Go Ask Alice

I had to view this movie as part of a drug prevention program in junior high school('73-'74). I was between 12 and 13 years old at the time. The early 70s were turbulent and the drug culture was making its way to small town America. Unfortunately, the movie, in my opinion, made the drug scene seem cool while the straight kids were portrayed as "geeky". I personally thought that Alice was the coolest person in the world! I think the film could have achieved more balance and probably been more effective as "drug prevention" material had it presented the straight kids in a more appealing light. While I cannot say that it was the catalyst to my own "issues", it certainly did fan flames that were smoldering. I rated it 9 because watching it is nostalgic and I do think it is a fair representation of the drug culture during that time in history...not a 9 for it meeting its original intent...in that respect I don't think it succeeded. Most of the girls I knew wanted to be like Alice...including me!

This movie would only be appealing to me if I were on drugs just like the main character Alice (Jamie Smith-Jackson) was. At times, I could barely follow the story line because the scenes jumped around quite a bit. In these scenes, the acting seemed as if the actors will still reading off the scripts. The emotion just wasn't there. The characters just stood there, said their lines, and a new scene was up. The jumping from one scene to the next caused some editing problems. Not enough of the story was told. For example, when Alice meets Chris (Jennifer Edwards) in the shop. Alice is dressed and her hair is done. The next scene Alice and Chris are dressed like twins with their hair ironed. I was confused on how she would change so fast. The dialogues between all the characters were short and not a lot of important things were said. One line was, ` Now you're holding,' said by Jan (Ayn Ruymen) and then it was the end of that scene. The movie didn't grab my attention. This may have also occurred because I read the book before hand. The movie switched a lot of the scenes around and removed some of the characters. But they can only do so much with a movie taken from a book.

Well, I for one actually believed that "go ask alice" was the true story of a teenage girl. But it turns out it was written by an older woman as a cautionary tale on the evils of the day. As a result, for me at least, I had a hard time sitting through the movie. The acting was not very good, either. Though it was interesting to see Mackenzie Phillips in her first starring role. I think she should have written the script, seeing as how she did a lot of drugs at the time.It probably would have been a little more believable.Robert Carradine plays Bill. You may remember him from Revenge of the Nerds and Lizzie McGuire. Or you may not remember him at all. Oh, yes, they DID cast William Shatner as the father. AND Andy Griffith as the priest. But the one thing the movie didn't include was the best line from the book---"another day, another blowjob"

I hope the movie is released one of these days because it would definitely bring back memories. I have not seen it since I was in Junior High School in the late '70's (they used to show it at school, perhaps as a scare tactic) but I still remember the book and the movie as having a profound influence on why I never touched drugs. I now understand this was not a true story but at the time I couldn't get over "Alice's" story and the consequences of using drugs. I still own a copy of the book and re-read it from time to time. I would love to see the movie again but wouldn't be surprised if I found it very dated and wonder why it affected me so much back then.

In the early 1970s, America was still in denial about drugs. Like the parents of Alice in this film, "other" kids use drugs and the risk to their own kids is minimal. So, this film where the fictionalized "girl next door" and her fall into drug dependence is meant to wake up folks to the potential horrors of drugs.

Jamie Smith-Jackson stars as Alice, though oddly established actors like William Shatner, Ruth Roman and Julia Adams are listed at the top of the credits--and Jamie in the middle. I say this is odd because Shatner, Roman and Adams really were barely in the movie at all and the film is about Alice! As for these screen veterans, Shatner and Adams especially did great impersonations of blocks of wood. Perhaps the film made them too out of it--and they were a bit hard to believe as their characters weren't fully established. As for newcomer Smith-Jackson, she did a pretty good job helming this film.

The big star of the film, however, is the writing. The story didn't come off as trite or that whitewashed (at least for a made for TV movie) and was good entertainment and a nice public warning about drugs. A very good and well made film overall. And, considering I have worked in drug rehab and with prison populations, I have seen first hand the horrors that might befall those who make the choice to use drugs of all types--including alcohol.