"All the Way From Memphis," indeed.
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)
The film is now available on in a two-disc 4K+Blu-ray edition, as well as on a separate Blu-ray edition, via The Criterion Collection.
As far as I can remember, I first saw the film sometime in the late 70s, after a television adaptation, simplified to Alice, debuted in 1976. So I was familiar with the sitcom premise, having seen a number of episodes already, which in no way prepared me for seeing Martin Scorsese's film on the big screen at a repertory house in Los Angeles.
Budding cinenephile that I was, I believe I'd seen Scorsese's Mean Streets and Taxi Driver by that point, either edited-for-TV versions or big-screen rep house screenings, which also did not fully prepare me for the film, especially that spectacular early blast of Mott the Hoople's "All the Way From Memphis," which resonated for me because I'd seen lead singer Ian Hunter in concert, in connection with his third album, You're Never Along With a Schizophrenic, which was released in 1979.
So, back to the film, which I probably saw in late 1979 or early 1980, now that I think about it.
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore trips many positive personal memories, not only because of the period in which it was released, but because it seemed so different than other early Scorsese pictures, yet also the same, once you get past the fact that this was the first film he made for a Hollywood studio, and that he did not originate the project.
That can be properly credited to Ellen Burstyn, who was in the midst of filming The Exorcist when Warner Bros. told her it wanted to make her next picture, sending her a blizzard of scripts, none of which she wanted to make. Instead, her agent found the original script by Robert Getchell -- his first -- and brought it to her. She loved it, though she could see areas she wanted to strengthen.
Warner Bros. agreed to make the film, Burstyn asked her friend Francis Ford Coppola who was "new and young and exciting" that could direct, and Coppola pointed her toward Mean Streets. She enjoyed, and met with Scorsese. She told him that she didn't see any women in Mean Streets and asked him, since Alice was to be told from a woman's perspective, 'What do you know about women?'
Scorsese said, "Nothing. I want to learn." And so Scorsese went Hollywood, and Ellen Burstyn was on her way to an Academy Award-winning performance. (See video below, where Martin Scorsese accepts on her behalf.)
I haven't seen the film in a while, and I was surprised by how much I'd forgotten. The opening prelude is a color-saturated look at the titular character at age 9, singing a song outside the family home in Monterey, California, which becomes her personal Valhalla, a place of eternal happiness.
"All the Way From Memphis" blasts in next, as the camera swans downward to a family home in Socorro, New Mexico, that is not especially happy, except for the loving relationship that Alice has cultivated with her 11-year-old son, Tommy (Alfred Lutter). Her husband Donald (Billy Green Bush) is decidedly more testy, though the grouchy Donald is capable of demonstrating affection to Alice. His sudden death causes her to become unmoored, since he was the sole financial support to the family, and she decides to move to Phoenix, where greater job opportunities beckon, beyond the small town of Socorro.
Nursing a dream of resuming her pre-marital career as a singer, Alice, amazingly, lands such a job, but her happiness comes to a dead stop, burned down when her bugeoning relationship with the persistent Ben (Harvey Keitel) goes up in flames in a frankly terrifying encounter. (In the audio commentary, Scorsese says he was accustomed to Keitel's volatile personality, so he wasn't affected. Burstyn, however, said everyone else got very, very quiet; she had to stop for the day so she could recover.)
Rathe than continuing westward to California, Alice heads southeast to Tucson, perhaps reasoning that heading to the closest moderate-sized city was her best chance to find another singing job. Unable to find one, and desperately needing something, she applies at the diner next door and becomes a waitress.
On her first day at the diner, where fellow waitresses Flo (Diane Ladd) and Vera (Valerie Curtin, future writing collabator with Barry Levinson) are introduced, along with owner Mel (Vic Tayback), Alice meets David (Kris Kristofferson), who takes an instant liking to her. Alice and Flo clash at first, though they come to an understanding and then a friendship, captured in a remarkable sunlit scene outside the back of the diner.
Alice and David also develop their relationship into something more meaningful, all while Tommy develops a friendship through guitar lessons and mischief with tomboy-ish Audrey (Jodie Foster, my eternal crush).
Touches of Mean Streets peer through: cinematographer Kent Wakeford and actors Harvey Keitel, Murray Moston as a friendly bar owner, and Harry Northrup as a friendly bartender. The continuous, graceful camera movements were becoming a trademark of Scorsese's pictures, and here they enhance the drama, complemented by Marcia Lucas' editing and Toby Rafelson's production design.
Richard LaSalle composed original music, but it's the songs that stand out, not only "All the Way From Memphis," but also Elton John's "Daniel" (on the road trip) and others. Al the actors on the audio commentary marvel at Scorsese's intense yet friendly method of working with them, whether they were less experienced (Lutter, Kristofferson) or somewhat more experienced (Foster, Ladd) or very experienced (Burstyn).
Getchell's script was good, according to the actors and director, but Scorsese encouraged the actors to feel free to improvise, and he worked with everyone to develop their ideas in order to make the movie better. As a result of everyone working together, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore is a deeply affecting movie that richly rewards multiple viewings.
