{"id":27452,"date":"2012-09-24T11:59:14","date_gmt":"2012-09-24T18:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=27452"},"modified":"2020-11-26T03:10:24","modified_gmt":"2020-11-26T10:10:24","slug":"alices-restaurant-1969","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=27452","title":{"rendered":"Alice&#8217;s Restaurant (1969)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>&#8220;Group W is where they put ya if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committin&#8217; your special crime.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Alices-Restaurant-Poster-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Alices-Restaurant-Poster-1-191x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"191\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-55002\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Alices-Restaurant-Poster-1-191x300.jpg 191w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Alices-Restaurant-Poster-1-82x128.jpg 82w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Alices-Restaurant-Poster-1-172x270.jpg 172w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Alices-Restaurant-Poster-1.jpg 580w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 191px) 100vw, 191px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong><br \/>\nAn itinerant folk singer (Arlo Guthrie) and his musician-friend (Geoff Outlaw) visit a couple of friends (James Broderick and Patricia Quinn) at the church they&#8217;ve converted into a restaurant. When Guthrie gets arrested for littering after a Thanksgiving feast, he recounts his experiences dealing with both the police and the draft board.\n<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n<strong>Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Arthur Penn Films<\/li>\n<li>Counterculture<\/li>\n<li>Musicians<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Review: <\/strong><br \/>\nArthur Penn&#8217;s big-screen follow-up to <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=4421\"><em>Bonnie and Clyde<\/em> (1967)<\/a> was this loose adaptation of Arlo Guthrie&#8217;s beloved <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Alice%27s_restaurant\">18-minute folk song-narrative<\/a> about a series of outlandish yet true events that occurred in Guthrie&#8217;s own life several years earlier. The song itself is a delightful musical monologue &#8212; witty, off-beat, and wonderfully representative of its era; Penn&#8217;s misguided movie, unfortunately, literalizes the elements of Guthrie&#8217;s song in such a way that any deeper insight or enjoyment is completely lost. The song clearly needed to be &#8220;expanded&#8221; to fill a feature-length film, but the resulting narrative threads &#8212; primarily focusing on the troubled relationship between Broderick and Quinn, and a young drug addict (Michael McClanathan) who comes between them &#8212; are both underdeveloped and uninteresting. The primary storyline appears to be a quasi-biography about Guthrie&#8217;s own life at the time, given that he&#8217;s shown making several visits to the deathbed of his father, Woody Guthrie (played by Joseph Boley) &#8212; but we learn surprisingly little about Arlo&#8217;s past or present, other than that he seems persistently bemused by the events occurring both to and around him. Interestingly, Arlo is now a Libertarian and member of the Republican party, indicating that perhaps he really did get fed up with many aspects of the counterculture lifestyle depicted here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Note:<\/strong> Those who have never heard (of) the song this film is based on will be even more lost as to the relevance of any of the proceedings on-screen &#8212; not a good sign for any adaptation.  <\/p>\n<p><strong>Redeeming Qualities and Moments: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Some enjoyable musical numbers<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Alices-Restaurant-Song-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Alices-Restaurant-Song-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"552\" height=\"296\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-55004\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Alices-Restaurant-Song-1.jpg 552w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Alices-Restaurant-Song-1-300x161.jpg 300w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Alices-Restaurant-Song-1-128x69.jpg 128w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Alices-Restaurant-Song-1-504x270.jpg 504w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 552px) 100vw, 552px\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Must See? <\/strong><br \/>\nNo; skip this one unless you have a personal interest in the subject matter. Listed as a Cult Movie and a Personal Recommendation in the back of Peary&#8217;s book. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Links: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0064002\/\">IMDb entry<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dvdtalk.com\/dvdsavant\/s183alice.html\">DVD Savant Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.qwipster.net\/alicesrestaurant.htm\">Qwipster Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thespinningimage.co.uk\/cultfilms\/displaycultfilm.asp?reviewid=3413&#038;aff=13\">Spinning Image Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.badmovies.org\/movies\/alicerest\/\">Bad Movies Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tcm.com\/tcmdb\/title\/67027\/alices-restaurant#articles-reviews?articleId=1178\">TCM Article<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeout.com\/movies\/alices-restaurant\">Time Out Capsule Review<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Group W is where they put ya if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committin&#8217; your special crime.&#8221; Synopsis: An itinerant folk singer (Arlo Guthrie) and his musician-friend (Geoff Outlaw) visit a couple of friends (James Broderick and Patricia Quinn) at the church they&#8217;ve converted into a restaurant. When Guthrie gets arrested for littering after a Thanksgiving feast, he recounts his experiences dealing with both the police and the draft board. Genres, Themes, Actors, and&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=27452\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27452"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55006,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27452\/revisions\/55006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}