary!...Skin-crawling but sophisticated
and funny!” - Pauline Kael Click here to read Karen Durbin's column |
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