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Alice's Restaurant (film)
Encyclopedia
Alice's Restaurant is a 1969 American comedy film co-written and directed by Arthur Penn
. It is an adaptation of the 1967 folk
song of the same name
by singer and songwriter Arlo Guthrie
. The film stars Guthrie as himself, with Pat Quinn as Alice Brock and James Broderick
as Ray Brock.
Alice's Restaurant was released on August 19, 1969, a few days after Guthrie appeared at the Woodstock Festival
. A soundtrack album
for the film was also released by United Artists Records
. The soundtrack includes a studio version of the title song
, which was originally divided into two parts (one for each album side); a 1998 CD reissue on the Rykodisc
label presents this version of the song in full, and adds several bonus tracks to the original LP.
by attending college in Montana. His long hair and unorthodox approach to study gets him in trouble with local police as well as residents. He is thrown out of school, hitch-hiking back East. He first visits his father Woody Guthrie
(Joseph Boley) in the hospital, along with singer Pete Seeger
.
Arlo ultimately returns to his friends Alice (Pat Quinn) and Ray Brock (James Broderick) at their home, a deconsecrated
church in Great Barrington, Massachusetts
where they welcome friends and like-minded bohemian types to "crash". Among these are Arlo's school friend Roger (Geoff Outlaw) and artist Shelley (Michael McClanathan), an ex-heroin addict who is in a motorcycle racing club. Alice is starting up a restaurant in nearby Stockbridge. Frustrated with Ray's lackadaisical attitude, she has an affair with Shelley, and ultimately leaves for New York to visit Arlo and Roger. Ray comes to take her home, saying he has invited a "few" friends for Thanksgiving.
The central point of the film is the story told in the song: After Thanksgiving dinner, Arlo and his friends decide to do Alice and Ray a favor by taking several months worth of garbage from their house to the town dump. After loading up a red VW microbus
with the garbage, and "shovels, and rakes and other implements of destruction", they head for the dump. Finding the dump closed for the holiday, they drive around and discover a pile of garbage that someone else had placed at the bottom of a short cliff. At that point, as mentioned in the song, "...we decided that one big pile is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we decided to throw ours down."
The next morning they receive a phone call from "Officer Obie" (Police Chief William Obanhein
as himself), who asks them about the garbage. After admitting to littering, they agree to pick up the garbage and to meet him at the police station. Loading up the red VW microbus, they head to the police station where they are immediately arrested.
As the song puts it, they are then driven to the scene of the crime where the police are engaged in a hugely elaborate investigation. At the trial, Officer Obie is anxiously awaiting the chance to show the judge the 27 photos of the crime but the judge happens to be blind, using a seeing eye dog
, and simply levies a $50 fine, orders them to pick up the garbage and then sets them free. The garbage is eventually taken to New York and placed on a barge, to be taken out and dumped in the Atlantic Ocean. Meanwhile, Arlo has fallen in love with a beautiful Asian girl, Mari-chan (Tina Chen).
Later in the movie, Arlo is called up for the draft, in a surreal
depiction of the bureaucracy
at the New York City
military induction center on Whitehall Street
. Because of Guthrie's criminal record for littering, he is first sent to the Group W bench (where convicts wait), then outright rejected as unfit for military service.
Upon returning to the church, Arlo finds Ray and members of the motorcycle club showing home movies of a recent race. Shelley enters, obviously high, and Ray beats him until he reveals his stash of heroin, concealed in some art he's been working on. Shelley roars off into the night on his motorcycle to his death; the next day, Woody dies. Ray and Alice have a hippie-style wedding in the church, and a drunken Ray proposes to sell the church and start a country commune instead, revealing that he blames himself for Shelley's death. The film ends with Alice standing alone in her bedraggled wedding gown on the church steps.
s in the film. In the scene where Ray and friends are installing insulation, she is wearing a brown turtleneck top and has her hair pulled into a ponytail
. In the Thanksgiving dinner scene, she is wearing a bright pink blouse. In the wedding scene, she is wearing a Western-style dress.
Stockbridge
police chief William Obanhein
("Officer Obie") plays himself in the film, explaining to Newsweek
magazine that making himself look like a fool was preferable to having somebody else make him look like a fool.
