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Alice’s Restaurant movie storyline. Arlo Guthrie’s song is converted into a motion picture. Arlo goes to see Alice for Thanksgivng and as a favor takes her trash to the dump. When the dump is closed, he drops it on top of another pile of garbage at the bottom of a ravine. When the local sheriff finds out a major manhunt begins. Arlo manages to survive the courtroom experience but it haunts him when he is to be inducted into the army via the draft. The movie follows the song with Arlo’s voice over as both music and narration.
Alice’s Restaurant is a 1969 American comedy film directed by Arthur Penn. It is an adaptation of the 1967 folk song “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree”, originally written and sung by Arlo Guthrie. The film stars Guthrie as himself, with Pat Quinn as Alice Brock and James Broderick as Ray Brock. Penn, who resided in the story’s setting of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, co-wrote the story with Venable Herndon in 1967 after hearing the song, shortly after directing Bonnie & Clyde.
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.
About the Story
In 1965, Arlo Guthrie (as himself) has attempted to avoid the draft 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 quits school, and subsequently hitchhikes back East. He first visits his father Woody Guthrie (Joseph Boley) in the hospital.
Arlo ultimately returns to his friends Ray (James Broderick) and Alice Brock (Pat Quinn) 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 officers’ 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 quote scene of the crime unquote 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 8×10 color glossy photos of the crime but the judge (James Hannon as himself) happens to be blind, using a seeing eye dog, and simply levies a $25 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. 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. He attempts twice to make himself unfit for induction, first by getting drunk the night before and performing the physical exams while hung over, then by acting like a homicidal maniac in front of the psychiatrist, but fails both times (the latter incident actually gets him praise). 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, not because of the littering incident, but because the government is suspicious of “his kind” and instead opted to submit his personal records to Washington, DC.
Alice’s Restaurant (1969)
Directed by: Arthur Penn
Starring: Arlo Guthrie, Pat Quinn, William Obanhein, Tina Chen, James Broderick, Pete Seeger, Kathleen Dabney, William Obanhein, Seth Allen, Lee Hays, Vinnette Carroll, Joseph Boley
Screenplay by: Venable Herndon, Arthur Penn
Production Design by: Warren Clymer
Cinematography by: Michael Nebbia
Film Editing by: Dede Allen
Costume Design by: Anna Hill Johnstone
Set Decoration by: John Mortensen
Music by: Arlo Guthrie
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: United Artists
Release Date: August 19, 1969
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