Alice, Sweet Alice

Originally titled Communion when it was first released in 1976, Alice, Sweet Alice is a perfect example of a low-budget movie that crashed and burned at the box office only to rise from the ashes of obscurity years later to become a well-regarded indie classic. Featuring 11-year-old Brooke Shields in a small (but crucial) role, Alice Sweet Alice was re-released under several titles in an attempt to cash in on Shields' notoriety in the wake of Pretty Baby and The Blue Lagoon. Despite this, Alice was eventually consigned to the ash heap of public domain and cheap VHS videos. Over the years, the movie managed to attract an impressive following, and was finally reassessed by film scholars in the late 1990's. Now widely viewed as a milestone of underground horror, Alice, Sweet Alice is a proto-slasher that casts a jaundiced eye on religion (in this case, Catholicism) and the corrosive effects of guilt, repression and fanaticism. 

Filmed primarily in Paterson, New Jersey (with a little help from Newark), Alice is set in 1961, when the Kennedy presidency was providing traditional Catholicism a big boost in legitimacy among the American public. Even so, while the Church still demanded strict adherence to doctrine, it was the beginning of the 60's: a subtle shift in mores was going on behind closed doors (including those of the Kennedy White House). 

In the film, single mother Catherine lives with her two tween daughters--Alice and Karen--in a blighted neighborhood of Paterson. While the apartment house itself is rundown, Catherine manages to keep a tidy, if not stylish, home for her girls, one of whom is (perhaps unintentionally) the apple of her eye. Alice is not that apple. Born out of holy wedlock, Alice is a troubled, burgeoning sociopath who is about to enter adolescence with an extremely bad attitude and a secret room in the basement. 

With her daughters in parochial school, Catherine finds herself having frequent "parent/teacher conferences" with the young parish priest (handsome Father Tom), who is genuinely concerned about Alice's disruptive behavior. It has also not escaped Father Tom's attention that Catherine is no slouch in the looks department: in fact, she's actually rather gorgeous. Throughout much of the movie the two seem to share an unacknowledged frisson--a fact not lost on others in the parish. This includes Catherine's older sister, Annie, a devout church lady and overbearing shrew who lives with her family just down the street. In some ways, Alice is a tale of 2 pairs of sisters: Catherine and Annie--who secretly despise one another--and Alice and Karen, whose animus is out in the open for everyone to see. 

Unbeknownst to Catherine, Mr. Alphonso, the cat-loving, urine-soaked 300 lb. building superintendent/pedo can't seem to keep his eyes (or, ultimately, his hands) off Alice's ripening figure. In fact, the clueless Catherine sends Alice down with the rent check and baked goodies, unaware that Alphonso is making lewd proposals to her daughter. Unfortunately for Mr. Alphonso, his ghastly maneuvers don't so much frighten Alice as enrage her. Of course, she never tells her mother about this because it's not happening to Karen. Why bother? 

Lately, Alice has taken to donning a bright yellow raincoat and creepy mask to scare Karen, the priest's housekeeper and whoever else she can catch unawares. Alarmed by the escalation in Alice's behavior, Catherine is at her wit's end. Annie, who always seems to be on hand to dispense unwanted advice, insists that something must be done about Alice. The girl is a menace in every sense of the word! And it's poor, sweet Karen who must endure this wretched child's aggression. This assessment isn't far off the mark, but sneaky Alice happens to overhear this conversation and reacts accordingly. 

On the day of Karen's first communion she is quietly dragged away from the procession and brutally strangled by someone wearing a mask and yellow raincoat. Tossed into a wooden bench and set on fire, Karen slowly simmers while Father Tom begins the ceremony, delivering communion to the waiting mouths of his young congregants. In the front pews, Catherine and Annie wonder where the hell Karen has gotten off to. Why isn't she up there with the other kids? For that matter, Alice is also noticeably MIA, as is Annie's daughter, Angela. What gives with these girls anyway? 

It isn't long before one of the nuns notices smoke drifting in from the church transept. Once the grisly discovery is made, everyone in the church makes a beeline for the body so they can get a good look. A devastated Catherine finds scant consolation from overwrought drama-queen Annie, who is convinced that Alice did the deed. Father Tom provides comfort--if not quite joy--to the distraught mother whose ex-husband, Dom, reappears in town on the day of his younger daughter's funeral. Dom, remarried and living in another part of the state, doesn't seem notably distraught by the tragedy--he misses the funeral and barely makes it to the burial service--but vows not to leave town until he unmasks the killer. Good thing because the cops here are as thick as mince and need all the help they can get. 

