FILM  MOVIE REVIEW

Alice, Sweet Alice

Alice, Sweet Alice ***½

by Ed Gonzalez on April 20, 2005   Jump to Comments (1) or Add Your Own

The story of a 12-year-old girl, Alice (Paula E. Sheppard), who may have killed her younger sister (Brooke Shields, before tits), Alice, Sweet Alice conflates the angst of adolescent sexual development with the fury of Catholic retribution, suggesting at times an analog version of David Fincher's Se7en. It's a dangerous combo, and it's all over the fierce confrontations between the film's characters and director Alfred Sole's surprisingly formalist compositions. Indeed, there isn't a scene in the film that doesn't suggest a face-off between man and God—by my count, there's only a handful of shots that don't have a cross or statue of Christ passing judgment from some wall or corner of a room. Possibly the closet American relation to an Italian giallo, the film is head-trippingly hilarious (Jane Lowry, as Aunt Annie, may be the nuttiest screamer in the history of cinema) and features some of the more disquieting set pieces you'll ever see in a horror film. It's a strange brew, which is why—despite its considerable cult following—the film has never gotten the critical attention it deserves. Sheppard, who would go on to appear in 1982's Liquid Sky as the scene-stealing Adrian (in which she got to spew the classic knee-slapper, "Shut up before I cut your face and nobody's gonna want to fuck your ugly cunt!"), was actually 19 years old when she made Alice, Sweet Alice, and though you'd never know it from the way Sole frames the girl, her age is all over the world-weary fury she brings to the role, nowhere more unnerving than Alice's many smackdowns with her obese downstairs neighbor, scenes that imagine what it must be like if Willy Wonka's Veruca Salt ever butted heads with Marlon Brando's Doctor Moreau.

  • Director(s): Alfred Sole
  • Screenplay: Rosemary Ritvo, Alfred Sole
  • Cast: Paula E. Sheppard, Linda Miller, Mildred Clinton, Niles McMaster, Jane Lowry, Rudolph Willrich, Michael Hardstark, Alphonso DeNoble, Garry Allen, Louisa Horton, Tom Signorelli, Brooke Shields
  • Distributor: Allied Artist Pictures
  • Runtime: 108 min.
  • Rating: NR
  • Year: 1976

Comments

No-Personality on February 13, 2011, 03:30 PM

I knew a girl as a kid who was an amazing hybrid of Julie Dawn Cole and Fairuza Balk. God, was she a bitch! And while her and Paula E. Sheppard had nothing in common (she had nothing on Sheppard), her mother (the "C" word doesn't come anywhere near describing her—I'm merely censoring this because she can never defend herself) could cream Jane Lowry. Which is amusing since they were neighbors of mine and where we lived is Connecticut in the early 80's compared to the neighborhood where the brat sisters from this movie were growing up. How any part of our little town could conceivably be more ghetto than an apartment building run by the likes of "Mr. Alphonse," I'll never know...

Great damn movie (less musical than Se7en but I enjoyed it more). I was bored when I saw it 2 years ago. But I rewatched it a couple of weeks back and it's incredible. I think knowing what's going to happen before it does makes the details of the scenes really pop. The first time I saw it, I got a huge reaction out of the...I'll say: final stabbing scene. That's when I knew the movie worked but I continued to consider it a bore. Is it shocking that they revealed the killer's identity so early? Or that the movie chooses a character to elevate to main protagonist and then brutally kills that person off? And- was the movie enjoying killing (the person) as much as I was enjoying watching it? Or, is it meant to be a tragedy? I couldn't shake the feeling that the victim had somehow incurred the death because they were so stupid. Or their character so wooden. This movie's a great underrated comedy. Except for the Mr. Alphonse stuff- been there, done that times infinity. In fact, I think I even found the Reverend Moon stuff in Paul Bartel's Private Parts superior. Saw that film before this. I couldn't stand Mrs. Tredoni. As much as I hated Father Tom, he almost looked better than her by comparison. Her "but you give it to the whore!" speaks volumes, however. I liked Linda Miller- she was the only nice one in the movie. She didn't deserve to be judged by the likes of someone who would say that to her and then cradle a dying man's body as though she were feeling him up. I wonder what "sin" that one represents.

Add Your Own

Login to post comment

or Create an Account

Features

Xavier Dolan

Xavier Dolan

We spoke with the filmmaker about Laurence Anyways, his fascination with Titanic, his use of music, and more.
by Anna Tatarska

Giveaway

Hell on Wheels: The Complete First Season Blu-ray
Newsletter