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Ordinary 15-year-old teenage girl, feeling like an outcast at a new high school, falls in with the stoner crowd after being offered hallucinogens at a party. Eventually, she's a runaway living on the streets and, after returning home to her well-meaning but naïve parents, is stuck with a bad reputation among her peers--and labeled a 'fink' when she turns in a fellow teen druggie. TV-made "message movie", adapted from the fictional cult book by Anonymous (Beatrice Sparks), purports to pack a punch, but instead seems tentative and a bit awkward (this mostly due to the inexperienced younger actors in the cast). William Shatner (as Alice's natty father) and Andy Griffith (as a priest who works with dopers and drunks) seem to be cast for their name value, although both do solid work in small roles. Jamie Smith Jackson handles the lead with sensitivity and sincerity, and the picture gets a solid B for effort.

When this film first came out I watched it and it scared the crap out of me. There are a few movies in my life that had a real impact on me and this was one of them. I hadn't seen it since then but recently watched it again and thought I didn't understand really why although saying that when I hear the music that was played during it sang by Grace Slick I still get that sinking, sad, depressed feeling that it originally gave me. Is the quality great compared to today's movies? No, I can't say it is and I've seen better telling of this type of story. Is the acting the best? No, again seen better? Is the storyline based on half-truths? Yes it is. Did it do it's job to scare the crap out of me when I was a youngster. Heck yes and I think was a big influence in the fact that now at 48 years old, almost 49, I never touched a drug in my life. So it may not have been the best acting, most truthfully storyline, the best quality but I think in it's way it saved many of us from ever even thinking about starting down the path of drugs.

I remember watching this with my sister and parents when it was first broadcast on TV. For it's time it pushed the envelope though realizing by today's standards it's kitschy with innuendo and a carefully crafted script to keep it within broadcast standards of the time. It was very good, and did a fair job of scaring some kids to not try drugs. I think the most our group did as teens was 8 people sharing a joint which had no effect; though, sadly I did know friends and kids in school to totally screw up with drugs, a couple died. It served it;s purpose at the time, it would be fodder to today's teens that hear much worse watching television commercials, that are barraged worse than the drug culture of the late 60's early 70's. I love Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplanes original version of Go Ask Alice "White Rabbit" which they did not use in the film.

I saw this movie when it came out on television in 1973. I was 13 years old at the time. I would rate this movie as a 10. The reason being, it scared the hell out of me when I saw it. It came at a very influential time for me. I knew nothing about drugs, I knew no one who had taken drugs and I had never experimented with drugs at that time.

I was later exposed to drugs, they were very prevalent in the seventies. They were everywhere. I had tried marijuana, and a couple other drugs, but never acquired them for myself and never made it my lifestyle. Because of this movie, I was afraid of where it would take me, and that I wouldn't be strong enough to come back from it.

The characters were strong enough, the movie was good enough, the story was told well enough. well enough in fact to haunt my dreams every time I stepped over the drug line and I think that's why it was made, and it did the job it was supposed to do. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

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.

The movie was decent, but it left so much of the amazing imagery out. Also, the book really examines Alice's relationships with people and her feelings of loneliness. The movie was not personal enough. There is an intimacy in reading Alice's diary that draws you in and makes you really experience what she felt. I thought the movie approached this too much as a public service announcement.

RELEASED TO TV IN 1973 and directed by John Korty, "Go Ask Alice" tells the sad drama of a mid-teen named Alice (Jamie Smith-Jackson) who inadvertently gets addicted to drugs and suffers the consequences. William Shatner and Julie Adams play the oblivious parents while Andie Griffith plays a priest/counselor who's seen it all. Ruth Roman is on hand as a psychiatrist while Mackenzie Phillips has a small part as a runaway.

The movie's based on the international best-selling young adult book by "anonymous" and is still in print to this day. While the book was promoted as the diary of a real teenage girl, albeit edited, over time people have come to the conclusion that it's a fake memoir by Beatrice Sparks, a therapist, (with Linda Glovach possibly co-authoring), although many still believe it's based on an authentic teen diary.

Whether it really was based on a real diary or not is irrelevant because the movie cogently reveals the awful truth of a teen girl converting to the drug culture of the early 70s. The director and writers really grasped what it was like and this is conveyed in many ways in the film; for instance, the challenge of going to a new school at 15 and the self-consciousness thereof. The opening with "White Rabbit" by Grace Slick & Jefferson Airplane is true-to-life and unforgettable. There's another scene of the teens high with "Dear Mr. Fantasy" by Traffic that's just as effective.

