Go Ask Alice (1973)

You won't be disappointed!

Powerful

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The moral of this story is, parents aren't responsible for raising their children. So when their daughter Alice turns to drugs it's everyone else's fault and everyone else's responsibility to get Alice off of drugs.Alice is a typical teenage girl. Oh who the hell are they fooling? Alice isn't a typical girl! She's a blonde Hollywood actress! But as usual the film expects us to believe she's fat, shy, and ignored by boys! Yeah right.Alice literally turns into a hardcore drug user over night. Pot, LSD, heroin, all overnight! Just like all bad parents they claim not to know. Every time I heard a parent say this during a school lecture I wanted to scream. How could they not know their child was a junkie? It was obvious to me their child was a junkie. If I see someone at work with bloodshot eyes, slurring their words, and barely staying conscious I ask them if they have the flu and need to go home.How do parents not notice these things. The reality is they do, they just don't care enough to do anything about it and then expect everyone else to pity them because they let their teen die of a drug overdose.Alice gets into really serious trouble as she sells her body for drugs and then runs away. Soon she and her friend are being imprisoned and raped by child molesters. This scene is one of the creepiest in film history! Fortunately Andy Griffith steps in to save the day. No kidding! Alice shows up at a homeless shelter run by Andy Griffith! Sheriff Taylor gets Alice off the streets and back to her parents. Her parents whom muck up Alice all over again! They send her bad to the same bad school and send her back to the same junkie friends and are then shocked, shocked to find Alice dead of drug overdose. Just imagine how shocked they'll be to find gambling in Casablanca.In summery there are some good scenes here but the only moral message comes from Alice's mother at the end explaining how this was a true story based on Alice's diary. So the parents take no responsibility for raising their daughter?

James Tiberius Kirk always has been and always shall be the One True Captain of the United Star Ship Enterprise. Andrew Taylor always has been and always shall be the One True Sheriff of Mayberry, North Carolina.It doesn't matter if they die, or haven't been born yet, or if the actors who play them die, or get recast. It doesn't even matter if they are fictional characters on fictional TV shows. Andy Taylor was Sheriff of Mayberry before "The Andy Griffith Show" was created, and will be after "The Andy Griffith Show" is forgotten. James Kirk was Captain of the Enterprise before "Star Trek was created, and will be after "Star Trek" and all its spinoffs and movie spinoffs are forgotten.

I was 14 when I first saw this movie. It had a tremendous impact on me. I am now a librarian and read the book for the first time this year. The most memorable scene was the bathroom scene at the home where she was babysitting. She was given/took LSD, hallucinated and locked herself in the bathroom to keep from hurting the kids. She thought she was being buried alive and tried to claw her way out of the casket/bathroom. I know this had a profound effect on the choices I made when I did begin to experiment with drugs. I remember it vividly to this day and actually wrote into an editorial commentator once to see if I could get a copy of the movie. He wrote back and said there was no such movie. I knew differently and even though the movie did not keep me from using drugs, I believe that I always had this movie at the forefront of my mind and it somehow kept me grounded!! I think every high school student should be required to see it. The time period may have changed but the issues that teens still face has not.

When the book came out in the late 60's or early 70's it was promoted as non fiction. The author hoped to inform, educate or scare kid's about the dangers of drug use. At that time in the 60's and 70's drugs were considered cool and hip and the dangers of it weren't really known on a wide scale as they are now. The author went onto pen more books about the perils of teens going down the wrong path. She did a popular one almost as popular as go ask Alice and it was on teen prostitution, and another on aids. Decades later the author was revealed (Beatrice Sparks?)and Go ask Alice was changed to being classified as fiction. The book is still either way a great read and written so amazingly sincerely that after finding out it was fiction it is still hard to believe. The movie doesn't do the book justice, but it is fun to watch for 70's kitsch purposes. However when I watched it at 12 after shortly after I read the book, it sort of freaked me out but that was before I got HBO. The movie should really be remade as a time period piece of the late 60's early 70's, and not set in todays world.