Arlo Guthrie, James Broderick, M. Emmet Walsh

You can get anything you want there, or so went Arlo Guthrie's song, a lengthy monologue about a Thanksgiving dinner and how its aftermath kept Guthrie out of the Vietnam-era draft. Arthur Penn's movi...( read more  read more... )e version, which stars Guthrie, James Broderick, and Pat Quinn, has a shambling, good-natured feel, much like Guthrie's epic tall tale. But as it follows Guthrie's adventures (he gets arrested for improper disposal of Thanksgiving garbage and the arrest renders him unfit for military service, in the draft board's eyes), it also examines the freewheeling nature of relationships in that period--and the toll that freedom took on those relationships. Guthrie is a natural performer, particularly funny during the draft board sequence; but the heart of the film is Quinn and Broderick's troubled marriage. --Marshall Fine

Flixster Users

66% liked it

515 ratings

Critics

64% liked it

14 critics

R, 111 min.

Directed by: Arthur Penn

Release Date: August 20, 1969

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DVD Release Date: January 23, 2001

Stats: 144 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (144)


  • March 18, 2008
    Compare a film like Hair with this one, a tribute to and expansion on Arlo Guthrie's sometime anthem for America in the 1960s. For those who refer to Guthrie being portrayed as a "draft dodger," I think a second look might prove worthwhile. In fact, the heart of irony in...( read more) this story -- and there is irony around every corner -- is that Guthrie, through a series of bizarre and somewhat amusing happenings, finds himself in a position where the draft actually dodges him. Because he is a litterbug who is caught, because he has appeared in court due to his littering, and because he is convicted of littering, Arlo is deemed unfit for military service.

    To say that this film captures and celebrates the spirit of the 60s is to do it a gross injustice in a way. Irony rears its head throughout this movie, pointing to the devastation wrought by drugs upon the addicted and how "free" love actually can damage relationships. All in all, this is hardly a free wheeling laugh- or love-fest, and neither is it a wholeheartedly approving celebration of those freedoms of individuality, self-expression, and guiltless indulgence "enjoyed" by the "hippie" generation. This film, coming out in 1969, is a very serious, although non-judgmental, end-of-an-era look backwards at the flower powered 60s.

    Perhaps the most heavily participatory and indulgent characters, Alice and Ray, played beautifully by Pat Quinn and James Broderick (Matthew's dad), are also the most victimized. While the freedom of their lifestyle does not kill them, as it does Shelly, the hardcore drug-addicted motorcyclist, it certainly does nothing to bring them closer together in their marriage. There is a yearning in both to move their marriage to a higher plane, but from the beginning to the end, it is, ironically, their inability to make their love transcend the circumstances of their lives and lifestyles that gives the whole movie its underlying tragic tone.

    This is well worth the watch. If only they could all, as the song says, get anything they wanted -- except Alice. This is a major stumbling block for husband Ray, who is ironically, in the end, one of those who cannot and does not really ever "get" her.

  • April 19, 2009
    This movie drags at the beginning and the end, but it is very entertaing in the middle. It's a very unorthodox film based on Arlo Guthrie's 18 minute song of the same name. Arlo Guthrie does a good job, but at times his lack of acting skills does affect the film. It's about a bu...( read more)nch of hippies and the movie is defiantly a product of it's time. It has some great characters and the film ends with a amazing tracking shot that is very powerful. A interesting film that's a little too long.
  • August 13, 2009
    you can get anything you want ... !
  • June 12, 2008
    back in the age of dinosaurs(the time of woodstock)i snuck my underage butt into our local theater(gone for many years)to see this, my first r rated movie.i think i really liked this movie(it could have been my 13 year old hormones raging). anyho im gonna try to find it andsee if...( read more) was any good. the lead was arlo guthrie who also wrote the 20 min protest song that inspired the movie. he's still touring now. if ya can find it give it a whirl. its zany and yet very serious about what was going on in our nation in 1969. wow, went on long for me.
  • March 17, 2008
    This movie wasn't that good.
  • September 4, 2007
    I am going to have to see it again to tell you what I think.
  • July 25, 2007
    I don't like the ending, but this movie is so ironic!

Critic Reviews


October 23, 2004
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Good work in a minor key. full review

View more Alice's Restaurant reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

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