Tag Archives: Roman Polanski

Projection Booth podcast #543: The Mephisto Waltz (1971)

I had a great time co-hosting for the latest episode of Mike White’s Projection Booth podcast, on Paul Wendkos’s 1971 occult thriller, The Mephisto Waltz. The episode features a very special guest, Jacqueline Bisset. The Mephisto Waltz is one my favourite 1970s occult thrillers, occupying as it does a liminal space between the aesthetic forms and conventions of made for TV horror movies – hugely popular format in the 1970s – and big screen productions. We talked a lot about the film’s similarities to Roman Polanski’s 1968 movie, Rosemary’s Baby, other examples of occult transference cinema, and how the occult, along with other strange & unexplained phenomena – UFOs, the Loch Ness monster, the Bermuda Triangle – were much more a part of everyday public discussion in the late 1960s/1970s. You can access the entire episode at the Projection Booth site here.Read more

Hungry wives and evil husbands

I’ve been writing a piece on the science fiction of Ira Levin for an upcoming book project. This led me to re-reading his amazing novel Rosemary’s Baby, which led to a re-watch of the 1968 film, which got me to thinking, why there seemed to be a preponderance of cinema in the late 1960s/early 1970s which involve supposedly ordinary women having witchcraft used against them or using it for empowerment.

Roman Polansky’s version of Rosemary’s Baby abides fairly closely to Levin’s book and I suspect regular readers of this site don’t need any introduction to how good the book and film are. Obviously, the story has a very strong feminist tone, as did a lot of Levin’s work. An innocent woman, Rosemary, has her young, fertile body quite literally sold to a group of Satanists who, unbeknownst to her, live in the same New York apartment block, by her husband, Guy, in return for success in his chosen profession as an actor.

What is really good about the film, and even better about the book, is the way Levin leaves a trail of small clues as to what is going on – that Satan has raped her and Guy, in league with the Satanists, is manipulating her to carry the child to full term – often seemingly inconsequential or coincidental details, just enough to move the plot forward, but which all add up to a horrifying, inescapable trap.… Read more