Alice Cooper: the Nightmare (1975)

'The Nightmare' was the visual equivalent to the 'Welcome To My Nightmare' album. It was aired on US Television (ABC 11:30 EST 25th April '75) to great acclaim. It takes the form of a long form 'video' to tell the story of the album, the first film of it's kind. All the songs from the album are featured plus 'The Ballad Of Dwight Fry'. The film also features horror superstar Vincent Price, performing his role as 'The Curator'.

The version of 'The Ballad Of Dwight Fry' is actually the original instrumental track with a new, probably live, vocal by Alice.

'The Nightmare' TV special was released on Warner home video in the early 80's when the video market was starting to open up. Also, it was at that time it became eligible for a Grammy and was indeed nominated but lost to Duran Duran who were the big thing of the moment. Alice was at the Grammys that year and presented with Grace Jones. (Feb 28th `84)

(Renfield, June 1995)

The Show Producer, David Winter, went from arranging lavish TV productions for Rachel Welch and others to arranging even more lavish Alice Cooper stage shows.

I was watching " The Nightmare "from '75' last night, and wondering why Coop sings different words to 'Devils Food', 'Some Folks', 'Only Women Bleed', etc. I'm talking totally different lyrics. Was it edited for T. V. ?

Most of the changes were pretty small. Some of the lyrics ('Only Women Bleed') were definitely due to TV censors. It wasn't X-rated but it was still 1975 and long before people like Howard Stern came along and pushed the envelope to a point where you can actually say "penis" over the air with only some people freaking out.

Some of the other lyrics were probably redone for "the fun of it" (just too actually make it a separate vehicle for the video) and a little to tell the story of the Nightmare video differently (as in 'The Awakening').

(Renfield, October 1997)

The 1975 Welcome To My Nightmare television special won an Emmy for best video tape editing in 1976.







Directed by Jorn Winther
Story by Alan Rudolph and Tony Hudz

CAST
Alice Cooper as Steven
Vincent Price as The Spirit of the Nightmare
Linda Googh as Cold Ethyl


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