Since half the cast wears yellow raincoats, and those creepy masks are displayed prominently in the window of the five and dime, the killer could be almost anybody. Although Aunt Annie and the cops are pretty sure it's Alice. Now that Karen is gone, Catherine shifts her undivided attention to Alice, although undivided may be overstating it. With Dom back in the picture, Catherine is feeling very divided. Feeling his oats now that he's away from his current wife, Dom is still a sexy beast, at least to Catherine, who has needs that Father Tom can't fulfill. Or maybe she and Dom still love each other. None of this goes down well with Annie, or Alice, who has never quite forgiven her father for leaving them. 

So, the mysterious masked figure in the yellow raincoat goes about their murderous business which, conveniently, reduces the names on Alice's enemies list. This doesn't escape the notice of the police department, who finally bring Alice down to HQ for a little gab session and lie detector test. A bit like Mr. Alphonso, the cops are pervy, too. Viewing Alice through a one-way mirror they remark on her "tits" (mind you, she's supposed to be a 12-year-old girl). After Alice is shipped off to a psychiatric unit for evaluation, an outraged Catherine and Dom attempt to facilitate her release but the psychiatrist confides that it's not safe for them to have Alice around the house in her current unhinged state. What will they do? There's no way that Alice can be responsible for these dreadful attacks! Of that they are certain. Or maybe they are just plain wrong. . 

With 30 minutes left to go in the movie, the killer is unmasked, which seemed a bit premature given the build-up to a mystery that has kept us uncertain (and unsettled) for over an hour. I expected a last-minute denouement but this big revelation coming so soon felt like a major letdown. Luckily, the director knew what he was doing: the scene serves to build upon the religious iconography we've seen earlier in the movie, which propels the plot to its shocking climax. 

The first "legitimate" film directed by Alfred Sole (he'd previously done an erotic movie that was confiscated by authorities), Alice, Sweet Alice was shot with a 16mm camera and largely financed by Sole himself. An architect who specialized in the restoration of old buildings, Sole was able to use his connections to secure filming locations and legal permits. He went on to direct the cult hit, Pandemonium, before devoting the rest of his career to production design. The outstanding cinematography by John Friberg and Chuck Hall is effectively structured to capture the atmosphere of decay (urban decay, decaying beliefs, trust, family structures, mental health) and the visual language of the Catholic faith. 

Brooke Shields (Karen) was allegedly coached on set by her "pushy" stage mother for the still-distressing strangulation scene. While she's only in the movie for the first 10 minutes, it's Shields' demise that sets the twisted tale in motion. As Alice, Paula Sheppard (actually a 19-year-old dancer) looks remarkably childlike. She makes a convincingly malicious young girl who never plays on the viewer's sympathy: appearances to the contrary, she's devious and quick-witted enough to take care of herself, even at the expense of those who care for her. Linda Miller--daughter of Jackie Gleason, ex-wife of Jason Miller (of Exorcist fame), and mother of actor Jason Patric (The Lost Boys, After Dark My Sweet, Sleepers)--is surprisingly good as Catherine. Emotionally, she's all over the place as she grieves the death of one daughter while trying to defend the other (who might well be the murderer), in addition to struggling with her feelings for Father Tom and Dom. It's an impressive performance, especially given the personal turmoil the actress was going through at the time. Other actors--Rudolph Willrich (Father Tom), Niles McMaster (Dom), Jane Lowry (Annie), Mildred Clinton (Father Tom's housekeeper), Alphonso DeNoble (looking a lot like a seedy Victor Buono)--were brought in from the New York theater world for their supporting roles. 

Widely considered to be the first American giallo, Alice, Sweet Alice takes its cues from Italian genre masters like Dario Argento and Mario Bava. Many of the tropes from Italian giallo films are evident throughout the film, including the raincoated killer, the use of masks, red herrings, religious totems and the standard gang of extraordinarily useless cops. The bloody finale is an obvious nod to Nicolas Roeg's acclaimed Don't Look Now, although the concluding tragedy in that film was presented as both needless and inevitable, while in this movie it is a continuation of the theme of irreligious "contamination" and the overzealous need to eradicate it. For horror devotees and fans of independent cinema, Alice, Sweet Alice is a transgressive gem that continues to fascinate 50 years later.