Of New York History and New Hollywood Horror...

EDWARD CLARK'S "FOLLY"

The address, One West 72nd Street, may not register with many who live outside the city of New York, but the name of the building at the corner of 72nd Street and Central Park West is more familiar.  The Dakota, a famed luxury co-op on the Upper West Side, has been home to many high profile luminaries, served as the setting for one of Roman Polanski's best known films, and was the site of an infamous murder in 1980.


Posh apartment houses designed expressly for the well-heeled were rare in New York in 1880, when construction of the Dakota began. Apartment housing at that time and place was mainly associated with tenements and lower class living, but in the late 1860s the Stuyvesant building opened. It attracted the reasonably well-to-do in droves and soon more such residences were in the works.

The Dakota by Richard Britell

The lot on which the Dakota would stand was in an area that was then largely undeveloped - both far north and west of what was considered the city's boundaries. And though the building would face Central Park, that region of the park had yet to be landscaped or developed. In fact, the street that was to become Central Park West was still but a dirt road. Astonishingly, all 65 of the Dakota's 4- to 20-room apartments were rented by the time its doors opened in late 1884; from that day until the stock market crash of 1929, there was not even one vacancy in the building.

Dakota railing detail

Edward Clark, an attorney who made a great fortune as partner to Isaac M. Singer in the Singer Sewing Machine Company, conceived and built the Dakota. He hired architect Henry Hardenburgh (the Waldorf-Astoria, the Plaza Hotel), then early in his career at age 32, to design the building. The project would establish Hardenburgh's reputation. Massive and extravagant, the Dakota's exterior was an eclectic interpretation of German Renaissance style while the interior reflected French architectural influences then popular in New York. In his 1970 illustrated novel Time and Again, Jack Finney wrote of the Dakota's "pale yellow brick handsomely trimmed in chocolate-colored stone," of its roof "like a miniature town...of gables, turrets, pyramids, towers, peaks" shingled in copper-trimmed slate and "peppered with uncountable windows, dormer and flush, square, round, and rectangular." Sadly, Edward Clark would not live to see the completion of the Dakota and his own sumptuous apartment in the building would be bestowed upon his 12-year-old grandson and heir.

Leonard Bernstein's piano in his Dakota apartment

Robert Ryan in his home at the Dakota (later
purchased by John Lennon and Yoko Ono)

Once the Great Depression took hold following the market crash, several of the Dakota's large apartments were broken up into smaller ones and years later, in 1961, the building became a co-operative.  Over its long history, the residence served as home to many notables of  stage, screen and other lively and literary arts. The first actor to move into the Dakota came in the late '30s; he was William Henry Pratt, better known as Boris Karloff. Others would include Lillian Gish, Judy Garland, Lauren Bacall (with and without Jason Robards, Jr.), Judy Holliday, Jose Ferrer and Rosemary Clooney, Teresa Wright, Robert Ryan, Zero Mostel, Jack Palance, Gwen Verdon, Zachary Scott and Patrick O'Neal. Composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein lived at the Dakota, as did dancer Rudolf Nureyev, playwright William Inge, director John Frankenheimer, Warner Bros. exec Ted Ashley, CBS News legend Edward R. Murrow, singer Roberta Flack, feminist/writer Betty Friedan and interior decorator Syrie Maugham, one-time wife of author W. Somerset. John Lennon, founding member of the Beatles and beloved cultural icon, is perhaps the most widely known of all the Dakota's famed residents.

John and Sean Lennon in their Dakota kitchen

As with many structures of gothic appearance, the Dakota weathered rumors of supernatural incidents and ghost stories. Movie critic and Dakota resident Rex Reed recalled that a doorman warned him early on to expect to see Boris Karloff's ghost. Strange and unexplained events were witnessed below ground, in the basement and, for a brief period, a so-called "Phantom of the Dakota" vandalized the building and spooked its inhabitants. But it was only with the release of Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby (1968), set and partially shot at the Dakota, that the building's reputation for quirkiness and opulence took on a decidedly dark facet. With the deadly 1980 shooting of John Lennon at the building's front gate, the incomprehensible and horrifying became real.

