weddings, parties, anything

Marilyn Monroe, circa 1957

Grace Kelly in 1955 at a Hollywood dinner

Sylvie Vartan, greeting the Beatles in Paris, 1964

Rock Hudson and his new bride Phyllis Gates,

following their wedding in 1955

Mia Farrow dancing up a storm with Ringo Starr

at the Dorchester in 1968

Julie Christie, Ursula Andress, and Catherine Deneuve

before formally meeting Princess Margaret

James Dean and Ursula Andress on a date in Hollywood, 1955

Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin at the Cannes Festival

Twiggy at Disneyland in 1967

Mia Farrow, Roman Polanski, and Sharon Tate

at the premiere of "Rosemary's Baby"

Grace Kelly on a publicity date in the 1950s

Jean Shrimpton and Terence Stamp out on the town in

New York in 1964

Brigitte Bardot meeting Paul Newman in the 1960s

Marilyn Monroe at a Hollywood function in 1961

The Rolling Stones in London, 1967

oh darling, please believe me, i’ll never do you no harm

I have mentioned briefly my admiration of the nutty Ruth Gordon in Rosemary's Baby, but my love for this Polanski classic extends far beyond the stylings of Minnie Castevet. Personally, this film has everything that I love in a movie -- the fantastically fragile Mia Farrow, charming devil-worshipping neighbors, a fabulous mid-sixties wardrobe and hairstyle (courtesy of Vidal Sassoon), and Ralph Bellamy (ohh, Ralph Bellamy!).
Rosemary's Baby is the story of a young wide-eyed housewife Rosemary Woodhouse and her older actor husband Guy. After the couple moves into the Bramford, an apartment house with a long histories of gruesome deaths and questionable tenants, and they meet their seemingly innocent neighbors, Guy's acting career suddenly and inexplicably takes off. After this, Guy becomes eager to have a child with Rosemary, despite his previous rejections on the matter. After becoming pregnant, Rosemary finds that Guy ignores her and can barely look her in the eye; this hurts Rosemary, who has had a very painful pregnancy thus far and barely has strength to leave her apartment anymore. As the months carry on, Rosemary begins to suspect something sinister is occuring as the people around her are cursed blind or struck dead, and her neighbors the Castevets take an unusual interest in her pregnancy.
The film is a true horror movie classic -- not in the blood-spurting, girl-runs-in-slow-motion sort of way that scary movies are made nowadays. Rosemary's Baby succeeds in being a horror classic because of what it doesn't show us. We the audience are right there with Rosemary trying to figure out if there's a plot against her and her baby, or if she's just suffering the prenatal crazies. We learn slowly along the way what is going on, Polanski reveals just enough that we are never bored and are almost always in suspense. The film, which made both Mia Farrow and Roman Polanski international stars, has been plagued with rumors of a curse for years. Some cite the fact that Farrow's involvement in the film brought a swift end to her marriage to Frank Sinatra (he served her divorce papers on the set while she was filming the scene where she breaks down in the kitchen during her dinner party). Others cite the long theory that Rosemary's Baby is somehow tied to the Manson family murders and the death of John Lennon.

shall I tell you about my life? they say i’m a man of the world

So they were playing "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired" on HBO tonight and the documentary was a heartbreaking reminder of how much I love this man. Polanski has been through so much in his life -- the Holocaust (his mother was murdered at Auschwitz), the death of his wife Sharon, and his arrest for a relationship with a 13-year-old girl in 1977 (the following case is the base for the documentary). But the devastating personal lows are countered by incredible career highs. Roman Polanski is considered to be one of the greatest directors not only alive but ever.