The movie condenses heavy real-life issues into a mere 74 minutes and divulges numerous truths: peer pressure to drink & do drugs, being stoned while the parents are oblivious (but the little brother KNOWS something's not right), the social divide between druggies and non-druggies, peddling, mental illness, getting clean, going straight, relapses, running away, homelessness, sexual promiscuity, prostitution and the desperation to get help.

"Go Ask Alice" conveys the awful truth of SOME youths who got addicted to drugs in the late 60s and 70s; and is still relevant in many ways to this day (e.g. the meth and heroin epidemics). The movie never suggests that EVERYONE who experiences the drug culture becomes addicted, etc. For example, I did all the alcohol/drugs shown in the movie and overdosed a few times, but never became addicted and easily quit when I was 19; yet I know friends who became addicts (including addicted to narcotics, as illustrated in the movie), died after an overdose, committed suicide, ran away or ended up in prison.

Needless to say, to argue that the movie is "sensationalist propaganda" and "lies" is absurd.

The narration is taken from Alice's diary, which helps us get to know her via her inmost thoughts and care about her welfare. She's beautiful and has so much potential. We WANT her to overcome her addiction and move on to a productive life. Can she? Will she? All I'll say about the ending is that it's potent: I was utterly floored.

THE MOVIE RUNS 1 hour, 14 minutes and was shot at Universal City, California. WRITERS: Beatrice Sparks (book) and Ellen M. Violett (teleplay).

GRADE: B

I saw Go Ask Alice as a high school student, shortly after it was made. Admittedly I was a relatively sophisticated film viewer, but my reaction to it was that it was a weak effort. I found the acting wooden and the script heavy-handed. One of the scenes where the girls discover something that shocks them completely failed to shock me, perhaps because I wasn't either young enough or narrow-minded enough to find it more than mildly surprising.

I would call it a period piece -- not as over-the-top as some of the more hysterical what's-wrong-with-our-kids efforts generally classified as Exploitation Films, but unfortunately not far short of that. It has the same sort of "one little slip from the straight and narrow and you're sliding toward hell" assumptions as many other morality plays, and that actually weakens it as a propaganda/educational (take your pick) effort.

Maybe the book was better. Or maybe you needed to be younger (and/or female?) and see it before "the 60's" (which actually ran partly into the 70's) started fading. Or maybe you needed to be predisposed toward the lesson it was trying to teach. But as a film (never mind as a message) it just didn't work for me. If I'd had any interest in drugs (which I never have), I don't think this would have changed my mind... and it didn't succeed in convincing me that it was even a good composite picture, never mind a portrait of an individual.

I will admit I have not viewed it since then. But since part of what others have discussed has been how it affected them, I felt a comment on how it failed to affect me was appropriate.

Just one ex-kid's reaction. "This is the kind of movie that is liked by the kind of people who like this kind of movie. I'm not one of them."

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!

Before any discussion of this turgid made for TV flick there MUST be the inclusuion of the fact that the book was revealed to be a work of fiction back in the 1980s. It was written by a middle aged therarpist named Beatrice Sparks who was also involved in the satanic cult hysteria of the 1980s. So right off the bat the very origins--or what the book claims to be its origins--are a complete fraud.

This precursor to the After School Special is great for unintentional laughs if you have first imbibed in the very substances that this hysterical screed warns against. After a while though the typical lousy 1970s made for TV melodramatics become wearying. If you want a fun stoner film check out REEFER MADNESS or one of the old DRAGNET shows. Let this fraudulent bummer whither away & die like it deserves to.

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.

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?

