The Helen Morgan Page

Helen Morgan once appeared in a horror/slasher film.

But not during her lifetime.

Primarily remembered today as the film debut of Brooke Shields, Alfred Sole’s 1976 Hitchcockian thriller Alice, Sweet Alice¹ might better be described as the link between the demonic/religious-themed horror films of the late 1960s and early 1970s (Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, The Omen) and the slasher films (Halloween, Friday the 13th) of the late 1970s and 1980s.

The story concerns troubled adolescent, Alice Spages, played by 19-year-old Paula Sheppard. Why is she troubled? Because it’s 1961 and she is growing up in very (pre-Vatican two) Catholic Patterson, New Jersey … and her parents have recently divorced, at a time when Catholics did not do such a thing. And then people start getting stabbed.

Of interest here is Alice’s downstairs neighbor, Mr. Alphonso (Alphonso DeNoble). He is morbidly obese … and a cat person … and a pedophile.

But he has good taste in music. When he’s not listening to opera, he’s listening to Helen Morgan records.

Perhaps a word is in order.

When Helen Morgan died on October 8, 1941, Victor records responded by going into its vaults and packaged eight of the twelve sides Morgan recorded for them as a Morgan souvenir album. It hit the shelves in time for the 1941 Christmas shopping season.

In 1969, Victor took advantage of the success of the film version of Funny Girl, and the nostalgia craze of the late 1960s and early 1970s, by re-releasing eight more sides, including two “new” titles on the B-side of an LP. The A-side was taken by the original Funny Girl, Fanny Brice.

The point?

That is not a Victor 78-rpm disc playing on Mr. Alphonso’s wind-up phonograph. Sole likely chose vintage music for these scenes to show Mr. Alphonso’s isolation and, well, oddness.

Sole was able to find suitable music thanks to the many re-issues of vintage music during the nostalgia craze.

Why Helen Morgan in particular? Likely to supply this joke during one of the film’s most notable – and violent – scenes.

Unpleasant dreams … and happy Halloween from helen-morgan.net!

This site serves as a companion to the book Helen Morgan: The Original Torch Singer and Ziegfeld’s Last Star.

1. Sole released the film in late 1976, briefly, with the title Communion – and then retitled it The Mask Murders. A year later, United Artists acquired the distribution rights and retitled it Alice, Sweet Alice. In 1981, after Shields’ rise to stardom, it was re-edited to beef up her screentime and released as Holy Terror. Shields sued. ↩︎