'Rosemary's Baby' Was Rated C For Condemned By The Catholic Church

[Mysterious Benefactor]

'Rosemary's Baby' Was Rated C For Condemned By The Catholic Church

Is anyone the least bit surprised by that? However, I doubt a C rating kept very many Catholics away from seeing C rated movies because most turned out to be big hits. But then, a C rating probably made more Catholics go to see them just to see what the objections were all about...

hoDS was rated C as well. I never saw what they rated NoDS - but considering it contained adultery and possible witchcraft, C also seems quite likely...

[Bob_the_Bartender]

Ah, yes, the halcyon days of The National Legion of Decency! I remember the league’s list appeared in our archdiocese’s monthly newspaper, “The Advocate.” And, of course, the absolutely first thing my friends and I checked out was the league’s list of “morally-objectionable,” and, most importantly, the dreaded (but, highly anticipated) “Condemned!” films. 

I didn’t know that “Rosemary’s Baby” had been condemned by the legion. Mia Farrow has related in an interview, that that was her, appearing topless in that dream sequence onboard the boat, which looked like a Kennedy family get-together in Hyannis Port. Although, Ms. Farrow, having been raised in a devout
Roman Catholic family, declined to appear fully nude in that scene where she “meets” Satan or possibly Diabolos. 

Another film condemned by the legion in 1968 was  “Barbarella,” starring a very comely Jane Fonda. And, as DS fans were really bummed out if they missed the first few minutes of a DS episode, you certainly did not want to miss the opening scene in “Barbarella.” 

Other films condemned by the legion, included “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice,” “The Last Picture Show,” “Carrie” and even “The Producers.” (Go figure?) 

Yes, I for one, greatly miss The National League of Decency to provide me with a moral compass to select my film viewing. (I wonder what the venerable National League of Decency would have thought of “The Sopranos,” “Californication” and Dark Shadows’ own David Selby in “Tell Me You Love Me”? 

[Uncle Roger]

I got into a fair amount of trouble over Rosemary's Baby. I had read a review of it somewhere that I thought made it sound like Bewitched. Which it definitely is not. I read it, thought that Rosemary was an idiot and moved onto something else.
That should have been that. And it was until my mother's girlfriend went to see the movie at the local drive in. She described the movie in graphic detail and gave my mom the basic You let your son read that kind of trash lecture. This lit a fire in my mom and she demanded to see THAT book. I lied and said that I didn't have it anymore. The crisis blew over shortly. But this was not the first or the last time her buttinsky girlfriend stuck her nose into something that was none of her business.

Of course no one called her out for taking her kids, who were 8 and 11, to see the movie at the drive in.

[Bob_the_Bartender]

I never read Ira Levin’s novel, “Rosemary’s Baby.” Was it much more disturbing than the film? I found William Peter Blatty’s novel, “The Exorcist,” to be spooky, what with Regan MacNeil’s burgeoning “friendship” with Captain Howdy (the Assyrian demon, Pazuzu). Reading that part of the novel late at night, I almost thought I heard Captain Howdy, walking around in the attic or banging on the wall. 

Although, sitting in the movie theater, watching the film version with my friends, we all laughed when Linda Blair “up-chucked” into the distinguished Max Von Sydow’s face. (Imagine if Barnabas had “ralphed” into the saintly Bathia Mapes’s face as she and Joshua attempted to exorcise Barnabas in the Tower Room during that oh-so-memorable DS episode? “Then go to the house of the curse!”) 

I did read Ira Levin’s novel, “The Boys from Brazil” and subsequently the film version, starring Gregory Peck, Sir Laurence Olivier and James Mason. I preferred the novel to the film version. (I think Nicholas Blair would have approved of the evil Dr. Mengele’s plan to create multiple Adolf Hitlers to wreak havoc in the world.)

“Veronica’s Room” was a short-lived Ira Levin play on Broadway. I saw it in previews, and it was cool to see the great Arthur Kennedy and the great Eileen Heckart perform in person. The play was especially creepy, but what elder would you expect from an Ira Levin work?