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 don't think this is some writer in a room making this up. Her descriptions of her trips are incredibly accurate she was a wordsmith as the way she describes things iv'e never heard/read anyone describe the same. I wish I could've ben there in her time of need as i'm sure most of you do who've read the book. What Saddens me Greatley is that she mentions she sells DMT (Dimethyltryptamine) but never tries it... I say with deep confidence, as when you read this book you almost establish a familiarity with her as if she was a sibling or friend and anyone who's tried DMT cannot contain themselves as there is no other drug trip that can compare with it. Anyone who has tried DMT cannot help but SCREAM OUT and let the world know.. here s a good example (youtube "Jim Carrey Talks about his DMT experience" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38ogCISYBZM DMT kills addiction and takes All of that pressure and weight off of your mind... that war that feels like is waging in your mind that weight and pressure of going sober or coming off a mass bender is completely erased your mind is reset and all addictions are cured... I quit everything for months after my first hit of DMT including cigaretes but admit (patheticly) I am not brave enough to do it again and all my other highs hold me back as if they feal threatened. I have tried almost everything there is and what she mentions, except the difference is I am a guy and the social implications of addiction do not affect me as much, anyone elses opinion of me (except people I care about ((which is like 2 people)) do not phase me as it's easier to bear compared to a girl, I think.when I have being pushed or threatened like she was I would push and hit back and that is why it doesn't happen as often. Another big difference is that she vents into her diary, I do not write in a diary which keeps me writing in my mind constantly and I couldn't risk anyone finding it. I'm sorry to see such a beautiful soul erased and would love to have had some guidance and wisdom from her. If anyone is in a similar situation and needs an ear I just created this account anonymously and would love to hear what u have to say and swap stories. only the good die young. I love you all. K.

Go Ask Alice is a fraud of a book and an equally fraudulent movie. The book that this weak, inauthentic TV movie was based on was written by a middle-aged British woman pretending to be an adolescent American girl. The language is all wrong: "telly," "mum" . . . it's all ridiculous for starters, plus the effects she ascribes to certain drugs (pot, speed, and LSD, for starters) are obviously based on antidrug propaganda and not on any first-hand experience.

OK, now to this pallid attempt at creating a film version of a fraudulent book. Well, shall we talk about the production values? Crappy sets, bad lighting, horrible attempts to simulate the drug experience within the confines of a G-mandated rating and an obvious lack of familiarity with either drugs or even decent cinematic representations of freak-outs (Hitchcock/Dali, Hopper/Fonda). And I guess I don't have to talk about how bad the direction and acting are. That's obvious by looking at the casting and the subsequent credits of the ingenue and the non-cameo actors and actresses.

Bad all around--good for a laugh, on a sophomoric level.

Just kidding. I don't do drugs. But I do love this movie. I grew up believing the book Go Ask Alice was real and then to read on IMDB that it is a fake and written by some middle-aged woman...bummer. I watched this movie when it came on as a MOW (movie of the week for all of you who did not grow up in the 70s) and for years I was OBSESSED with finding it on video. I finally did in the spring of 1999. Now I'm not sure what my obsession was. I mean, I really liked this movie when I first watched it (I guess I was about eight) but I don't know why it had such an impression on me. I wish Jamie Smith-Jackson hadn't stopped acting. She is quite good in this movie. I read that she is married to Michael Ontkean. But, anyway, the movie is good and the performances (except for William 'Do I HAVE to do another take? What's wrong with the first one? Just because I didn't show ANY EMOTION WHATSOEVER...' Shatner) are good. I would like to see a remake of this movie. Eve Plumb (always under-rated IMHO) would be great as the mother. Even though this movie is (gulp!) THIRTY years old (that means I'm almost forty...nah, that can't be) it still holds up as to the dangers of experimenting with drugs. Alice and her friend have a pretty rough time of it on the road after running away. They encounter pill-pushing child molesters, eating out of garbage cans and Andy Griffith (a million light years from Mayberry and Aunt Bee) as a with-it preacher! BTW, the other movie I was obsessed with was She Lives! with Season Hubley and Desi Arnaz, Jr., also made in 1973. While I hardly ever watch Alice anymore (I do have it on VHS) I've watched She Lives! probably fifty times in the four years I have had it. I'd like to hear from others who have seen either of these movies.

I remember a friend of mine, a drug counselor at a high school in Southern Idaho, telling a kid who was circling the drain with drug abuse, that she was a recovering addict. She stunned the kid with her personal story of how, every waking minute of every day for the rest of her life, she would want to get high. Use drugs long enough, and you get rewired. Instead of food or air or love or shelter or sex being the most important thing to be acquired, it was getting high.

I had never heard that before, and that was 25 years ago. All of a sudden, if I thought of Go Ask Alice, a 1973 TV-movie based on the ersatz anonymous diaries of a girl, also circling the drain, it made sense. I just thought she was weak.

Like my dad, with respect to bourbon and painkillers.

Weak.

Within the boundaries of what the ABC "standards and practices" people would allow in this movie, Go Ask Alice is painful to watch. It looks authentic because the producers were pushing the network as hard as possible.

It's 72 minutes long, and you can see where the story gets cut to fit in the 90 minute running time. My only complaint is that fragmentation. Would it have killed the network to throw in an extra 26 minutes of running time in a 2-hour slot.

