Cul-de-Sac is the second film Polanski made in England. Another example of a bizarre relationship--a transvestite husband and a nymphomaniac wife who live on an island in an isolated castle. They are taken captive be a gangster whose car has broken down after a messed up bank robbery attempt--both he and his partner are wounded in the attempt. He develops a strange relationship with the couple as he waits for his boss to come and get him. This film contains one of the longest continuous scenes on film--seven and a half minutes. The wife is played by Catherine Deneuve's sister and Jacqueline Bisset has her speaking part in this film.
The third film The Fearless Vampire Killers walks a fine line between horror and humor. A parody that is both brilliant and beautiful with a haunting musical score. The story is of a professor and his assistant who go to a snowy rural area in Transylvania to hunt and kill vampires. For the US release of this film, 16 minutes was cut, an animated sequence added, voices and title changed. Polanski was very unhappy and wanted to remove his name from the film. An interesting note, the producer of the film insisted that Polanski replace Jill St. John with the then unknown actress Sharon Tate.
In January of 1968 Polanski and Tate were married. She even joined him in the making of his next film Rosemary's Baby though she was unbilled and had a very small part. Since everyone has seen this film, instead of a plot summary, I am going to give some trivia about this film. Tate is not the only unbilled actor in this film. Listen closely for Tony Curtis who played the voice of the actor that is struck blind leading to Guy's big acting break. Also, Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan and the author of The Satanic Bibles was hired as a consultant for the ritual and chant scenes. In return for his help, he played Satan in the scene in which Rosemary is impregnated. Mia Farrow sings the haunting lullaby heard over the opening credits and she was also served her divorce papers from Frank Sinatra while on the set of this film. Ruth Gordon won both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. This film is Polanski's American film debut and also the first film he adapted from another person's work--which he did very faithfully and with extreme detail. A year after the film was released, Sharon Tate and three friends were brutally murdered by the Manson Family. This leads to probably one of the strangest series of coincidences in movie history. Follow me here folks--this one is deep. Polanski's wife was murdered by the Manson Family whose theme music was Helter Skelter written by John Lennon. The film Rosemary's Baby was filmed in the apartment building called The Dakota where John Lennon would later reside and in front of which would be murdered himself.
