Alice's Restaurant is a 1969 movie adapted from a song by Arlo Guthrie. The song is Arlo Guthrie's most famous work, a talking blues based on a true story that began on Thanksgiving Day 1965. The movie reproduces the events of the song, in addition to other scenes. Image File history File links AlicesRestaurantDVD.jpg Summary DVD cover, Alices Restaurant (2001 video release of 1969 movie) MGM Home Video. ... Arthur Penn (born September 27, 1922 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a film director of thoughtful films that dont always find an audience. ... Silly old person. ... A press photo of Arlo Guthrie. ... Arthur Penn (born September 27, 1922 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a film director of thoughtful films that dont always find an audience. ... A press photo of Arlo Guthrie. ... James Broderick was an actor who will perhaps be best known as the father of Matthew Broderick, an actor famous in the 1980s-present for his many movie roles and Broadway performances. ... Peter Seeger (born May 3, 1919), almost universally known as Pete Seeger, is a folk singer, political activist, and author. ... Lee Hays (March 14, 1914 - August 26, 1981), was an American folk-singer and songwriter, who sang bass for the Weavers. ... A press photo of Arlo Guthrie. ... Dede Allen (born Dorothea Carothers Allen, 3 December, 1925, in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American film editor. ... The current United Artists logo (a variant was used during the 1980s). ... August 20 is the 232nd day of the year (233rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For the Stargate SG-1 episode, see 1969 (Stargate SG-1). ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The former church where Alice and Ray lived and where the story begins; the restaurant itself is roughly six miles north in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. ... A press photo of Arlo Guthrie. ... A press photo of Arlo Guthrie. ... The Talking blues was a style of rhythmic speech or near-speech where the melody is free but the rhythm is strict. ... The First Thanksgiving, painted by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1863-1930). ...

The movie is directed and co-written by Arthur Penn and stars Guthrie as himself, Pat Quinn as Alice Brock and James Broderick as Ray Brock, with the real Alice making a cameo appearance. 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. Arthur Penn (born September 27, 1922 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a film director of thoughtful films that dont always find an audience. ... James Broderick was an actor who will perhaps be best known as the father of Matthew Broderick, an actor famous in the 1980s-present for his many movie roles and Broadway performances. ... Martin Scorsese appears briefly in an uncredited role in this scene from his feature film Taxi Driver. ... 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. ...

Stockbridge police chief William Obanhein ("Officer Obie") played himself in the film version, explaining to Newsweek magazine that making himself look like a fool was preferable to having somebody else make him look like a fool. Stockbridge is a town in Berkshire County in Western Massachusetts. ... William J. Obanhein (October 19, 1924-September 11, 1994), sometimes better known as Officer Obie, was the chief of police for the New England town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. ... The Newsweek logo Newsweek is a weekly news magazine published in New York City and distributed throughout the United States and internationally. ...

The movie version of "Alice's Restaurant" was released on August 19, 1969, a few days after Guthrie appeared at the Woodstock Festival. The Woodstock Music and Art Fair was an event held at Max Yasgurs 600 acre (2. ...

Plot

The movie recounts a true but comically exaggerated Thanksgiving adventure.

Arlo Guthrie (as himself) is visiting his friends Alice (Pat Quinn) and Ray Brock (James Broderick) at their home, a deconsecrated church in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Alice owns a restaurant, thus, "Alice's Restaurant", in nearby Stockbridge.   Great Barrington is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. ...

After a Thanksgiving dinner, Arlo and his friends decide to do Alice and Ray a favor and take several months worth of garbage from their house to the town dump. After loading up a red VW microbus with the garbage they head for the dump. Finding the dump closed for the holiday, they drive around and discover a pile of garbage at the bottom of a short cliff that someone else placed there. The Volkswagen Type 2 (aka Transporter) was the second automotive line introduced by German automaker Volkswagen. ...

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" (William Obanhein), 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 with shovels and tools, 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, "there was five police officers and three police cars, being the biggest crime of the last fifty years, and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper story about it. And they was using up all kinds of cop equipment that they had hanging around the police officer's station. They was taking plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog smelling prints, and they took twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us."

At the trial, Officer Obie is anxiously awaiting the chance to show the judge the 27 photos of the "Crime of the Century", when the judge walks in with his seeing-eye dog. Officer Obie then begins crying with frustration because, "...it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn't nothing he could do about it, and the judge wasn't going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures..." A blind man is led by his guide dog in Brasília, Brazil. ...

After being fined $50 and told to pick up the garbage, the judge sets them free.

Later in the movie, Arlo is called up for the draft, and it shows a surreal 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. The irony being, as the song says, "you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug." The United States has employed conscription (mandatory military service, also called the draft) several times, usually during war but also during the nominal peace of the Cold War. ... This photograph, a cow with antlers standing on a pole, is an example of surreal humour. ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      Bureaucracy. ... Nickname: Location in the state of New York Coordinates: Country United States State New York Boroughs The Bronx Brooklyn Manhattan Queens Staten Island Settled 1625 Government  - Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Area  - City  468. ... The name Whitehall in the context of Manhattan originally referred to Peter Stuyvesants grand residence at the southern tip of Manhattan Island, a name given to it by the British when they took over New Amsterdam from the Dutch. ... The International Tidy Man For other meanings of litter, see Litter (disambiguation). ...

Other scenes in the movie involve Arlo and singer Pete Seeger (as himself) visiting Arlo's father, Woody Guthrie (Joseph Boley), in the hospital. Woody Guthrie died in 1967 after a long bout with Huntington's disease. Peter Seeger (born May 3, 1919), almost universally known as Pete Seeger, is a folk singer, political activist, and author. ... This does not cite its references or sources. ...

The movie also has Lee Hays, American folksinger and songwriter, as himself, playing a Reverend at an Evangelical Meeting. Lee Hays (March 14, 1914 - August 26, 1981), was an American folk-singer and songwriter, who sang bass for the Weavers. ...

Awards

• Nominated for Academy Award for Best Director (1970) - Arthur Penn
• Nominated for Writers Guild of America 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 Arts Awards - Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music (1971) - Arlo Guthrie

Although he never won an Oscar for any of his movie performances, the comedian Bob Hope received two honorary Oscars for his contributions to cinema. ... The Writers Guild of America (WGA) is the collective bargaining representative, or labor union, for writers in the motion picture and television industries in the United States. ... BAFTA Award The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), is a British organisation that hosts annual awards shows for film, television, childrens film and television, and interactive media. ... The Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music (or BAFTA Award for Best Film Music) is an annual award given by British Academy of Film and Television Arts. ...

References

• Alice's Restaurant at the Internet Movie Database