Rosemary’s Baby alternate endings?!?

That never happened. There was only ever one ending and it's brilliant, because it leaves it up to your imagination.

One does have to wonder what the child actually looked like, though. She makes a big deal about the eyes looking scary, but is that all that was wrong with him? I'm picturing Rosemary pushing him in a stroller on the street the next day and people turning away in horror at a horned, tailed creature wheeling past them.

Are the Evil Baby hands shown? I remember them shown but maybe I'm wring.

Are you aware that Rosemary's Baby was a best selling novel by Ira Levin? the movie followed the book except the book with the exception of not showing the baby.

Maybe people are mixing up their memories and thinking of when Satan fucks her and his evil eyes and hairy demonic arms are shown, and they are adding those details to the baby.

"One does have to wonder what the child actually looked like, though"

READ THE BOOK, it's in there.

i'm pretty sure their was some bad tv movie or low budget movie from the 1970's that had devil like offspring that WAS shown,.. i can't recall the movies or anything just the memory of it, very very vaguely, perhaps this is what people are confusing with rosemary's baby..

speaking of rosemary's baby i finally saw it for the first time in my life a few months ago.. i have to say i was actually bored big time and thought "what was the big deal" and how dumb was her character! beyond dumb!...

Her husband was beyond HOT!

And that was before Satan put his demon semen in him!

“He has his father’s eyes.”

It’s all handled through dialogue; we never see the baby.

For decades now, many people have claimed to have seen a version of the film in which the baby is shown. But no such version existed. The film plays on the audience's imagination so that they think they see things that were never there.

There is a brief shot of the baby's eyes and upper face in the movie as I recall. It is kind of super-imposed.

They showed the baby and it was hideous.

There was definitely a TV movie sequel and possibly a few of them. More than 40 yrs ago so possible your friend is confused

No, that is Satan who is inside Rosemary's husband.

r6 it's one of those "scared, helpless, shrieking womyn"-type films where all the action happens while the main female character freaks out and is essentially totally helpless. Ref: The Shining

I read the book before I saw the movie, in the movie theater, yes, I'm old. I don't remember them showing the baby but showing Rosemary having a flashback of the devil from when he raped her. I do remember the baby's description from the book. I've seen it on TV too and don't remember too much being cut except for when her breasts showed for a second.

R10. No. This shot does not exist.

R15, there is a dreamlike scene of Rosemary being raped. But there is no later flashback.

She wasn't raped. Her astral form totally wanted it.

What did the book describe?! Please tell us.

Reddit looks think that the Mandela Effect is the reason why some people remember the Satanic baby because "that's how it was in their universe."

Yeah, but it wasn’t satanic rape satanic rape.

They're thing of the TV movie, V.

Yeah someone has conjured the scene in their imagination from description in the book and forgot it as never shown in the movie.

His eyes were golden-yellow, all golden-yellow, with neither whites nor irises; all golden-yellow, with vertical black-slit pupils.

She looked at him.

He looked at her, golden-yellowly, and then at the swaying upside-down crucifix.

She looked at them watching her and knife-in-hand screamed at them, “What have you done to his eyes?”

They stirred and looked to Roman.

“He has His Father’s eyes,” he said.

(p.209)

“Go look at His hands,” Minnie said. “And His feet.”

“And His tail,” Laura-Louise said.

“And the buds of His horns,” Minnie said.

“Oh God,” Rosemary said.

His eyes weren’t that bad really, now that she was prepared for them. It was the surprise that had upset her. They were pretty, in a way. “What are his hands like?” she asked, rocking him

“They’re very nice,” Roman said. “He has claws, but they’re very tiny and pearly. The mitts are only so He doesn’t scratch Himself, not because His hands aren’t attractive.”

(p.215-216)

I think she did see devil eyes and stuff when she looked at the baby. That was when she dropped the knife.

**Yeah someone has conjured up the scene in their imagination from the description in the book and forgot it was never shown in the movie.

