Go Ask Alice discussion

Has anyone else watched the 1973 Go Ask Alice movie (if so thoughts?)?
I found it today on youtube and figured I have nothing better to do with my time so I may as well watch it.


Here's the link for anyone else curious or bored and looking for something to watch (:

http://youtu.be/JMM3X3hqj3w

the movie was awful, and not especially true to the book. The book takes alot of flak for being a fake autobiography but I read it when I was a teen and it kept me the heck off drugs.

Leigh wrote: "the movie was awful, and not especially true to the book. The book takes alot of flak for being a fake autobiography but I read it when I was a teen and it kept me the heck off drugs."

The movie skipped around too much for my taste, which is saying something since the book constantly had missing days. And at the end she says she's 17.. Wasn't she supposed to be 14 at the beginning of the movie? I guess I accomplished my goal of killing an hour, but now I wish I had chosen something else to do it with. The whole movie you're waiting for something to happen and nothing ever does.

It doesn't look that good, I've started watching it a few times and ended up fast forwarding to the parts where she tries LSD and I just couldn't be bothered. Sure the book acts like some sort of after school special but if presented in reality it's more than that cheesy 70's and implied way of filmmaking. They should remake it with today's technology and revisit the late 60's and show the book as it shows itself, raw.

There's a movie?..

Catherine wrote: "There's a movie?.."

Yup, made I believe in either '71 or '72. TV movie, sadly.

I didn't know there was a movie either. I remember when I was in speech tournaments growing up, that was the book that 90% of the girls selected their "speeches" from every year.

I read it several times 6th and 7th grade but then I tried to read it in my early 20's out of nostalgia and it read like far too YA for my taste. I remember thinking it was gorgeously written, but when I re-read it I wasn't impressed. Guess I grew out of it.

The reason I think people got really upset that it wasn't real was because at first the publisher did not admit that she had written it. It wasn't until much later that it came out that it was not a real diary and I think people felt duped. Then she came out with a series of others like Jay's Journal which weren't nearly as popular or moving, at least I didn't think so.

I remember doing something insignificant — another in a long line of insignificant malfeasances that set my insane mother off on a rampage — and her making me read the book and write her a report on it, then she found the movie and made me watch it, sitting right there with me, not allowing me to look away, even get up and go to the bathroom.

She wanted to impress upon me what would happen if I didn't stop questioning her every mandate . . .

It didn't work very well, lol.

And yes, the movie was ludicrous, but so was the book in the first place.

Renee wrote: "I remember doing something insignificant — another in a long line of insignificant malfeasances that set my insane mother off on a rampage — and her making me read the book and write her a report o..."

It's interesting how the different generations view things... When I was in high school (many, many years ago), Go Ask Alice was a banned/forbidden book. Several of my friends were surrepititiously reading it.

I desparately wanted to read it. I carried books with me everywhere and knew there was no way to conceal it. My mother was less than thrilled and did not approve -- but she also did not believe in censoring. To solve her dilema, she told me I could read Go Ask Alice only after I completed and could discuss Grapes of Wrath.

For a midwest teenager in the mid-70's Go Ask Alice was shocking. We had alcohol -- but nothing like what was in the book. It had a profound effect on my circle of friends. We would have all given it at least four, probably five stars.

It's ironic that the mothers of my friends would have been horrified to learn their daughter's were reading it. We thought they were insane as well.

In fact, mothers are all a bit insane (just ask my kids), but I suspect from what you wrote, she was hoping to impress upon you the death spiral that encompassed Alice because of her drug use. And perhaps your grandma wasn't so gung ho about your mom reading it.

I think of the Crosby, Stills & Nash song "Teach your children well"...

I never saw the movie, so I can't comment on it.

Oh, mine's insane, sadly. Narcissistic Personality Disorder in all its glory.

She's the kind of mother who, when my younger sister (who is just like her) had Hodgkin's lymphoma, my mother told me — on several occasions — "it should have been you."

Later she tried to convince me she'd never said it, that I'd made it up to hurt HER.

Yeah, she's insane. And I've got the battle wounds to attest to it.

I graduated from high school in 1983 and this book was a big joke for us. We made horrible fun of the hippie/counterculture references. I can remember a day when we had skipped class to go to someones house so we could watch MTV and smoke weed and we were reading passages from the book out loud and cracking up. Thirty years later I still smile at our exuberance in rebellion because we all turned out just fine.