Season 6: Episode 287 - M&M: The Little Girl Who Lived Down The Lane/Alice Sweet Alice

The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976)

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The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane is a 1976 cross-genre film directed by Nicolas Gessner and starring Jodie Foster, Martin Sheen, Alexis Smith, Mort Shuman, and Scott Jacoby. It was a co-production of Canada and France and written by Laird Koenig, based on his 1974 novel of the same title.  The plot focuses on 13-year-old Rynn Jacobs (Foster), a child whose absent poet father and secretive behaviours prod the suspicions of her conservative small-town Maine neighbours. The adaptation, originally intended as a play, was filmed in Quebec on a small budget. The production later became the subject of controversy over reports that Foster had conflicts with producers over the filming and inclusion of a nude scene, but a 21-year-old body double (Foster's sister) was used. After a screening at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival, a court challenge was launched regarding distribution, and a general release followed in 1977.

 

Alice Sweet Alice (1976)

 

Alice, Sweet Alice (originally titled Communion) is a 1976 American slasher film co-written and directed by Alfred Sole, and starring Linda Miller, Paula Sheppard, and Brooke Shields in her film debut. Set in 1961 New Jersey, the film focuses on a troubled adolescent girl who becomes a suspect in the brutal murder of her younger sister at her First Communion, as well as in a series of unsolved stabbings that follow.  Inspired by Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now (1973) and the films of Alfred Hitchcock, writer-director Sole devised the screenplay with Rosemary Ritvo, an English professor who was his neighbor. At the time, Sole had been working as an architect restoring historic buildings in his hometown of Paterson, New Jersey, and several properties he had worked on were used as shooting locations. Filming took place throughout the summer of 1975 in Paterson and Newark. The film premiered at the Chicago International Film Festival under its original title, Communion, in November 1976, and was released under this title in London in September 1977. After being acquired by Allied Artists, it was re-titled Alice, Sweet Alice, and released in the United States on November 18, 1977. Another theatrical re-release occurred in 1981 under the title Holy Terror, which marketed the popularity of Shields after her performance in Louis Malle's Pretty Baby (1978). While not prosecuted for obscenity, the film was seized and confiscated in the UK under Section 3 of the Obscene Publications Act 1959 during the video nasty panic, and was controversial in Ireland due to its apparent anti-Catholic themes.

 

Opening Credits; Introduction (1.06); Background History (33.19); The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane (1976) Film Trailer (36.06); The Original (37.02); Let's Rate (1:22.57); Amazing Design Advertisement (1:43.44); Introducing the Double Feature (1:44.27); Alice Sweet Alice (1976) Film Trailer (1:46.31); The Attraction (1:48.12); How Many Stars (3:01.15); End Credits (3:23.15); Closing Credits (3:24.19)

 

Opening Credits– Epidemic Sound – copyright 2021. All rights reserved

 

Closing Credits:  Thank Heaven For Little Girls by Maurice Chevalier.  Taken from the original Broadway production of GIGI.  Copyright 1958 MGM Records

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Original Music copyrighted 2020 Dan Hughes Music and the Literary License Podcast. 

 

All rights reserved.

 

Used With Kind Permission.

 

All songs available through Amazon Music.