I watched it when I was young and I remember being bored and always thinking showing the stupid baby claws was a big mistake.

I watched it relatively recently and I found it riveting ans was surprised that the baby wasn’t shown. This is on Mandela effect I subscribe to. It’s *always* been Berenstain Bears in my world, but Rosemary’s baby was shown the first time I saw the movie—in my memory. Very weird. I probably did conflate the images from the rape scene.

There's no such thing as the Mandela effect.

I've read that MANY people who have seen "Rosemary's Baby" will say later think they are sure they saw the baby's eyes and then are shocked when they see it again and find out they haven't seen them at al;l;. It's not because there's another version but because they do show us the devil's eyes during the nightmare sequence, and then because when Rosemary sees the baby for the first time (which is what's shown at r26) she has such a violent reaction to it, they flash back to the shot of the devil's eyes, and Rosemary says "What have you done to his EYES?!" so hysterically. So people THINK they have seen the baby's eyes, but they never actually have. (This is a common phenomenon, btw--many people will swear up and down they saw the baby's eyes, although Polanski never filmed such a shot.)

Something very similar is said to be at play with many people who saw the 1940 Hitchcock movie "Rebecca." Apparently many people will swear up and down they saw Rebecca de Winter and in some cases will even tell you who they remember played her (Gene Tierney, or Hedy Lamarr, or someone else beautiful and aristocratic and dark-haired), but in fact they never actually show her in the movie--not even a photograph. But so much conversation in the movie concerns what Rebecca looked like and behaved like that people's imaginations & memories play tricks on them.

There was a portrait of Rebecca in the fancy dress costume, however.

In YOUR universe.

"There is a brief shot of the baby's eyes and upper face in the movie as I recall. It is kind of super-imposed".

NO. I saw the movie in New York in 1968. There was/is NO fucking scene where the baby is seen. Nada , none, forgetaboutit.

Dream on!

R29, no, that's a portrait of a de Winter ancestor. Mrs. Danvers persuades Joan Fontaine's character that she should dress like the lady in the portrait, without revealing that Rebecca had done that same thing. We never see an image of Rebecca.

In the book or the movie r32?

r29, as r32 says, that's not a portrait of Rebecca: that's Max's ancestor, Lady Caroline de Winter, probably (from the look of her outfit) from the 18th century.

Mrs. Danvers suggests to the 2nd Mrs. de winter that she copy the outfit for the Manderley costume ball, and of course that's what Rebecca herself also did in years previous. But the portrait is NOT of Rebecca herself.

r33, even in the book, the portrait that the narrator copies for her costume is that of Lady Caroline de Winter, not Rebecca herself.

Well I saw the Masterpiece Theatre Diana Rigg version, and I swear it was Rebecca, but I guess I was wrong.

I've never read the novel but I do remember seeing it the first time on television and there was definitely a very brief shot of the baby's yellow/gold eyes. I've seen the theatrical version twice and it's not there. I know what I saw.

We were talking explicitly about the 1940 movie, not the 1997 miniseries.

In the 1997 miniseries, Rebecca the person is shown from behind. and also from a great distance.

But it is really weird you would think we would be referring to the miniseries when quite clearly we said the 1940 Hitchcock film.

[quote]I've never read the novel but I do remember seeing it the first time on television and there was definitely a very brief shot of the baby's yellow/gold eyes. I've seen the theatrical version twice and it's not there. I know what I saw.

Then provide a link.

R38, I figured they’d all be kind of the same, like same plot devices and such.

No, they're very different in what they show of Rebecca.

The miniseries cannot compare to the 1940 film. How foolish to try to take its place. No one loves you, miniseries, but the whole world loved the film. Do you have anything to live for miniseries? Why don't you go away? Why don't you leave us with our lovely memories of the film?

R37, you are/were hallucinating. I've heard there are drugs for that.

The miniseries was quality. It had a modern edge. The original was too sanitized and Clue predictable.