Long-time Dakota resident Lauren Bacall at home in 2011

ROSEMARY'S BABY

 

When Roman Polanski walked into the office of newly appointed Paramount Pictures production head Bob Evans for the first time in 1967, he thought he was there to discuss directing Downhill Racer, the project Evans touted when he asked for the meeting. Instead, Evans quickly admitted that, knowing Polanski loved to ski, he'd used the project, the story of a U.S. Olympic team skier, as a lure. What Evans really wanted to talk with Polanski about was directing a film adaptation of Ira Levin's soon-to-be-published horror thriller, Rosemary's Baby. Evans gave him the printer's galley proofs to take home and look over. In a sitting, Polanski read through Levin's chilling tale of a contemporary Manhattan couple who move into a fabled apartment building - with terrifying consequences. He quickly agreed to direct.

Bob Evans and Roman Polanski

Why was Evans intent upon hiring Polanski to direct Rosemary's Baby? William Castle, producer/director of low-budget horror movies, had optioned the screen rights for the book. Castle, who had an exclusive contract with the studio, hoped to direct the film himself. But Evans wasn't interested in making the grade "B" genre fare Castle turned out, pictures like The Tingler (1959), 13 Ghosts (1960) and Strait-Jacket (1964). Evans, destined to become a legendary figure in the New Hollywood era, saw Rosemary's Baby as a director's film and his interest was piqued by the Polish director of what he called "three really offbeat thrillers," Knife in the Water (1962), Repulsion (1965) and Cul-de-sac (1966). Knife in the Water, a taut psychological drama that marked Polanski's feature film debut, brought an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film and international acclaim. Repulsion starred Catherine Deneuve and Cul-de-sac starred her sister, Francoise Dorleac; both were moody, surreal films that won international awards. Evans believed Polanski's iconoclastic vision might conjure something special and unusual out of Levin's sly, dark fiction and was able to convince Castle to confine himself to the role of producer. Polanski thought Levin's book a "well-constructed thriller," cinematic in nature, and immediately began work on the script, writing from dawn to dark for days on end.

Ira Levin

In the meantime, Rosemary's Baby was published and became a #1 best-seller. The National Observer called the book "the best chiller to come down the gooseflesh trail in many a moonless night." Even the New York Times review was a rave and anticipation for the film adaptation ran high.

Tuesday Weld and Robert Redford

Polanski originally planned to cast the lead roles with actors who possessed the All-American good looks and energy depicted in Levin's book, and favored Tuesday Weld for Rosemary and Robert Redford as her husband, Guy. When Bob Evans suggested Mia Farrow, the director at first thought her too waif-like and ethereal for the title role. But after meeting and discussing the role with her he hired her without so much as a screen test. Robert Redford became unavailable and Warren Beatty turned down the role of Guy, so Polanski turned to John Cassavetes, an intense, charismatic actor who was also making a name for himself as an independent filmmaker. The hand-picked supporting cast included Hollywood troupers Ralph Bellamy, Patsy Kelly and Elisha Cook, Jr., as well as stage and screen veterans Maurice Evans, Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon. Uncredited in the role Polanski characterized as "the real star of the picture,"  the Bramford apartment building, was the Dakota. Exteriors were shot on-site and Richard Sylbert, Polanski's production designer, scrupulously recreated the Dakota's interiors (off-limits to movie-makers) in Hollywood. Rosemary's Baby would begin and end with aerial views of the imposing structure.

"Bramford"/Dakota interior sketch by Richard Sylbert

Production was underway for only a week when Charles Bluhdorn, Paramount's new owner, began to have second thoughts about Polanski, whose focus on artistic values and fine details he viewed as unreasonable perfectionism. One day while on the studio lot Polanski ran into filmmaking legend Otto Preminger. Dejected, he told the older director there was talk he was going to be replaced on Rosemary's Baby. Preminger asked if the studio was happy with the rushes and when Polanski told him it was, he said: "Roman, remember this: You can go over budget as much as you like, provided the rushes are good. They only replace a director when the dailies are lousy." What Bob Evans saw in Polanski's dailies was an "ominous sense of fright" - and it thrilled him; he told Paramount, "If he goes, I go." Both stayed.