Oh, yeah, Uncle Roger, your remiscence of your mother’s friend taking her two young kids to see “Rosemary’s Baby” in a local drive-in, reminds me when my parents took my brothers and I to see “Psycho” at a drive-in on the beautiful New Jersey shore way back in the early 1960s. In my parents’s defense, they didn’t see that “Psycho” had been condemned by the National League of Decency. (I don’t believe
that it actually was condemned by the league.) And, besides, my parents could not get a baby sister on short notice to watch a bunch of bratty little boys on short notice.

After all these years, I remember enjoying seeing that very pretty lady, Janet Leigh, taking a shower in the film, but things quickly got “somewhat” intense! 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I didn't read the book until years later, at some point in the mid 1980s. But back in 1968 three of my aunts on my father's side went to see the film and to this day I can still distinctly remember them telling my mother all about it right in front of my 12-year-old self. The supernatural elements definitely peaked my interest. And when my mother questioned whether or not they should have been talking about the sexual elements of the plot in front of me, they were of the opinion that there was nothing in the film that I couldn't see. My aunts were sexually liberal. 

I didn't actually see the film until after it came out on DVD in 2000. Though I've since donated that version to the local library and replaced it with the Criterion Blu-ray release...

[Uncle Roger]

I didn't see the film version of Rosemary's Baby until I was much older, so it didn't have the same effect on me.

I read The Exorcist before I saw the movie, so I was somewhat prepared for what would happen. I don't remember why but certain members of the audience, including but not exclusively yours truly, laughing at inappropriate moments. My mom did express an interest in seeing it but I told her that she wasn't allowed to.

I think that I was a junior in high school when I finally saw Psycho on WOR, channel 9. I enjoyed it a lot but I think that I would have liked it better if a classmate hadn't revealed the twist ending ahead of time. Thank you  Debbie Kapusta, wherever you are.

[Gerard]

Of course, I was way too young to see Rosemary's Baby when it hit the theaters, but I remember seeing the previews, including the famous shot of a cradle situated high on top a cliff.  Everyone was talking about the movie, even though very few dared to go see it, but even my very devout rosary-praying mother subconsciously expressed a curiosity. 

I read the novel before I saw the film (finally on TV, highly censored, of course), and the movie follows the book almost word for word, scene for scene.  At the end of the book, Levin gives a highly detailed description of the baby:  dark, animal-like eyes, horns, claws on its hands and feet (covered with knitted mittens and booties so it wouldn't scratch itself) and I'm sure there was a tail.  When I watched the movie on TV I waited with baited breath for the baby and all they showed at the very end were those hideous eyes.  I was enraged.  They censored little Baby Lucifer, Jr.  Later, I did see it complete and entire, no censorship, and to my surprise, the eyes were all that was shown.  You never got to see what was fully described in the novel.

Gerard

[Bob_the_Bartender]

Uncle Roger,

It’s too bad that you couldn’t have employed a “spoiler alert,” on your classmate, Debbie Kaputa, much like the spoiler alert here on the DSF. Although, seeing that it’s been 51 years since DS went off the air, I kind of think everyone knows what happened to Barnabas, Angelique, Willie, etc., except for possibly some World War II Imperialist Japanese soldiers, still hiding out on some remote and obscure island in the Pacific Ocean or D. B. Cooper if he’s still hiding out in the rugged, mountainous region of the state of Washington also for 51 years. 

And, Gerard, that description of Rosemary’s baby might also be a description of the baby, Buzz Hackett!!! 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

While I was searching through the NoDS 30th Anniversary topic I was just reminded that Rosemary's Baby played as one of NoDS' co-features in Seekonk, MA on August 6th and 7th:

(Click here for a 720X562 version)
Every time I see something regarding Rosemary's Baby the first thing that always comes to mind is Mad Magazine's take on it that was called Rosemia's Boo-boo LOL!)