The film also features the first credited film appearance of character actor M. Emmet Walsh
, playing the Group W sergeant. (Walsh had previously appeared as an uncredited extra in Midnight Cowboy
, released three months prior.) The film also features cameo appearances by American folksingers/songwriters Lee Hays (playing a reverend at an evangelical meeting) and Pete Seeger
(playing himself).
The characters of Shelley and Ruth (the cougar-ish club owner) were created for the film, and had no real-life counterparts.
Other more minor differences exist, including the fact that in real life the red VW microbus actually belonged to Ray, not Arlo; Ray and Alice lived by themselves in the church, not as part of a commune as seen in the film; and the real-life 1965 Thanksgiving dinner was only attended by a handful of people (not the dozens shown in the film). The song portrays these events with more accuracy than the film.
When interviewed in 1971, the film's director, Arthur Penn, said of the film: "What I tried to deal with is the US's silence and how we can best respond to that silence. ... I wanted to show that the US is a country paralyzed by fear, that people were afraid of losing all they hold dear to them. It's the new generation that's trying to save everything."
In being offered the opinion that violence is not so important in the film, Penn replied: "Alice's Restaurant is a film of potential transition because the characters know, in some way, what they are looking for. ... It's important to remember that the characters in Alice's Restaurant are middle-class whites. They aren't poor or hungry or working class. They are not in the same boat as African Americans. But they're not militants either. In this respect the church dwellers are not particularly threatening. They find it easy to live there, even if most people can't afford such a luxury. From this point of view, this film depicts a very specific social class. It's a bourgeois film."
However, other commentators have pointed out that there is indeed violence in the film, but of an unexpected kind, domestic violence. Alice is very often beaten by her husband, Ray — something which the others do not even react to. Ray's repeated request to Alice for them to start over again shows her in the role of a battered partner. The film ends with the wedding guests leaving and Ray and Alice trying to persuade them to stay. The final scene is not of a loving couple seeing off their guests, but of Alice standing alone looking into the distance, watching the guests leave, as if knowing that her future is in fact bleak with Ray.
Arthur Penn
Arthur Hiller Penn was an American film director and producer with a career as a theater director as well. Penn amassed a critically acclaimed body of work throughout the 1960s and 1970s.-Early years:...
. It is an adaptation of the 1967 folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
song of the same name
Alice's Restaurant
"Alice's Restaurant Massacree" is a musical monologue by singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie released on his 1967 album Alice's Restaurant. The song is one of Guthrie's most prominent works, based on a true incident in his life that began on Thanksgiving Day 1965, and which inspired a 1969 movie of the...
by singer and songwriter Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Davy Guthrie is an American folk singer. Like his father, Woody Guthrie, Arlo often sings songs of protest against social injustice...
. The film stars Guthrie as himself, with Pat Quinn as Alice Brock and James Broderick
James Broderick
James Joseph Broderick III was an American actor.-Life and career:Broderick was born in Charlestown, New Hampshire, the son of Mary Elizabeth and James Joseph Broderick, Jr....
as Ray Brock.
Alice's Restaurant was released on August 19, 1969, a few days after Guthrie appeared at the Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Music & Art Fair was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969...
. A soundtrack album
Soundtrack album
A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television program. In some cases, not all the tracks from the movie are included in the album; however there are rare cases of songs in the trailers that do not appear in...
for the film was also released by United Artists Records
United Artists Records
United Artists Records was a record label founded by Max E. Youngstein of United Artists in 1957 initially to distribute records of its movie soundtracks, though it soon branched out into recording music of a number of different genres.-History:...
. The soundtrack includes a studio version of the title song
Alice's Restaurant
"Alice's Restaurant Massacree" is a musical monologue by singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie released on his 1967 album Alice's Restaurant. The song is one of Guthrie's most prominent works, based on a true incident in his life that began on Thanksgiving Day 1965, and which inspired a 1969 movie of the...
, which was originally divided into two parts (one for each album side); a 1998 CD reissue on the Rykodisc
Rykodisc
Rykodisc Records is an American record label. It is owned by Warner Music Group, operates as a unit of WMG's Independent Label Group and is distributed through Alternative Distribution Alliance.-Company history:...
label presents this version of the song in full, and adds several bonus tracks to the original LP.
