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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
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
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - When Marty Was Good
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, ... Read More
Rating:  - Dishonest
Ultimately this is a dishonest film. To be an honest film, the husband would have had to be a decent, if boring, provider, and he would have had to be divorced, rather than killed off. The ending is also a stretch. Nevertheless, a style of story telling that today's directors should model.
Rating:  - YEARS AGO
Saw this movie years ago and love Ellen as an actress in everything since. The movie was great.
Rating: - Scorsese channels Douglas Sirk
At times almost harking back to the Douglas Sirk weepies of the 50s, Scorsese's follow-up to Mean Streets could not have been more different, but he attacks his material in much the same manner, if with a noticeably bigger budget. The camera is still restless but where many of his later films have gravitated towards camera effects and viscera, the nervy photography is here still designed to serve the characters rather than just pump up the scene. There are still the inevitable explosions of violence ... Read More
Rating:  - Disappointing & over-hyped
I feel like the boy in the story 'The Emperor's New Clothes' daring to shout out that in fact everybody else is praising nothing at all.
I finally watched this film because I was off work sick and had nothing better to do, and really can't understand why it's so famous.
The son is nothing but a precocious, indulged, whining, annoying brat.
The music was dire the first time round, and not something I wanted to re-encounter (Mott the HOOPLE? Marc BOLAN? )
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