Mia Farrow and Roman Polanski on the set

Polanski was determined to recreate the exact time frame in which the story was set, mid-1965 to mid-1966, just two years before the film was made. Trends had shifted in that brief period; by 1968 styles had begun to swing from the influence of all-things-English ushered in with "the British Invasion" to a more bohemian sensibility reflecting the "flower power"/"hippie" phenomenon. His insistence on authentic detail drove costume designer Anthea Sylbert's meticulous replication of mid-'60s fashion. She captured the look of the moment with Rosemary's Mod-era shifts, mini-dresses and attire like a red chiffon pants suit to be worn on a romantic evening at home. Other time-specific touches include Rosemary's decision to have her pageboy tresses snipped into a short Vidal Sassoon cut, Rosemary relaxing on the sofa with Sammy Davis, Jr.'s book Yes, I Can (a 1965 best-seller), a glimpse on TV of the Pope's October 1965 visit to New York, and Time magazine's famous "Is God Dead?" issue (April 8, 1966) conspicuous among the reading material in her doctor's waiting room.

Costumes by Anthea Sylbert

Polanski later said the story line of Rosemary's Baby had posed one problem for him, it conflicted with his own worldview. He didn't believe in Satan. So he decided, "for credibility's sake," to add an element of ambiguity suggesting the possibility that Rosemary's imagination was the source of her fears. With careful camera placement and the use of special lenses, Polanski presented the story through Rosemary's eyes. Drawn into Rosemary's point of view, the audience easily relates to her confusion, feelings of vulnerability and increasing fright. Like Rosemary, the viewer is aware of lurking danger but wavers between believing what she begins to suspect is happening or accepting the rational explanations offered by others.

Mia Farrow and Ralph Bellamy (Dr. Saperstein)

While Rosemary remains constant as a naive and mostly defenseless young wife, those who inhabit her shrinking world are more enigmatic - from her ambitious actor husband and intrusive neighbors to her wise and kindly old doctor. Ironically, some of the characters who are revealed to be most wicked are also the most comically grotesque. In keeping with Polanski's brand of humor, the film is laced with darkly comic moments:

• Rosemary and Guy dine at the home of her friend Hutch (Maurice Evans). As Hutch carves a lamb at table, he relates the ghoulish history of the Bramford - which included a pair of sisters who, it was later charged, devoured children...

Rosemary and Guy meet The Castavets

• The aftermath of a shocking suicide introduces the Castevets, Minnie (Ruth Gordon) and Roman (Sidney Blackmer), a pair of elderly oddballs who arrive on scene decked out as if fresh from the vaudeville stage.

• Rosemary sees her baby for the first time and, uncomprehending, shrieks, "What have you done to its eyes?" Roman Castevet crows happily, "He has his father's eyes!"

Without resorting to genre gimmickry, Polanski crafted a tight, stylish psychological thriller. And a blockbuster. The last auteur-directed shocker to create such a box office sensation had been Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho in 1960. Rosemary's Baby's success would go on to inspire the wave of lavish A-budget horror films to come, notably William Friedkin's The Exorcist (1973) and Richard Donner's The Omen (1976). It would bring an Academy Award to Ruth Gordon for her supporting performance and a nomination to Roman Polanski for his adapted screenplay.

Considered a genre-transcending classic today, Rosemary's Baby remains a landmark of modern horror, as capable of jangling nerves and inducing chills as it was in its infancy 45 years ago.

 

Rosemary's Baby is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from the Criterion Collection. This special edition contains many extras, including: a documentary featuring Polanski, Mia Farrow and Bob Evans; an interview with Ira Levin; a documentary on the life and work of composer Krzysztof Komeda (who died 10 months after the film was released) and other special features.

~

Notes:
Life at the Dakota by Stephen Birmingham, Syracuse University Press (1979/1996)
Roman by Polanksi, William Morrow & Co. (1984)
The Kid Stays in the Picture by Robert Evans, Hyperion (1994)

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Backstage Moments...

Allan 'Whitey' Snyder and Marilyn Monroe on The Seven Year Itch

I routinely scour the Internet for pictures to go along with my my blog posts here and, in the process, I've come upon many interesting photos that I haven't used. I thought it might be fun to post a few of those taken on movie sets along with a little bit of movie lore (and other "extras").

