Alice’s Restaurant (1969)
Directed by Arthur Penn
United Artists, 111 minutes, R/PG (language, brief nudity, drug use)
★★★
Every Thanksgiving you can find a radio station playing Arlo Guthrie’s famed 18:34 talking blues song “Alice’s Restaurant Massacre.” Some people say they are sick of hearing it, but isn’t this the time of the year to be bombarded by music we have heard a billion times (to wit, Christmas carols)? Not everyone knows that Alice's Restaurant was made into a movie. It's not a brilliant one, nor is it 100% accurate, even though Arthur Penn received a Best Director Oscar nomination. It hit theaters at an opportune time–just days after Woodstock. Today, it’s an amusing nostalgia trip. Or is it?
Most folks know the basics. Young Arlo Guthrie is an about to drop out of his Montana college. He returns East for Thanksgiving and stays with Ray and Alice Brock in an old church in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, that’s in a state of renovation and chaos. A whole host of friends–hippies, motorcycle gang members, assorted oddballs–drop by for, as the song puts it, “a Thanksgiving dinner that can't be beat.” When it's over, Arlo and a friend load the garbage into a VW minivan and drive to the dump in Stockbridge. It’s closed for Thanksgiving, but they spot a bank filled with garbage and heave theirs into it. They are soon arrested for littering, which turns out to be a major crime in Stockbridge. They are jailed by “Officer Obie” until they make bail and ordered to appear before a judge. In the category of you-can’t-make-it-up, Obie’s photos of the crime scene go for naught as Judge Hannon is blind. It gets weirder when Arlo is drafted and must report to a New York City induction center. He is rejected from military service because of his “criminal” record.
This is true (mostly). The film converts Arlo’s 18 1/2 minute song into an 111 minute movie. To do so, details are scrambled, made-up, or exaggerated for cinematic purposes. Some scenes were added so noteworthy people could appear in cameos. For example, we see Pete Seeger at the deathbed of Woody Guthrie (Joseph Boley). Arlo arrives to play harmonica while Pete sings “Pastures of Plenty.” Oddly, Arlo’s littering companion is inexplicably renamed Roger. Former junkie Shelly (Michael McClanathan), a motorcycle enthusiast, is fictional, an excuse for a cameo in which then 26-year-old Joni Mitchell to appear at a snowy cemetery to sing (gloriously!) “Songs to Aging Children” at Shelly’s graveside. One exaggerated detail that caused bad will was the implication that Arlo had once slept with Alice Brock. (For the record, her Stockbridge eatery was never named Alice's Restaurant.)
Of course, Arlo stretched the truth in the original song, so I guess we can cut screenwriters Venable Herndon and Arthur Penn some slack. If you realize that both the song and the film are satirical it hardly matters; both captured the zeitgeist of the late 1960s when the Vietnam War raged and the counterculture was at its height. The movie is fun to see, especially if you're tired of the song. See M. Emmett Walsh in his first film appearance as the group W bench Sergeant at the induction center and chuckle at the sight of old lefty Lee Hays as a minister. It's also cool to see several people portray themselves including William Obanhein* (“Obie”) and Judge Hannon, who was indeed blind. Most of those in other roles were depicted by actors. Alice, for example, was played by actress Pat Quinn, Ray by James Broderick, and Arlo's mother Marjorie by Sylvia Davis. You probably won't recognize people in the minor roles and it hardly matters.
Why rehash events from over 50 years ago? Well, if you can get past the hippie garb and the political issues of the late 60s, there's quite a lot in both the song and the movie that remain distressingly relevant. Have politics improved since 1967?** Is your daily newsfeed filled with absurdities? Any new wars that ignited mass protest? Has militarism disappeared? Remember that phrase we see in movies: “Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.” Ah, but are there any innocents? Perhaps a healthy dose of satire would do us more good than a second helping of turkey.
Rob Weir
*In a nice twist, Arlo and Obie later became friends!
** The movie came two years after the song.
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