‘Alice’s’ modest and moving
By Julie Brown-Micko

The 1960s and ’70s were a lesson in culinary schizophrenia. While Julia Child introduced Americans to classic French cuisine, tuna bake and molded jell-o salad graced tables across the land. Of course times were tumultuous outside the kitchen as well: war raged in Vietnam, hippies were “tuning in and dropping out,” and youth-oriented music horrified adults. Arthur Penn’s modest, moving Alice’s Restaurant captures the flavor of the times through folk music legend, Arlo Guthrie.

The movie is based on Guthrie’s famous song of the same name. It is a faithful interpretation of a pleasantly long-winded, rambling reflection of his arrest for littering in a small town and its repercussions. But this is like saying Babette’s Feast is about a French woman winning some money: there is so much more to the story than the facts. Alice’s Restaurant explores ramblings of the gentle, beguiling, somewhat mischievous Arlo Guthrie (as himself) and his dear friends Ray (James Broderick) and Alice (Patricia Quinn), who run a sort of hippie commune for wayward youth in a deconsecrated Church. Drugs, sex, love and good cookin’ are all free for the asking at the hippie sanctuary, but no young man can hide from the long reach of the United States Government for long.

The great strength of the movie lies in Arlo’s appeal, as well as the mood, the languorous-to-the-point-of-aimless pacing, and the charming cast of characters. Everyone, Arlo included, is in love with the sensual, Earth-mother Alice. Ray, a firebrand dreamer, aims to create a new society with Alice and their “children.” Musicians, artists and ne’er-do-wells of every kind drift in and out of the church and Alice’s restaurant, under the watchful, skeptical eyes of the locals and Officer Obie (William Obanhein). There is quite a bit of comedy in Arlo’s run-in with Officer Obie over some misplaced garbage and his subsequent summons to the military induction center.

But the humor of this period piece is tempered with pain: free love isn’t so free, and drugs break hearts and bodies. War and the ever-present worry of the draft permeate the film like the smell of yesterday’s fish. And Arlo’s personal specter—that he may have inherited Huntington’s disease from his dying father, Woody—lends urgency to his aimless yearning. Finally, Alice’s reaches a breaking point as she finds herself running the restaurant by herself while Ray and the kids have fun.

Music, of course, provides the base and spice of much of the movie. Food appears as an unpleasant afterthought. Two of the ugliest cakes in cinematic history appear in this film: a goopy, chocolate mess with the salacious imperative “eat me” and a grotesque, lopsided, green-and-purple (!) wedding cake.

So, fill up on the popcorn. You don’t watch Alice’s Restaurant for the food. You go for the mood, the music and the memory.