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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 28098
Released: August 17, 2004 |
| Our Price: $3.77 |
| Used Price: $2.50 |
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MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
When housewife Alice is suddenly widowed and left with no money and no job to support herself and her son, she sets off across the country to find a new life.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: UN
Release Date: 17-AUG-2004
Media Type: DVD
Description of Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore:
Having scored a critical triumph with Mean Streets, Martin Scorsese accepted Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore as his first big-studio assignment, proving his versatility and further advancing his promising career. Hot off The Exorcist with her choice of projects at Warner Brothers, Ellen Burstyn sought a hot young talent (Scorsese was recommended by Francis Coppola) to direct Robert Getchell's fine, sensitive screenplay about Alice Wyatt, a newly-widowed 35-year-old lounge singer with a bratty 12-year-old son (Alfred Lutter) and a very uncertain future. Her pursuit of broken dreams lands her a waitressing job in an Arizona diner, where she befriends foul-mouthed Flo (Diane Ladd) and meets and falls in love with a divorced farmer (Kris Kristofferson). With absolute authenticity of emotion and incident, Alice--which earned Burstyn a well-deserved Oscar® and features supporting roles for future Taxi Driver costars Jodie Foster and Harvey Keitel--conveys a then-timely sense of strength and endurance from a single mother in desperate times. There have been several similar dramas made since 1974, but Alice (which inspired the popular TV sitcoms Alice and Flo) is still the best. Trivia buffs: Look closely for Ladd's daughter--a very young Laura Dern--and Scorsese as background extras in the diner scenes. --Jeff Shannon
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore Reviews:
Great Service 
2009-09-08 - Item was shipped promptly and in excellent condition. Good people to do business with.
Trip down memory lane 
2009-07-14 - Viewing this took me back to when the film was first released. I thought it was terrific back then, and, though dated, it still deserves watching. Ellen Burstyn is incredible as Alice, and Kris, well, enough said!
"The Movie That Won Ellen The Oscar"
2009-05-20 - While filming "The Exorcist" Warner Brothers contacted Ellen Burstyn about starring in another film for the studio. She found the script for "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" and fell in love with the lead character. In the early '70's it was very hard for actresses to find roles that carried an entire movie, but with "Alice" things finally saw a turnaround for women in cinema. "Alice" was one of the first films to dramatize a woman making it out on her on in the world without the help of a man.
Burstyn stars as Alice Hyatt whose loveless husband dies and her leaves her broke. She decides to leave town and take her mouthy son with her to California, in the town she was brought up. On her way she stops in Tuscon, Arizona, where she gets a job as a waitess at Mel's Diner to make extra money. Alice's real career is as a singer, but she has a hard time making it.
The film is filled with many talented actors, including Harvey Keitell, who plays one of Alice's new boyfriends, who turns out to be psychotic. This was also Jodie Foster's first film role. Kris Kristofferson stars as the man who falls in love with Alice, despite the problems he encounters with her son.
Martin Scorsese directed the film, and Burstyn would win the Academy Award in 1974 as Best Actress. She has written a splendid autobiography entitled "Lessons In Becoming Myself" which contains some neat info on the making of "Alice".
The film would span the televison sitcom of the same name in 1976 starring Linda Lavin in the title role. Ellen Burstyn stated that although she acted as a silent producer on the movie, she did not receive one penny from the TV show. Vic Tayback who plays Mel in the film, reprises his role for the series, and Alfred Lutter, who played Tommy in the movie, only did the pilot, as producers replaced him with another actor. Diane Ladd, who plays Flo in the film, would join the sitcom in later seasons playing another part.
The DVD is beautiful, with the movie being cleaned and comes in widescreen format. There is a wonderful documentary on the movie featuring Ellen Burstyn who supplies anecdotes on the film.
It seems a little off kilter... 
2009-01-29 - When discussing the great Martin Scorsese with friends I am quick to label him a one trick pony, and they are quick to call me out on the fact that I have not seen enough of his films to accurately judge him. Sure, I've seen his lauded gangster films, and I personally prefer the few films I've seen of his that are not mob-related, but there is always yet another film I had no idea was a Scorsese picture that I need to see.
`Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore' was one of them.
Knowing and loving some of the cast (Ellen Burstyn and Harvey Kietel to be exact) I was quick to snatch this one up in anticipation of something great. Instead I got a mixed bag of `good, a little better, not so wonderful and mediocre'. Nothing can be taken away from some of the performances, especially that of Burstyn and her on-screen romantic lead Kris Kristofferson, but one can fault Scorsese for not fully understanding how to develop this film properly.
It feels a lot of the time that he didn't really know what type of film he was attempting to make.
The film tells the story of unhappy housewife Alice who is forced to make it on her own after her husband dies in a car accident. Taking to the road with her bratty son and high hopes of making it as a singer, Alice finds herself working in a diner in order to make ends meat and falling in love with a divorced farmer. She meets some other interesting people along the way (most notable is an abusive married lover and a foul mouthed co-worker) who also make an impact on the person she is to become.
Burstyn is wonderful as Alice. She has her moments of `all over the place' but she manages to rein them in nicely to create a solidly entertaining and relatable character. I don't know if I would have necessarily handed her an Oscar for this, but I can see why the Academy wanted to award her. Kristofferson is just as good, matching her zaniness with warmth and compassion. Diane Ladd is hilarious and engaging and Harvey Keitel is charming and dangerous. I was not a fan of the kid, Alfred Lutter, but I adored young Jodie Foster (who quite looked like a little boy here).
The acting is not the problem, and really neither is the script. It's the way Scorsese decided to shoot the film. It's played up like a comedy, then like a drama but it never meshes well enough as a dramedy. It seems like it was shot as two separate films with two separate tones and then edited into one complete movie. Sadly, it doesn't feel complete.
I'd say that Scorsese doesn't know how to craft a comedy, but that would be a lie since his 1983 film `The King of Comedy' is a comedic (or should I say dramedic) goldmine.
I'm not saying stay away from this one, because it has its highlights, and the acting is really quite good. It also spawned some popular sitcoms, and if you were familiar with those then you may want to see how they got their start. I am saying not to get your hopes up for something brilliant. This is a decent film that falls short of what it could have been.
When Marty Was Good
2008-08-26 - An early Martin Scorsese film when the director was good, bringing out great performances with a sparce script.
Ellen Burstyn is a hard luck wife with a wife-beating husband. The husband is out of the picture suddenly and she must make it on her own with her young son in tow. Burstyn's acting style, just short of bursting into hysteria at any moment, very interesting really.
Harvey Keitel has a small part, but steals the show as usual. His cowboy accent is a little odd, but that actor can menace.
A small cameo of young boy-like Jody Foster. What were her parents thinking? You could see it coming.
