Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore [1974] dir Martin Scorsese

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071115/


Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore is a 1974 film which tells the story of a widow who moves with her young son to Tucson, Arizona to start her life over again, and finds a job working at a diner. It stars Ellen Burstyn, Alfred Lutter, Billy Green Bush, Harvey Keitel, Diane Ladd, Vic Tayback, Valerie Curtin, Kris Kristofferson and Jodie Foster. The movie was written by Robert Getchell and directed by Martin Scorsese. Ellen Burstyn won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Alice Hyatt.

Mia Bendixsen ... Alice, Age 8
Ellen Burstyn ... Alice Hyatt
Alfred Lutter III ... Tommy (as Alfred Lutter)
Billy Green Bush ... Donald
Lelia Goldoni ... Bea
Ola Moore ... Old Woman
Harry Northup ... Joe & Jim's Bartender
Martin Brinton ... Lenny
Dean Casper ... Chicken
Murray Moston ... Jacobs
Harvey Keitel ... Ben
Lane Bradbury ... Rita
Diane Ladd ... Flo
Vic Tayback ... Mel
Valerie Curtin ... Vera


During the filming of her previous film The Exorcist, Burstyn was contacted by Warner Bros. about working with them again. After looking through various scripts, the actress was dissatisfied to note that the woman in each was "the victim, the understanding wife of the hero ..., a prostitute, or some other style of sex object," which she believed did not represent the shift in women's roles that she saw happening in U.S. society. Her agent eventually found the script for Alice and interested John Calley, Warner head of production in the project. Calley offered Burstyn the chance to direct, but she did not feel ready for this step; she did, however, take on what she calls "shepherding" the film, acting as an unofficial executive producer. Looking for "someone new and exciting," she called Francis Ford Coppola for ideas, at which point he suggested Scorsese. In an interview for the program The Directors on ReelzChannel, Scorsese said he took the job because he wanted to dispel the notion that he was only good at directing male leads. Burstyn and Scorsese jointly decided to have "as many women in positions of authority as possible," including the unusual choice to have a woman as art director.

Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) was a film that spoke to the generation of women who were trying to find their own place in the world in the midst of the "Sexual Revolution." The story was of a wife and mother whose marriage and life has fallen into a rut. When her trucker husband is killed in an accident, she is left with a twelve-year-old son to raise. She decides to sell everything and drive across country, intent on following her childhood dream of becoming a singer.

It was an idea that particularly resonated with the film’s star, Ellen Burstyn (who would win an Academy Award for Best Actress for the film), “I was shooting The Exorcist (1973), Warner Brothers was the studio and John Kelly was the executive. John was looking in the dailies every day back in Los Angeles, we were in New York and Washington – and he decided that he wanted to do another film with me, so he started sending me scripts. Now at that time, 1973, it was early in the woman’s movement, and we were all just waking up and having a look at the pattern of our lives and wanting it to be different. With that in mind, and what was happening to me and my own consciousness, as I looked at the scripts they all reflected the ‘old position’ of women. They were either victims, dutiful wives or prostitutes, or ...well, that was pretty much it. I wanted to make a different kind of film. A film from a woman’s point of view, but a woman that I recognized, that I knew. And not just myself, but my friends, what we were all going through at the time. So my agent found Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, the script by Bob Getchell [who would be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay]. When I read it I liked it a lot. I sent it to Warner Brothers and they agreed to do it. Then they asked who I wanted to direct it. I said that I didn’t know, but I wanted somebody new and young and exciting. I called Francis Coppola and asked who was young and exciting and he said to look at a movie called Mean Streets (1973), which hadn’t been released yet. So I looked at it and I felt that it was exactly what the script of Alice needed, because Alice was a wonderful script and well written, but for my taste it was a little slick. You know – in a good way, in a kind of Doris Day-Rock Hudson kind of way. I wanted something a bit more gritty.”

When Burstyn met Scorsese, she told him how much she admired Mean Streets and asked him if he knew anything about women. Scorsese replied, “No, but I’d like to learn.” Burstyn said they went to work and it was “one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.” Scorsese felt as Burstyn did, that the film should have something to say. “I wanted to see if Ellen had the same ideas I had about the script. And she did and I had similar ideas to what she had. [...] It’s a picture about emotions and feelings and relationships and people in chaos. Which is something very personal to me and to Ellen at the time. We felt like charting all that and showing the differences and showing people making terrible mistakes ruining their lives and then realizing it and trying to push back when everything is crumbling – without getting into soap opera. We opened ourselves up to a lot of experimentation.”