Wilder, Marilyn & a $4.6 mil. dress

Above, Marilyn Monroe's makeup artist, Allan 'Whitey' Snyder, prepares her for a famous scene in The Seven Year Itch (1955). Marilyn was basking in the early glow of international fame when she began work on the Billy Wilder comedy in 1954. Her popularity had been firmly established with her co-starring turns in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and How to Marry a Millionaire (1954) and, at the time she started on her first film with Wilder, she was newly married to baseball superstar Joe DiMaggio. Legend has it that Joe stood on the sidelines watching as Wilder shot - and re-shot - takes of Marilyn's famous subway grate scene. Filming took place on the streets of New York and a crowd had gathered to watch. The slugger reportedly stormed off the set, incensed by the cheers and whistles of onlookers that erupted each time Marilyn's skirt blew skyward.

Audrey Hepburn, Blake Edwards's back and George Peppard

Monroe's marriage to DiMaggio failed in nine months, but her star continued to rise with films like Josh Logan's critically acclaimed Bus Stop (1956) and Billy Wilder's über-classic Some Like it Hot (1959). In 1961, Blake Edwards took on the film adaptation of Truman Capote's novella, Breakfast at Tiffany's. The novelist wanted Marilyn Monroe to be cast as Holly Golightly, the heroine of his tale. But Monroe balked, she worried that the role of a freewheeling party girl might have a negative impact on her career.

Audrey taking guitar lessons on the set

Enter Audrey Hepburn, Oscar-winning star of Roman Holiday (1950) who took the part of Holly Golightly and went on to make it one of her signature roles. The film provided what has become the iconic vision of Audrey Hepburn - upswept 'do, Givenchy gowns, waif-in-Manhattan persona - with or without sunglasses. The film co-starred newcomer George Peppard as Holly's love interest - but many were considered for the part. It has been said that Steve McQueen was up for the role...to quote Holly, "the mind reels."

Breakfast at Tiffany's won Oscars for its score and theme song, "Moon River," a Henry Mancini/Johnny Mercer tune.

Tony Curtis, Mia Farrow, Roman Polanski

Polish auteur Roman Polanski was known mostly to fans of foreign film and art house patrons before he began making films in the U.S. in 1968. His first full-length feature, Knife in the Water (1962) was Oscar-nominated for Best Foreign Film and by year's end Polanski was on the cover of Time magazine. His next masterwork, Repulsion (1965), starred 21-year-old Catherine Deneuve. It was illustrious and infamous producer Robert Evans, head of Paramount at the time, who lured Polanski to Hollywood. Their first effort was the trend-setting horror sensation, Rosemary's Baby (1968).  But the film featured no big names in its cast. Mia Farrow (Rosemary) was known only for her role on the prime-time TV soap Peyton Place and as Frank Sinatra's much younger wife. Her co-star, John Cassavetes (Guy, Rosemary's husband) had starred on a TV detective series (Johnny Staccato), been a featured player in several films and was early in his own career as an auteur director. But neither was a star. The many old-timers in supporting roles (Ralph Bellamy, Patsy Kelly, Sidney Blackmer, Maurice Evans, Elisha Cook Jr.) were far past their prime. The biggest Hollywood name attached to the picture did not appear onscreen or receive a credit...he was a top star from the 1950s through the mid-'60s: Tony Curtis. In Rosemary's Baby he provided the voice of an off-camera character named Donald Baumgart, an actor whose sudden blindness is key in advancing Guy's career. Curtis's voice is heard in the scene in which Rosemary calls to ask about the circumstances surrounding his loss of sight. Farrow apparently didn't know it was Curtis, but his voice sounded familiar and this disconcerted her as she played the scene. It seems that was the effect Polanski was hoping for.