Plot
In 1965, Arlo Guthrie (as himself) has attempted to avoid the draftConscription in the United States
Conscription in the United States has been employed several times, usually during war but also during the nominal peace of the Cold War...
by attending college in Montana. His long hair and unorthodox approach to study gets him in trouble with local police as well as residents. He is thrown out of school, hitch-hiking back East. He first visits his father Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
(Joseph Boley) in the hospital, along with singer Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
.
Arlo ultimately returns to his friends Alice (Pat Quinn) and Ray Brock (James Broderick) at their home, a deconsecrated
Deconsecration
Deconsecration is the act of removing a religious blessing from something that had been previously consecrated by a minister or priest of that religion. The same act when performed by a member of a differing religion may be considered a curse by some religions and not a complete removal of the...
church in Great Barrington, Massachusetts
Great Barrington, Massachusetts
Great Barrington is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 7,104 at the 2010 census. Both a summer resort and home to Ski Butternut, Great Barrington includes the villages of Van...
where they welcome friends and like-minded bohemian types to "crash". Among these are Arlo's school friend Roger (Geoff Outlaw) and artist Shelley (Michael McClanathan), an ex-heroin addict who is in a motorcycle racing club. Alice is starting up a restaurant in nearby Stockbridge. Frustrated with Ray's lackadaisical attitude, she has an affair with Shelley, and ultimately leaves for New York to visit Arlo and Roger. Ray comes to take her home, saying he has invited a "few" friends for Thanksgiving.
The central point of the film is the story told in the song: After Thanksgiving dinner, Arlo and his friends decide to do Alice and Ray a favor by taking several months worth of garbage from their house to the town dump. After loading up a red VW microbus
Volkswagen Type 2
The Volkswagen Type 2, officially known as the Transporter or Kombi informally as Bus or Camper , was a panel van introduced in 1950 by German automaker Volkswagen as its second car model – following and initially deriving from Volkswagen's first model, the Type 1 , it was given the factory...
with the garbage, and "shovels, and rakes and other implements of destruction", they head for the dump. Finding the dump closed for the holiday, they drive around and discover a pile of garbage that someone else had placed at the bottom of a short cliff. At that point, as mentioned in the song, "...we decided that one big pile is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we decided to throw ours down."
The next morning they receive a phone call from "Officer Obie" (Police Chief William Obanhein
William Obanhein
William J. Obanhein , sometimes better known as Officer Obie, was the chief of police for the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He was a member of the police force there for 34 years, allegedly being forced into retirement in 1985 for hitting another officer during the course of an argument...
as himself), who asks them about the garbage. After admitting to littering, they agree to pick up the garbage and to meet him at the police station. Loading up the red VW microbus, they head to the police station where they are immediately arrested.
As the song puts it, they are then driven to the scene of the crime where the police are engaged in a hugely elaborate investigation. At the trial, Officer Obie is anxiously awaiting the chance to show the judge the 27 photos of the crime but the judge happens to be blind, using a seeing eye dog
Seeing Eye Dog
Seeing Eye Dog is the seventh studio album by Helmet, released on September 7, 2010 via Work Song, the label imprint shared by singer/songwriter Joe Henry and Helmet mainman Page Hamilton's manager...
, and simply levies a $50 fine, orders them to pick up the garbage and then sets them free. The garbage is eventually taken to New York and placed on a barge, to be taken out and dumped in the Atlantic Ocean. Meanwhile, Arlo has fallen in love with a beautiful Asian girl, Mari-chan (Tina Chen).
Later in the movie, Arlo is called up for the draft, in a surreal
Surreal humour
Surreal humour is a form of humour based on violations of causal reasoning with events and behaviours that are logically incongruent. Constructions of surreal humour involve bizarre juxtapositions, non-sequiturs, irrational situations, and/or expressions of nonsense.The humour arises from a...
depiction of the bureaucracy
Bureaucracy
A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...
at the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
military induction center on Whitehall Street
Whitehall (Manhattan)
Whitehall Street is a street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, about four blocks long. It extends from the southern end of Broadway to the southern end of FDR Drive, adjacent to the Staten Island Ferry terminal, on landfill beyond Stuyvesant's 17th-century house-site...