One problem Scorsese ran into on his first studio film was the child welfare worker on the set who objected to the lines said by the little girl playing young Alice [Mia Bendixsen]. "The worst thing with the welfare worker [was] that thing with the little girl in the beginning of the film. We’d built that set for $85,000 and the whole key to the scene was where she says, “Blow it out your ass.” That line. And “Jesus Christ,” she says. We have the kid walking down the road, she’s eight years old, and she says her line. The welfare worker comes over and says, “She can’t say those lines.” I said, “Lady, we just built this whole set. What do you mean, “’She can’t say those lines?’” She said, “It’s nothing to get upset about,” I said, “Nothing to get upset about! We didn’t build this set overnight. They’ve been building it for months. I’ve been fighting the studio to get this set. It’s the last day of shooting. You mean we can’t use the goddamn kid to say the line?” She said, “Well, I don’t care what you’ve done, you can’t use the kid to say the line.” She got furious and walked off. So we had the kid say other things. But luckily, we had taken one take where the kid actually said it and that’s what we used.”

Scorsese’s casting director had gone through 300 boys and Scorsese hadn’t liked any of them until he found Alfred Lutter, “Sandy Weintraub told me there was one kid I had to see. She had asked him what he wanted to be when he grows up and he said, “A stand-up comic.” I met the kid in my hotel room and he was kind of quiet and shy. I looked at Sandy and said, “What, are you kidding me?” She said, “Believe me. Maybe he's a little nervous in here. Get him together with Ellen; it should be something crazy that happens.” Sure enough, he came into the room and I would tell Ellen to throw little improvs in every now and then to throw the kids off. Usually, when we were improvising with the kids, they would either freeze and look down or go right back to the script. But this kid, you couldn’t shut him up. With this kid, she had to hang on. She kept looking at me. We kept giving each other looks and writing down things. “Fine, see you later, Alfred. Fine, thank you.” I said, “That’s it, thank God.” Lutter made a few more films after Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and played Tommy in the pilot for the television show, but got out of acting. He later became CIO of a computer information systems company in Southern California.

Rounding out the cast was Diane Ladd who played Alice’s fellow waitress, Flo, the role that Polly Holliday would play in the television series. Ladd would be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the film. Ironically, when Holliday left the show, Ladd replaced her, playing a waitress named Belle. Vic Tayback played Mel, the diner owner in both the film and the series, which lasted for nine seasons. Kris Kristofferson and Harvey Keitel played Alice’s love interests. Jodie Foster had a small role and Laura Dern (Diane Ladd’s daughter) had an uncredited role of a little girl eating an ice cream cone. The diner itself still exists as Mel’s Diner in Phoenix, Arizona.

Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore was a hit with critics. Vincent Canby in The New York Times called it, “fine, moving, frequently hilarious tale of Alice's first lurching steps toward some kind of self-awareness and self-sufficiency.” Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote, “The movie has been both attacked and defended on feminist grounds, but I think it belongs somewhere outside ideology, maybe in the area of contemporary myth and romance. There are scenes in which we take Alice and her journey perfectly seriously, there are scenes of harrowing reality and then there are other scenes (including some hilarious passages in a restaurant where she waits on tables) where Scorsese edges into slight, cheerful exaggeration. There are times, indeed, when the movie seems less about Alice than it does about the speculations and daydreams of a lot of women about her age, who identify with the liberation of other women, but are unsure on the subject of themselves.”

In one scene, Florence Jean "Flo" Castleberry wears a lacy silver cross around her neck, and reveals to Alice that it is actually made of safety pins, saying "it keeps me together". In the DVD commentary, Diane Ladd says that a waitress in Tucson made the necklace for her for ten dollars.


Academy Awards, USA

1975 Won Oscar Best Actress in a Leading Role Ellen Burstyn Ellen Burstyn was not present at the awards ceremony. Martin Scorsese accepted the award on her behalf.
1975 Nominated Oscar Best Actress in a Supporting Role Diane Ladd
1975 Nominated Oscar Best Writing, Original Screenplay Robert Getchell

BAFTA Awards

1976 Won BAFTA Film Award Best Actress Ellen Burstyn
1976 Won BAFTA Film Award Best Film
1976 Won BAFTA Film Award Best Screenplay Robert Getchell
1976 Won BAFTA Film Award Best Supporting Actress Diane Ladd
1976 Nominated BAFTA Film Award Best Direction Martin Scorsese
1976 Nominated BAFTA Film Award Best Supporting Actress Lelia Goldoni
1976 Nominated BAFTA Film Award Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles Alfred Lutter III

Cannes Film Festival

1975 Nominated Golden Palm Martin Scorsese

Golden Globes, USA

1975 Nominated Golden Globe Best Motion Picture Actress - Drama Ellen Burstyn
1975 Nominated Golden Globe Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture Diane Ladd


Writers Guild of America, USA

1975 Nominated WGA Award (Screen) Best Drama Written Directly for the Screen Robert Getchell



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