Nobody Loves an Albatross

Like all the best movie posters, the one for 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby doesn’t depict a scene from the film. We see the silhouette of a pram on harsh, rocky terrain, set against a sickly green background. Mia Farrow’s upturned face looms behind it, as though the titular mom were lying supine: mindscape as landscape, her nose obliquely rhyming with the Paramount logo in the corner. “Pray for Rosemary’s Baby,” commands the tagline. But prayer won’t help the tot in question. In the most literal reading of the film, he’s been a lost cause since conception — the product of Rosemary’s rape by “someone inhuman,” namely, the devil.

Did you know you can own the DVD and glance at it idly at intervals for over five years without noticing that what you thought was a cloud was “Mia Farrow’s upturned face”?

No matter. It’s still the BEST, as is this Criterion Collection essay by Ed Park.