Melodramatic.^

There was a movie in the 1970s that was a grade B “devil’s baby” movie. The movie poster showed a baby in a carriage with a clawed hand. It was really heavily advertised at the time. Could some of these posters be confused about where they saw this?

[quote] The miniseries was quality. It had a modern edge. The original was too sanitized and Clue predictable.

You earlier claimed you have not seen the movie and that you just assumed it would be like the miniseries.

I never said I didn’t see the movie.

True story: they did film an alternate ending where they did show the baby.

It would have been Danny Devito's first film role but they decided to cut the scene out.

[quote]r42 No one loves you, miniseries, but the whole world loved the film.

I personally prefer 1997's Emilia Fox over Joan Fontain in the original. The mini series is no work of art, but that particular performance is better, I think.

Fontaine is kind of one note.

You said, and I quote:

[quote] I figured they’d all be kind of the same, like same plot devices and such.

If you "figured they'd be the same" based on seeing the miniseries, then obviously you didn't see the film.

That's such a good movie. It's so creepy. I like that is left to our imagination what the baby look like.

I was thinking about the 1974 movie “It’s Alive,” about a monster baby that goes around killing people. There were a number of sequels and remakes over the years, the last one was in 2009. There were tons of TV commercials and newspaper ads leading up to the release of the original.

They did show the baby’s appearance in the movie, but not in any of the trailers or ads. But they showed a claw sticking out from a baby carriage.

Of course with 1970s special effects the baby looked ridiculous. It was smart of Rosemary's Baby not to show anything.

There was never any version of Rosemary's Baby in any universe where you saw any part of the baby including its eyes. It's due to Roman Polanski's brilliant direction that you think you saw it. It is a heightened, disturbing moment. You are shocked, and apprehensive about seeing the baby. You never do, but when the movie's over, it's perfectly understandable that you think you did.

There was a terrible 1976 made for TV movie called Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby. The baby in that looks... NORMAL! Patty Duke Astin plays Rosemary, but only in a prologue. The rest is some nonsense about Adrian (the baby grown up) played by then-hottie Stephen McHattie. Ruth Gordon is actually in it. It's awful.

R51, But you’re not taking into account that I saw the movie many years ago, which was implied, but not explicitly stated. So, as I couldn’t recall exactly, I used the term “figured.”

Never saw and saw but can’t recall every detail are two different things. Nuance is a bitch.

How many people were turned on at the thought of being fucked by the Devil?

[quote]r54 There was a terrible 1976 made for TV movie called Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby. ... Patty Duke Astin plays Rosemary, but only in a prologue. The rest is some nonsense about Adrian (the baby grown up) played by then-hottie Stephen McHattie. Ruth Gordon is actually in it.

How dare you not mention Tina Louise in the role of Marjean? I mean, really, [italic]how dare you??[/italic]

You. Are. The. Devil.

So let me get this right. Now you're claiming you saw the film "many years ago," and you "can't recall every detail." And at r40, you said of the film and the miniseries, "I figured they’d all be kind of the same, like same plot devices and such."

Yet you felt informed enough (without even remembering the plot), to claim at r44 that the film is inferior to the film... which you had remembered as being the same "since you figured they'd all be the same."

You have no idea what you're saying. If you remembered the movie enough to give your opinion of its worth, you'd remember whether or not it was like the miniseries. You're clearly talking out of your ass, and just wasting everyone's time.

So, BLOCKED!

You’re so black and white about everything r58, sheesh! You clearly can’t handle being wrong, and you started wasting everyone’s time with your petty bickering.

So, I DON’T CARE!

it's on the YouTubes!

So then post it

This was the baby that was shown when the movie was first released, before Polanski removed the scene.

Polanski's original "cute" ending.

Nice try R62

You're all wrong. This is the deleted clip.

R64, That's a different baby.

This is from IMDB:

["Producer William Castle wanted to display a grotesque demon baby at the end of the film when Mia Farrow looks at her child but Roman Polanski (and the other producers) vetoed the idea in lieu of a more ambiguous scene."]