But that's 49 year's worth of water under the bridge. Jaime Smith Jackson portrays Alice. When the film was shot, she was 24 years old, but she nails a 9th grade vibe. What makes the movie work is that, as she spirals, runs away, eats out of garbage cans, and winds up in a shelter run by Father Andy Griffith, her hair gets filthy, with puke and twigs snarled in the mess. Her face is bruised and dirty, and they took off the makeup that allowed a 24 year old to look 10 years younger.

Jackson grows old right in front of our eyes.

Let's be honest. I watched this on TV in the fall of 1973 because I was taking a health class in 9th grade, and the teacher said to watch it.

Two things happened. I got the point, and I fell in love with Jaime Smith Jackson.

As for the book, I heard it was actually a novel, sold as an anonymous set of diaries. I'd like to pretend the book, and the movie, were real.

Man have the times changed, this feels like a public service announcement 70s style. I was here mainly to see captain kirk run a family and its a damm shame he didn't have spock to pull a neck pinch in his drug addled doper kid. On a plus side shatners wigs are looking good and his stride was strong. Needed more shatner looking for his kid.

I was 11 years old when Go Ask Alice came out as a made for TV movie. For those of you who grew up in the 70's and for those of you who didn't't, let me explain to you what a made for TV movie was about and still is. There is only so much a producer can fit into a 2 hour movie filled with TV commercials. The whole point of this movie wasn't about finding faults like how did Alice lock herself INTO a closet or the lame dialogue as some people thought. The movie was to scare the hell out of young kids before they did drugs. Whether or not this movie was based on a true diary of a young girl or not, there were many young kids in the 70's who died while using LSD or any of the other drugs that were available back then. If they didn't die, they messed up their brains from using. If that movie saved ONE person from using drugs.....regardless of whether "Alice" was based on a true person, then the short movie of the week was worth it. It wasn't about the acting of William Shatner or Andy Griffith........it was about DRUGS. Having said all this, I wish they would update the movie for NOW and show it to every grade school and Jr. High in America. Maybe we can scare some kids into NOT doing drugs. If you are a young teen reading this then believe me when I tell you that drinking and drugs are NOT the answer to your problems. EVERYONE has problems regardless of age and if you are young, stay in school and try as best you can to get good grades and go onto college and graduate school. If you are older and doing drugs and drinking, there IS help out there for you. I am not some person who knows it all. Both my parents were alcoholics and I could have easily chosen that road. But I worked full time and saved my money to pay for my college tuition. Was it difficult? Let's see......I worked full time and fit my classes into my work schedule AND lived away from my drunken parents. I am now 43, own my home and have a wonderful husband and 11 year old son. I am living proof that drinking and drugs are NOT the answer and am so glad I saw this movie which scared me away from ANY kind of drug. Thanks for reading.

A pallid, introspective 15 yr old blonde turns on, tunes out, and sweetly scribbles out her Drug-Fried id in her diary. Drugs are rilly bad, m'kay!! Righteous tunes, and a rail-thin Carradine with stoner god hair. The End. Hey!!!! I just wanted to bask in some vintage voluminous-hair-era Shatner, okay!!! Is 'Go Ask Alice a cult? Mmmmmmm??? Too popular? Does Andy Griffith's stolid presence strongly preclude it from ever being seen as a cult? Why do I care, man? Because I'm manifestly the kind of downward-spiralling vidiot that frequently obsesses about such TV pop culture ephemera! Absolutely NOT AT ALL keen on seeing William Shatner sporting a moustache!!!! YIKES!!!!!!!! The fuzzy-wuzzy last scene with wholesome Joel coming back to Alice at her birthday party got me all gushy lachrymose, but I'm worthless and weak. Why are heck are super-earnest 70s ABC Movie of the Week's so rad???? I'm being rhetorical, 'natch, but if someone legit knows the answer, I'm all ears, dude! And I'd genuinely like to see the word 'FINK' daubed on more school lockers.

This "movie" (afterschool special) is a Hilarious attempt at a scare film that can only be compared to something like refer madness in its sheer insanity. At the time this was released it fooled an embarrassing number of Americans into thinking it was based on a true story while in reality it is 100% fictional created in attempt to add fuel to the fear that powered the war on drugs. If you want something to chuckle at give this a watch but be sure to recognize that this is nothing like any kind reality that ever existed. Ps this would probably be a hoot if you were to partake in some herbal refreshment beforehand