The big-budget horror film grossed about $33.4 million (on a budget of $2.3 million), and received two Academy Award nominations: one for Polanski""s Best Adapted Screenplay, and Ruth Gordon won the Best Supporting Actress award for her performance as one of the well-meaning, ""normal"" NYC neighbors.Scottie believes he may be able to acclimatize himself and be cured.As she supervises, as a mother might do, he first starts out with a small stepstool.He hopes to gradually get used to the sensation as he chants: "I look up, I look down":We""ll start with this.We may believe there are no Battling Burrows, striking he helpless with brutal whip - but do we not ourselves use the whip of unkind words and deeds? So, perhaps, Battling may even carry a message of warning.So they become a black sheriff, a racist own, a sex-obsessed Governor, and so forth.In addition, there are other anachronistic elements - Hedley Lamarr (a misnaming of actress Hedy Lamarr), hints of the seductive character Frenchy (played by Marlene Dietrich) inDestry Rides Again (1939), a medieval executioner, a Cole Porter song, redneck bigotry of all flavors, and a ""film-within-a-film"" concept, exemplified by Lamarr exclaiming: "Drive me off this picture.