Available on both the 4K disc and the Blu-ray, the audio commentary, recorded in 2003 by Warner Home Video and "enhanced" by Criterion in 2026 -- with no specifics provided as to how it was "enhanced" -- is excellent, combining comments from Ellen Burstyn, Martin Scorsese, Alfred Lutter, who is the primary commenter for the first half of the picture and talks glowingly about the film; Jodie Foster, who happily talks far longer than her character does, with gleaming candor about the industry, how this film changed her career trajectory, and her appearance in Mean Streets; Kris Kristofferson (briefly), and Diane Ladd, who contributes great insight into her career and her approach to individual scenes, shares which line was the most difficult for her to say out loud, and proudly points out her daughter, Laura Dern, in the film's penultimate scene -- the little girl with glasses who is sitting at the counter, eating an ice cream cone. (Scorsese told Ladd afterward, 'She ate 19 ice cream cones. [One for every take.] She's going to be an actress!')
Further special features are available only on the Blu-ray. Ellen Burstyn sits down for a relaxed conversation with critic Farran Smith Nehme, who asks good, pointed questions about Burstyn's career before, during, and after Alice, helping to place the film into the context of the time, as women sought to gain an equal standing in the industry and the culture. It's a wonderful conversation, full of insights gleaned from lifetimes of experience as, respectively, an actress and a critic. Recorded in 2026, the conversation runs about 24 minutes.
The spotlight turns to film editor Marcia Lucas, who passed away just a couple months ago, for a 19-minute feature. She gives credit first to Verna Fields, who gave her an opportunity as an assistant editor on a documentary, and then as her assistant on Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool. Further assistant editor credits followed on Francis Ford Coppola's The Rain People and George Lucas' THX 1138; she stepped up to editor on American Graffiti, but she wanted her own identity apart from George, and so was happy to edit her friend Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Her Anymore.
She gives details about the experience of cutting the film in a motel room, while George was writing Star Wars, talks about working with Scorsese, specific ideas they developed together, decisions to cut early scenes to propel the narrative to its true starting point, and how the diner scenes were edited. She also talks about her editing philosophy and how she made her decisions, always along with the director. It's an excellent feature.
A promotional feature from a previous home video release in 2003 is composed of two separate interviews with Ellen Burstyn and Kris Kristofferson, intercut together. They talk briefly about their individual careers before Alice, and then the filming experience itself, which goes into more details on certain scenes, beyond what's included on the audio commentary, including an extended scene at a ranch house, which they rushed to complete by filming all night -- with the windows "whited out" to approximate daytime -- with the impatient homeowners sitting nearby, asking after each take: 'That was good enough! Why do you want to do another take?'
The original theatrical trailer is also included. The new edition's package also features a printed booklet, containing an excellent essay by critic Stephanie Zacharek: "It becomes a feminist film merely by being human first. ... Alice is ... an accidental heroine, and anyone who has ever felt their life springing out of control can feel kinship with her. ...
"Scorse and Burstyn -- the star as well as the engine behind the project -- had pulled off a sly miracle: their movie was nonthreatening and explosive at once. It had meaning precisely because it came with no agenda attached."
Also: Kudos to Zacharek for pointing out something in the final scene that none of the special features mentioned. (I thought I was the only one who did until I read her marvelous essay!)
Coming on the heels of The Exorcist, the film propelled Ellen Burstyn's career into a higher trajectory. In a series of remarkable roles over the next 50 years, she has earned Academy Award nominations for her performances in Same Time, Next Year (1979), Resurrection (1981), and Requiem for a Dream (2001).
This was the first major film role for Alfred Lutter, who'd only just begun acting a few months before. He enjoyed success in Woody Allen's Love and Death and Michael Ritchie's The Bad News Bears, but in college he became fascinated with the field of technology, where he has made his career as an adult.
The modest Kris Kristofferson grew into a fine actor, perhaps reaching his peak with A Star Is Born (1976), though he gave a number of good performances over the years, including in Heaven's Gate (1981) and A Solider's Daughter Never Cries (1998). He died in 2024.
Diane Ladd was nominated as Best Supporting Actress -- Ingrid Bergman won for Murder on the Orient Express -- and went on to an excellent career, earning two more Academy Award nominations on the way, both in support of her daughter (Wild at Heart, 1991, Rambling Rose, 1992.) She died in 2025.
Robert Getchell also earned an Academy Award nomination -- Robert Towne won for Chinatown -- and received another Oscar nomination for his next produced script, adapting the Woody Guthrie story for Hal Ashby's Bound for Glory (1977). (Before that was released, he created the aforementioned sitcom Alice).
His other film scripting credits include adapting the Joan Crawford story for Mommie Dearest (1981), the Patsy Cline story for Sweet Dreams (1985), the Stella Dallas remake Stella (1990), and the memoir This Boy's Life (1993).
Oddly enough, he concluded his credited career by co-writing genre pictures Point of No Return (1993) and The Client (1994). He died in 2017.
To my untrained eyes, the 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by Martin Scorsese, looks excellent, warm and detailed and very inviting. The sound is also clear and excellent.
Summary: This is a great film that has already rewarded multiple viewings. Highly recommended.