. Because of Guthrie's criminal record for littering, he is first sent to the Group W bench (where convicts wait), then outright rejected as unfit for military service.
Upon returning to the church, Arlo finds Ray and members of the motorcycle club showing home movies of a recent race. Shelley enters, obviously high, and Ray beats him until he reveals his stash of heroin, concealed in some art he's been working on. Shelley roars off into the night on his motorcycle to his death; the next day, Woody dies. Ray and Alice have a hippie-style wedding in the church, and a drunken Ray proposes to sell the church and start a country commune instead, revealing that he blames himself for Shelley's death. The film ends with Alice standing alone in her bedraggled wedding gown on the church steps.
Cast
- Arlo GuthrieArlo GuthrieArlo Davy Guthrie is an American folk singer. Like his father, Woody Guthrie, Arlo often sings songs of protest against social injustice...
as Arlo - Pat Quinn as Alice Brock
- James BroderickJames BroderickJames Joseph Broderick III was an American actor.-Life and career:Broderick was born in Charlestown, New Hampshire, the son of Mary Elizabeth and James Joseph Broderick, Jr....
as Ray Brock - Pete SeegerPete SeegerPeter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
as Himself - Lee Hays as Himself - Reverend at Evangelical Meeting
- Michael McClanathan as Shelly
- Geoff Outlaw as Roger Crowther
- Tina ChenTina ChenTina Chen is a Chinese American actress best known for her appearances in the films Alice's Restaurant, Three Days of the Condor and The Hawaiians....
as Mari-chan - Kathleen Dabney as Karin
- William ObanheinWilliam ObanheinWilliam J. Obanhein , sometimes better known as Officer Obie, was the chief of police for the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He was a member of the police force there for 34 years, allegedly being forced into retirement in 1985 for hitting another officer during the course of an argument...
as Himself - Officer Obie - Seth Allen as Evangelist
- Monroe Arnold as Bluegrass
- Joseph Boley as Woody Guthrie
- Vinnette Carroll as Draft Clerk
- Sylvia Davis as Marjorie Guthrie
- Simm Landres as Private Jacob / Jake
- Eulalie Noble as Ruth
- Louis Beachner as Dean
- MacIntyre Dixon as First Deconsecration Minister
- Arthur Pierce Middleton as Second Deconsecration Minister
- Donald Marye as Funeral Director
- Shelley PlimptonShelley PlimptonShelley Plimpton Carradine is an American former actress and Broadway performer.Plimpton was born in Roseburg, Oregon, to a father who ran an auto parts store. She is a "very distant" cousin of writer George Plimpton. She moved to New York with her researcher mother when she was 14, after her...
as Reenie - M. Emmet WalshM. Emmet WalshMichael Emmet Walsh is an American actor who has appeared in over 100 film and television productions.-Life and career:Walsh was born in Ogdensburg, New York, the son of Agnes Kathrine and Harry Maurice Walsh, Sr., a customs agent...
as Group W Sergeant
Cameos and special appearances
The real Alice Brock makes a number of cameo appearanceCameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
s in the film. In the scene where Ray and friends are installing insulation, she is wearing a brown turtleneck top and has her hair pulled into a ponytail
Ponytail
A ponytail is a hairstyle in which most or all of the hair on the head is pulled away from the face, gathered and secured at the back of the head with a hair tie, clip or similar device, and allowed to hang freely from that point. It gets its name from its resemblance to the undocked tail of a...
. In the Thanksgiving dinner scene, she is wearing a bright pink blouse. In the wedding scene, she is wearing a Western-style dress.
Stockbridge
Stockbridge, Massachusetts
Stockbridge is a town in Berkshire County in Western Massachusetts. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 1,947 at the 2010 census...
police chief William Obanhein
William Obanhein
William J. Obanhein , sometimes better known as Officer Obie, was the chief of police for the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He was a member of the police force there for 34 years, allegedly being forced into retirement in 1985 for hitting another officer during the course of an argument...