Katharine Hepburn, Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in Africa

John Huston's The African Queen (1951) is legendary for many reasons. It was the film for which Humphrey Bogart won his only Best Actor Oscar. It is the one and only teaming of Bogart with co-star Katharine Hepburn, a memorable pairing. The film was shot on location in Africa at a time when such location shoots were relatively rare. The production itself became famous and notorious for what went on off-camera. Clint Eastwood's 1990 White Hunter, Black Heart was a veiled account by writer Peter Viertel (Deborah Kerr's husband) of his experience with Huston and company on that set decades earlier. Even Katharine Hepburn chimed in with her own account - in book form: The Making of the African Queen: Or, How I Went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind.

William Wyler and Bette Davis in deep discussion on The Letter

Bette Davis proclaimed loud and 'til the end of her days that William Wyler was her favorite among the directors she'd worked with and the one she respected most...and...the man that got away. The two made three films together, beginning with Jezebel (1938). They'd had a less than meet-cute introduction years earlier when neither was well-known. But by 1938 each was on their way up and with Jezebel they meshed perfectly. Onscreen and off; it was during the making of Jezebel that the two were romantically involved. Their second collaboration was The Letter (1940), an adaptation of Somerset Maugham's play. I think it's the best of their three together (the third was The Little Foxes in 1941) and one of Davis's very best films.

Kim Novak takes direction from Hitchcock on Vertigo

In 1958, Alfred Hitchcock created what has been called his most personal film, Vertigo. It is certainly my favorite among his long list of brilliant, hypnotic films. Though not a critical or popular success in its day, Vertigo persevered and is now viewed by most as the director's masterpiece of masterpieces.

At the time, Hitchcock was grooming Vera Miles as a possible replacement for his muse, Grace Kelly, who had decamped to become Princess Grace of Monaco. But Miles was pregnant by the time Vertigo was ready go into production...and Hitchcock moved on to Kim Novak. Vertigo is the film for which Novak is best known and remembered. Her only regret? That she didn't ask for (as was often customary) the stunning Edith Head-designed white coat she wore in several key scenes...

For more on the set moments click here...

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Location, Location, Location: Catalina Island

Norma Shearer, Paulette Goddard and Charlie Chaplin off Catalina, 1934

A Film Location and Celebrity Haunt Since the Early 20th Century

Santa Catalina, one of California's Channel Islands, is just 26 miles SSW of Los Angeles. Once called Pimu, it's been inhabited for more than 7,000 years and has weathered the Spanish conquest, an influx of otter hunters and infestation by smugglers over its long history. It is best known today as a playground for those with money and celebrity and was once a popular location for filming Hollywood movies.

22 miles from shore to isle

Back in 1891, Catalina was purchased by the Banning brothers who planned to develop the island as a resort. Avalon Harbor was their primary focus, but roads and hunting lodges were also built in the interior. A devastating fire and World War I eventually forced the Bannings to sell off the property. In 1919, William Wrigley, Jr., founder of the chewing gum company and owner of the Chicago Cubs, bought controlling interest in the island. He soon set about building a dance hall on Sugarloaf Point - the Sugarloaf Casino.

Not long after, in 1920, Al Jolson recorded "Avalon" and popularized the song about Catalina's resort town:

"Avalon" sheet music

I found my love in Avalon
Beside the bay.
I left my love in Avalon
and sail'd away.
I dream of her and Avalon
from dusk 'til dawn.
And so I think I'll travel on
to Avalon.

As it turned out, the song's tune was similar enough to an aria from Puccini's Tosca (1900) that the composer's music publisher filed and won a plagiarism lawsuit.

The Ten Commandments (1923)

From Hollywood's earliest days, Santa Catalina Island provided a shooting location for film crews. D.W. Griffith was one of the first to use the island for this purpose with Man's Genesis in 1912. Other filmmakers followed suit. Classic silents with a Catalina backdrop include Fox's Treasure Island (1918), directed by Sidney Franklin, DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1923) for Paramount, and Ben-Hur (1925), directed by Fred Niblo for MGM. The island portrayed locales as exotic as North Africa and Tahiti and three diverse island areas were most often used for filming - Avalon, Little Harbor and the Isthmus - which eventually became known as "the Movie Colony Isthmus." Some of Catalina's palm trees were originally planted by film companies, and the island's buffalo herd was the result of a movie production. Legend has it that the animals were imported for Famous Player-Lasky's Richard Dix vehicle, The Vanishing American (1925). Though this is unproven, it is true that the picture was filmed on the island at the same time the creatures first appeared.

