Alice's Restaurant

Intrigued by the counterculture tale of Arlo Guthrie's epic 1968 talking-blues record The Alice's Restaurant Massacree, director Arthur Penn, co-scripting with playwright Venable Herndon, adapted the song into the 1969 feature Alice's Restaurant. Hippie outsider Arlo (Guthrie, playing himself) ...more

Eschewing Hollywood polish, director Arthur Penn's loose narrative and partial use of non-professional actors in this feature meshed with a new youth culture predicated on rejecting convention. Like Penn's Bonnie and Clyde before it, Alice's Restaurant delved into rebellion against the establishment, but Penn keeps an eye on its potential limitations even as Arlo Guthrie and the commune live out its possibilities. The military-industrial complex may not prevail this time, but the communards and ...more