Alice, Sweet Alice
Childhood cruelty turns to something more sinister in Alice, Sweet Alice (1976) when a prepubescent girl (Brooke Shields) is murdered early on by her bad-seed sister. Filmed from jarring angles and set in the decaying labyrinth of an outer borough New York neighborhood, Alice, Sweet Alice translates the era’s Italian slasher-psycho flicks to an American setting suffused with Roman Catholic imagery. A tortured Christ hangs overhead and pasty-faced statuary look on at the madness.
Cruising
Released on the backside of gritty ’70s Hollywood, Cruising (1980) is set in New York in the pit of pre-Giuliani squalor—only a couple of summers removed from Son of Sam and the Great Blackout. Al Pacino stars as Steve Burns, the new kid in the precinct, an NYPD cop deep undercover in Manhattan’s LGBT-S&M subculture. Shocking upon release, Cruising follows Burns’ pursuit of a gay psycho killer who leaves behind a trail of body parts.
“The Best of the Carol Burnett Show: 50th Anniversary Edition”
“CBS told me variety shows are a man’s game and offered me a sitcom,” Carol Burnett writes in the colorfully designed booklet accompanying this massive DVD set. But the plucky comedian—one of television’s most versatile entertainers—dug heels in and stayed firm. This 21-disc, 58-hour collection includes 60 episodes plus all “the plusses”—bonus interviews with Burnett and regulars Vicki Lawrence and Tim Conway and guest stars ranging from Julie Andrews to Alan Alda.
“CMA Awards Live: Greatest Moments 1968-2015”
This 10-DVD package culls concert highlights (and covers Nashville’s evolution) from nearly half a century of televised Country Music Association (CMA) Awards. Year one was still shot in black and white, and featured a commanding performance by Johnny Cash and his band of “Folsom Prison Blues” as well as Glen Campbell, backed by an orchestra behind a translucent curtain, seated at stage’s edge singing his exquisite hit, “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.”
—David Luhrssen