The  Casino's Avalon Ballroom opened in May 1929

Throughout the 1920s the island grew more popular as a resort destination and William Wrigley decided to raze Sugarloaf Casino to make room for a newer, larger structure. Construction on the Catalina Casino, a ballroom and theater, began in 1928. Architects Sumner A. Spaulding and William Webber created a design described variously as Moorish Alhambra and Mediterranean Revival. Fixtures and furnishings and art were designed in the Art Deco style. John Gabriel Beckman, known for his work on Mann's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, designed the murals.

The new ballroom opened in May 1929 with the Maurice Menge band providing dance music for 2,500 couples. The theater opened with The Iron Mask (1929), a silent film starring Douglas Fairbanks enhanced by the musical accompaniment of the theater's organ, the largest Page organ in the world. Click here to visit the interior of the Casino theater and ballroom and hear "Avalon" played on the Page organ.

The Avalon Theatre

In 1929 sound permanently took hold in motion pictures. One early talkie filmed on Catalina was Sam Goldwyn's Condemned (1929) starring Ronald Colman and Ann Harding. Critic Mordaunt Hall, writing for the New York Times in November 1929, referred to it as an 'audible film.' In Condemned, Catalina provided the French penal island locale.

The island went on to appear in several classics of the 1930s: The Island of Lost Souls (1932), Rain (1932), Victor Fleming's version of Treasure Island (1934), Captain Blood (1935), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and Captains Courageous (1937).

Errol Flynn on the Sirocco just off the island

Filming on the island introduced movie casts and crews to the pleasures of Catalina, and those who could afford it sailed and vacationed there. Some of the biggest names in movies spent time on and around the island...Chaplin and Paulette Goddard (pictured above on Joe Schenck's yacht) reportedly enjoyed fishing for marlin in the nearby waters. And Errol Flynn, a devoted sailor and carouser, ended up on trial following one of his many sojourns to the island.

Beginning in 1934, the Casino Ballroom hosted legendary big bands that were broadcast nationwide as they played live. Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Harry James, the Dorseys, Woody Herman and other top bands played to ballroom crowds that, over 28 years, averaged 4,000 per night. A record crowd turned out 6,200 strong for Kay Kyser and his band in 1938. The Avalon Ballroom's live big band broadcasts lasted far into the 1950s.

In the mid-'30s MGM produced this 19-minute musical revue featuring Buddy Rogers and his band (the California Cavaliers), Chester Morris, Leon Errol and others. Filmed in beautiful 3-strip Technicolor, the short includes cameo appearances by Cary Grant, Errol Flynn, Mickey Rooney, Virginia Bruce, Lee Tracy, Randolph Scott, Marion Davies and Lili Damita. Avalon provides the sea- and sun-kissed setting.

Jaws 1975

When the United States entered World War II, the island was closed to tourism and decreed off-limits to film production for the duration. Following the war, domestic and international air travel boomed and studios began shooting on location in Africa, the South Pacific and around the world. This didn't end Catalina's life as a location site, however. The island and its surrounding waters have been featured many times since in films like Around the World in 80 Days (1956), The Glass Bottom Boat (1966), Rosemary's Baby (1968), Chinatown (1974), Jaws (1975), Dick Tracy (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Apollo 13 (1995), and The Thin Red Line (1998). Beginning with the silent era, Catalina has appeared in more than 200 films. Of course, the island has been featured on TV many times, too...

Bacall and Bogart offshore

Once World War II ended, movie folk returned to the island. Bogart, Bacall and friends sailed often to and from Catalina on his beloved Santana. Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher spent part of their honeymoon on Catalina. Marlon Brando rented a house on the island while Morituri (1965) was shooting offshore. In 1972, Liza Minnelli threw a party in Avalon to celebrate her Oscar win for Cabaret. Celebrity couples from Warren Beatty and Julie Christie (dancing at the Chi Chi Club back in the day) to Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw to Barbra Streisand and James Brolin have been spotted on Catalina over the years.