Lucy was going to play the baby, but

I dated a man who one night actually confessed to me that, some years before, he had conjured up a male spirit, or incubus, that would fuck him on occasion.

That relationship didn’t last long.

Look, this ain't rocket science. Give them the real thing.

just wondering, having only seen the movie once a few months ago and being "bored' with it.. i was just thinking "why did the devil choose rosemary (and only rosemary) to "fornicate with" and have his baby? and logically, um, could rosemary even get pregnant by him? lol?!..

Being “bored”? What does that even mean?

#72.. being bored, meaning watch the entire movie and uninterested, thinking negative thoughts about it and wondering what the big deal was..

Fine, but being “bored”? How stupid, you even understand how to use quotation marks?

So what most here are conflating is the flashback to the rape and the assumption of the look of the baby...at least that is what happened to me.

#74... WHO CARES?! using quotation marks or not.... is it that important to you?

Guy and Rosemary had another son in 1982, but he was fairly normal.

The baby was never shown in the movie.

There are no alternate endings.

Period.

The end.

It’s on Amazon Prime.

Is the movie "It's Alive!" based on Rosemary's Baby? Is it a good movie?

Rebecca's Baby scared me silly when I saw it in the theatre.

[quote]Is the movie "It's Alive!" based on Rosemary's Baby?

Not really, The baby in that movie was deformed as a result of mutations caused by drugs which had been prescribed to the mother.

R71, the novel makes the choice of Rosemary clearer, and it's the most mundane one imaginable: She's close by. Originally Terry, the former junkie hooker who'd been taken in by the Satanic neighbors in an act of 'charity,' was supposed to be the mother of the Antichrist, but once she found out what they wanted her to do, she threw herself out the window and died. They then decided on Rosemary because she was already in the building and her husband, a vain actor, was easy to manipulate with promises of fame and fortune (to be fair, they did pay those promises off). As the old lady puts it in one of the book's many fragmentary conversations, all the Antichrist's mom needs to be is 'young, strong, and not a virgin.' Rosemary fit the bill, though her lapsed Catholicism was probably a bonus.

Interestingly, in the book she and her husband lied to get into their apartment in the Dakota. They'd signed a lease on another one, but when the Dakota apartment (or whatever the building was called in the book--it's definitely SUPPOSED to be the Dakota) came up for grabs, they made up a story about the husband joining a national touring company to get out of the first lease. That small, venal lie was the first step towards their being sucked into a worldwide Satanic plot. Ira Levin is SUCH a good writer.

Was it a worldwide plot? I thought it was just a group of kinky, wealthy swingers in that apartment building.

What R8 says.

I always pictured a normal looking baby but with “devil eyes,” which must have been horrific given Rosemary’s reaction.

This is classic horror. You don’t need to show everything. What people’s minds fill in is always worse than any hollywood camera trick.

In the book, Rosemary sets her own terms for the baby and it's left out of the film. I was disappointed the first time I saw it but it makes sense as it would have prolonged that scene too much and taken away it's power. It's enough we see Rosemary's sorta happy sorta "what the fuck now?" look at the very end.

I mean, I assumed a plot to bring on the birth of the Antichrist would count as a worldwide plot, since he's supposed to take over the world.

R87 yeah that's where I always think movies and books like this lose their power. If ANYONE can summon Satan and produce the Antichrist (or Cthullu or whoever), why wouldn't it have happened already?

I was hoping you were going to say the book had something in it about a worldwide network of Satanic covens, all lending their power to that seeding ritual at the same time. That would have been cool and also made it seem like a much grander scale in terms of world building.

I'm wondering if it was the first 'devil baby' movie? The 70s and 80's had slew of them.

R86 nowdays the director would include that in the Director's cut OR just have it be a post-credits scene.

I haven't read the book in years, R88, but I seem to recall that Roman Castavets, the leader of the coven, has contacts all over the world. At the end, there are a group of Japanese people taking respectful photos of Rosemary and her baby, so that suggests there IS a worldwide network of Satan worshipers. But the book's focus is so narrowly on Rosemary's experiences, we never get to see any of that.

