Rosemary's Baby

Farrow's reading soon becomes a performance, first winning, then powerful, especially as Rosemary (whom she played in the film), a young Manhattan housewife who becomes the victim of a coven determined to bring Satan's heir into the world. She conveys especially well Rosemary's vulnerability and trusting normalcy, which make the story all the more chilling. Farrow's narration is professional otherwise, and her portrayal of other characters solid. One minor problem is that she carries over emotion from speeches inappropriately into speech tags and descriptions. A not so minor problem is that her voice sounds hollow, as if recorded in an acoustically unfriendly space. Harper/Caedmon provides a timed listing of tracks, something all audio publishers should do. W.M. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

December 5, 2005
Farrow's soothing reading of Ira Levin's classic returns her to the project that made her a star in Roman Polanski's eerily sedate thriller. Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse move into an ancient Manhattan apartment building and are immediately befriended by a pushy older couple, Minnie and Roman Castavet. When Rosemary becomes pregnant, she begins to suspect that the people in her building are satanists and that she may be carrying a demon's baby. What makes Levin's tale so haunting is how the horror is kept inconspicuous so tensions mount as ordinary events turn disturbing. Caedmon's packaging is outstanding, with inner sleeves listing track lengths and the first few words spoken on each track, making it easier to navigate. Farrow is an ideal choice as a reader for her history as well as her expressive and controlled reading. She doesn't attempt different voices for each character, but she does adapt a flat, nasal tone for Minnie (rather than imitate Ruth Gordon from the film). Subpar sound mars this classy recording: the volume is low and Farrow's voice sounds like it was recorded in a large, hollow space. Levin's thriller was previously recorded by Eileen Heckert in a 1986 three-hour abridgment from Random House Audio.