On a sadder note, Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner were spending Thanksgiving weekend 1981 in the area on their yacht, the Splendour, and it was in the waters off Catalina that she drowned.

During William Wrigley's ownership of the Chicago Cubs, the team's spring training was held on the island - a tradition that went on for 30 years. But in addition to developing and making use of the island, Wrigley wanted to preserve it. In 1972, P.K. Wrigley fulfilled his late father's wishes when he established the Catalina Island Conservancy and transferred family ownership to it. Ever since, most of the island has been held in trust by the Conservancy...and buffalo still roam in the uplands (click here to watch them roam), schools of Garibaldi fish still swim in the coastal waters, gray whales continue to pass by during their annual migration and dolphins are often sighted not far from shore.

Avalon Harbor

Catalina Casino entrance

Casino entrance detail

Condemned 1929

Captain Blood 1935

Mutiny on the Bounty 1935

Rosemary's Baby 1968

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ROSEMARY'S BABY...Roman Polanski's Horror Classic

A landmark film of the horror genre, Rosemary's Baby (1968) also marked Roman Polanski's directorial debut in the US. The film, a runaway hit on release, was the prototype that inspired the onslaught of big-budget "A" horror films that followed: The Exorcist, The Omen, etc.

In the tradition of Hitchcock, Polanski achieves his effects with little explicit violence but with maximum finesse. Like Hitchcock, Polanski assiduously maneuvers the emotions of his audience. Drawn into Rosemary's point of view and her growing alarm, the viewer becomes ever more aware that something is amiss but, like Rosemary, doesn't grasp exactly what has happened until the final scenes.

This suspense is propelled by a careful ambiguity that implies Rosemary's terror may have a rational explanation (women do have difficult pregnancies), that her fears may be her own paranoia (though related to an infamous Satanist, her neighbors could just be a pair of elderly oddballs). On the other hand, the movement of plot and action make it difficult for the viewer to simply write off Rosemary's anguish. Equally ambiguous throughout much of the film are the majority of the characters. While Rosemary remains constant as the innocent young wife, those around her are more enigmatic - from her ambitious actor husband and her intrusive neighbors to her wise and kindly old doctor. Ironically, several of the most villainous characters are also the most comically eccentric.

The clever intermingling of suspense with humor is one of the film's distinctive qualities. A few unforgettable scenes: Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and her husband Guy (John Cassavetes) are dining with her friend Hutch (Maurice Evans) who describes the Bramford building's ghoulish history (including a pair of sisters who devoured children) as he carves lamb at table...a shocking suicide scene in front of the Bramford simultaneously introduces the Castevets: Minnie (Ruth Gordon), dressed and made up in the manner of a Christmas tree, and Roman (Sidney Blackmer), clad as though vaudeville was alive and well...and finally, when Rosemary sees her baby for the first time she, uncomprehending, shrieks, "What have you done to its eyes?" Roman Castevet responds, "He has his father's eyes"...

Another of the film's delights is its painstaking recreation of the specific time in which it was set, late 1965 to mid-1966. Costume designer Anthea Sylbert captured that timeframe's contemporary look with Rosemary's short shift dresses (some with peter pan collars), a long and luxurious plaid skirt, red chiffon lounging pajamas. Rosemary has her blunt-cut pageboy snipped short by Vidal Sassoon, she relaxes at home reading Sammy Davis, Jr.'s book Yes, I Can, the Pope's visit to New York is glimpsed on TV, and Time Magazine's famous "Is God Dead?" cover is shown on a waiting room table.

The Dakota

The hand-picked supporting cast includes especially solid performances by Patsy Kelly and Ralph Bellamy. Uncredited but in an acknowledged key role is The Dakota, a famed gothic confection at 72nd and Central Park West. The Dakota starred as the Bramford, and exteriors were shot there. Because filming was not allowed inside, its interiors were recreated at Paramount. Significantly, the film begins and ends with aerial views of the building.

In Rosemary's Baby, Roman Polanski combined the trademark elements of his style - atmospheric location, psychological distress, irony, dark humor, an endangered and isolated protagonist – with his penchant for craftsmanship and the high gloss afforded by Hollywood to create a classic that has developed a legend all its own over the years...

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