R88 Read the sequel Son of Rosemary. It spins the story into a worldwide thing.

Levin was parodying the story of the birth of Jesus: who knows why God chose Mary, or how he got her pregnant? Yet it worked; Christianity DID take over the world.

R92’s comment is enough. Please don’t read Son of Rosemary if you’re a fan of Rosemary’s Baby

This thread has made me want some rosemary mashed potatoes.

This was cut from the final editing of the ending.

OP is thinking of Hell Baby.

[quote]r70 Look, this ain't rocket science. Give them the real thing.

Thank you.

[italic]I saw the baby!!

This thread got me off on a trail that wound up with me reading Son of Rosemary, Ira Levin's 1997 sequel to Rosemary's Baby. I can't figure it out. It's driving me crazy.

So, Rosemary wakes up in 1999 after being in a coma for 29 years. Her son Andy is now a spiritual leader, and the whole world follows him. I'm not gonna go into the whole thing here, but this is what's driving me crazy- At some point, she walks by her old apartment complex, the Bamford. She walks into Central Park, and sees Strawberry Fields, as well as the IMAGINE mosaic- two things that are there because of the John Lennon assassination. People are gathered around, and Rosemary doesn't understand why. And then the text says "Rosemary was seeing people gathered at a shrine that wasn't there, but one day would be."

In the end, Satan meets Rosemary, and she makes a deal with him to be eternally young, and supposedly is bringing her down to hell. Suddenly, Rosemary wakes up next to Guy in 1965. It seems all of the events that we've been privy to in BOTH books are a dream. They have not yet moved into the Bamford.

Later, she's with Hutch. He tells Rosemary that she should move into the Dakota. Which is strange, because wasn't the Bamford the fictionalized version of the Dakota. Hutch tells her "You'll have great neighbors. Lauren Bacall, Lenny Bernstein, and I hear one of the Beatles is dickering to get a place there."

If the whole thing is a dream, than how would Rosemary even know about Strawberry Fields and the IMAGINE mosaic? Why does Hutch seem to refer to John Lennon moving into to Dakota when in real life Lennon doesn't move in there until the early '70s.

All of this REALLY fascinates me. But, I fear it might just be Ira Levin with dementia. Anyone know anything? Anyone smarter than I?

I don't think this ever existed; probably a false memory, wires getting crossed. In the book, however, the baby is described in detail, including his green eyes and tail. Maybe that is where people got this from, and just mistook it for being in the film as well?

In Son of Rosemary he's really hot. He has electric blue tiger eyes, and horns. But he's able to glammor people into not seeing it. He's constantly trying to sex Rosemary down, too.

Seriously, anyone who's read Son of Rosemary- WHAT is the John Lennon thing? Though he's never specifically mentioned by name, I feel he looms large over the novel.

Is Hutch an agent of God? Rosemary sees Strawberry Fields and the IMAGINE mosaic in Central Park on November 9, 1999, which is the 19th anniversary of John's death. She awakes from her coma on October 9, 1999- one day away from his birthday. Maybe it WAS Lennon's birthday if you go by Eastern standard Time.

I'm obsessed.

I meant to say- was Hutch trying to send Rosemary to SAVE John Lennon??

The end of Son of Rosemary reminds me of the end of Twin Peaks: The Return so much that I have to wonder if David Lynch read it and was influenced by it.

I had that thought, and kept reading. And suddenly Levin has Rosemary ask "What year is it?"

!!!

Obsessed.

r103, are you obsessed?

Nah.

; - )

Wasn’t Son of Rosemary made in the aughts complete with Mia? Anybody see it?

I'm with r37- I saw it for the first time when it aired on TV, and they briefly showed some superimposed yellow eyes with a black background over the bassinet. But it isn't there in the actual film version. Did they re-edit for the television airing?