("Officer Obie") plays himself in the film, explaining to Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
magazine that making himself look like a fool was preferable to having somebody else make him look like a fool.
The film also features the first credited film appearance of character actor M. Emmet Walsh
M. Emmet Walsh
Michael Emmet Walsh is an American actor who has appeared in over 100 film and television productions.-Life and career:Walsh was born in Ogdensburg, New York, the son of Agnes Kathrine and Harry Maurice Walsh, Sr., a customs agent...
, playing the Group W sergeant. (Walsh had previously appeared as an uncredited extra in Midnight Cowboy
Midnight Cowboy
Midnight Cowboy is a 1969 American drama film based on the 1965 novel of the same name by James Leo Herlihy. It was written by Waldo Salt, directed by John Schlesinger, and stars Dustin Hoffman and newcomer Jon Voight in the title role. Notable smaller roles are filled by Sylvia Miles, John...
, released three months prior.) The film also features cameo appearances by American folksingers/songwriters Lee Hays (playing a reverend at an evangelical meeting) and Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
(playing himself).
Differences from real life
According to Guthrie (commenting in the DVD's audio commentary section) although the film used the names of real people, the screenplay took numerous liberties with actual events. Most notably, the film has Guthrie being forced to leave a Montana town after "creating a disturbance" -- i.e., several town residents object to Guthrie's long hair, and gang up to throw him through a plate glass window. This never happened, and Guthrie expresses regrets that Montana got a "bad rap" in the film.The characters of Shelley and Ruth (the cougar-ish club owner) were created for the film, and had no real-life counterparts.
Other more minor differences exist, including the fact that in real life the red VW microbus actually belonged to Ray, not Arlo; Ray and Alice lived by themselves in the church, not as part of a commune as seen in the film; and the real-life 1965 Thanksgiving dinner was only attended by a handful of people (not the dozens shown in the film). The song portrays these events with more accuracy than the film.
Reception
Critical reception of the film has wavered between seeing the film as light entertainment or a political statement: "Calling the 1969 film a comedy misses its noir backbeat of betrayed romanticism, and thinking of it as a madcap autobiography misses its politics. This is a movie driven by the military draft and the Vietnam War."When interviewed in 1971, the film's director, Arthur Penn, said of the film: "What I tried to deal with is the US's silence and how we can best respond to that silence. ... I wanted to show that the US is a country paralyzed by fear, that people were afraid of losing all they hold dear to them. It's the new generation that's trying to save everything."
In being offered the opinion that violence is not so important in the film, Penn replied: "Alice's Restaurant is a film of potential transition because the characters know, in some way, what they are looking for. ... It's important to remember that the characters in Alice's Restaurant are middle-class whites. They aren't poor or hungry or working class. They are not in the same boat as African Americans. But they're not militants either. In this respect the church dwellers are not particularly threatening. They find it easy to live there, even if most people can't afford such a luxury. From this point of view, this film depicts a very specific social class. It's a bourgeois film."
However, other commentators have pointed out that there is indeed violence in the film, but of an unexpected kind, domestic violence. Alice is very often beaten by her husband, Ray — something which the others do not even react to. Ray's repeated request to Alice for them to start over again shows her in the role of a battered partner. The film ends with the wedding guests leaving and Ray and Alice trying to persuade them to stay. The final scene is not of a loving couple seeing off their guests, but of Alice standing alone looking into the distance, watching the guests leave, as if knowing that her future is in fact bleak with Ray.
Awards
- Nominated for Academy Award for Best Director (1969) - Arthur Penn
- Nominated for Writers Guild of AmericaWriters Guild of AmericaThe Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
Award (Screen) for Best Drama Written Directly for the Screen (1970) - Venable Herndon, Arthur Penn - Third Place - Laurel Awards - Golden Laurel for Comedy (1970)
- Nominated for British Academy of Film and Television ArtsBritish Academy of Film and Television ArtsThe British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...
Awards - Anthony Asquith Award for Film MusicBAFTA Award for Best Film MusicThe Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music is an annual award given by British Academy of Film and Television Arts.-1960s:*1968 - The Lion in Winter - John Barry...
(1971) - Arlo Guthrie