R106, no they never made a movie of Son of Rosemary. Mia did The Omen remake with Liev Schrieber and Julia Stiles and there was a TV movie remake of Rosemary’s Baby a few years back

r107 there's a clip above that shows the Satan eyes during that scene, but it's a flashback from her getting impregnated by Satan and seeing his eyes then. Apparently a lot of people think it's the baby they are showing, or remember it as the baby.

Ah yes, r109, you're right! Thanks for clearing that up. I saw the TV version as a kid, and the film version as an adult, so I must have misinterpreted that as a kid.

I had a debate with a friend about this too. It's eternal. The baby would have looked ridiculous had they shown it. Mia sells it with her look of horror.

As I had just reread the book before seeing the film a second time in theaters did I recognize the characters who were supposed to be JFK and Jackie in the film's dream sequence. Hint: you'd never know it was supposed to be them unless you read the book.

Again, it's Polanski's brilliance as a filmmaker that makes you think you saw the baby's eyes. You see the devil's eyes before he's about to rape Rosemary. When Rosemary sees the baby, she recoils, and says "What have you done to his eyes?" "He has his father's eyes" replies Roman, and the viewer THINKS BACK to when we saw Satan's eyes. Polanski places the eyes in your mind, though they are never seen on screen.

Son of Rosemary is pretty unfilmable. Though, I could see David Lynch doing it.

R111 yes, in 1967 there was no way to show the baby and have it look anything but laughable.

I agree. I never realized the sea captain in the dream sequence was supposed to be JFK, though he DOES look like him. The Jackie character in the movie is too old to be her at that time. I suspect it was a conscious choice not to have them be identifiable.

R112 no, he actually flashes the eyes from the rape scene. It's in the clip above.

I saw Rosemary's Baby when it came out, and several times since. There was NEVER a glimpse of the baby's eyes.

Never. There's a quick flashback during the baby scene to the eyes of the demon that inseminates Rosemary, but the baby is never shown. This is a distortion that has been around since the movie came out. A lot of people were so freaked out by the ending that they swore that flashback was a shot of the baby's face, but it isn't.

This thread is getting super repetitive.

Here is the baby from the 2014 TV miniseries remake starring Zoe Saldana as Rosemary. I am surprised no one has really brought it up yet. I guess everyone forgot it existed altogether right after it aired.

And the father. He has "his father's eyes."

Little known fact: Faye Dunaway was fired from Rosemary's Baby for calling the infant 'little homosexual boy'.

In the drug-induced dream sequence Miss Dunaway threw her salad at Satan.

The remake was awful. The best part of the movie is the coven of eccentric old-school New Yorkers. The remake’s coven had a totally different feel and the Roman and Minnie characters were dull as dishwater- neither menacing nor interesting, which you could tel they were going with. I also don’t know how much more we can rehash this issue. The baby was not shown. End of story.

Anyone watch it on Amazon Prime? Is it uncut?

The 2014 mini-series had the husband having sex with men as part of his Satanic perversion.

I never saw the 2014 one and now I never will. Why on earth they would think they could remake such a classic is beyond me.

So it sounds like 2014 series got rid of all the elements Levin used to make his story uncliched and unexpected, so that it could be more of a run-of-the-mill thriller.

I watched it tonight on Prime and Rosemary definitely flashes back to the devil that raped her and his horrid skin and yellow eyes with vertical pupils but that was it. They never show the baby.

John Cassavetes was sleazy sex-on-a-stick in this.

And I loved Mrs. Bellows from "I Dream of Jeannie" as Rosemary's best friend. Mrs. Bellows seemed like a middle-aged woman in the show, but in this she was a mod twentysomething New Yorker.

Eventually, we all got to see the baby.

LOL R130!! I love it!!!!

[quote] Why on earth they would think they could remake such a classic is beyond me.

It was an unsuccessful attempt to recontextualize the story through the prism of white colonialism versus a black Rosemary.

,,,,

I wonder if Polanski put something really creepy in the crib that was unrehearsed. That expression on Mia's face, whilst convincing, shows some surprise.