Alice's Restaurant (1969)

Arlo Guthrie: Arlo

Photos 

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Quotes 

• Arlo : Group W is where they put ya if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committin' your special crime. There was all kinds of mean, nasty ugly-lookin' people on the bench there. There was mother rapers... father stabbers... father rapers... Father rapers! Sittin' right there on the bench next to me!

• Arlo : Just what I've always wanted.

  Alice : A restaurant?

  Arlo : No, a friend with a restaurant.

  Alice : Well, anytime, baby.

• Officer Obie : Want your wallets and your belts. Put everything on the desk.

  Arlo : I can understand you wanting our wallets, so we don't have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you want our belts for?

  Officer Obie : Kid, we don't want any hanging.

  Arlo : [pause]  Obie, do you think we're gonna hang ourselves for littering?

• Arlo : Girdles feel funny.

• Criminal : [approaching Arlo on the bench]  Kid, what'd you get?

  Arlo : I didn't get nothin'. I had to pay fifty dollars, and pick up the garbage.

• Arlo : Obie, when do we get our bread and water?

  Officer Obie : Shut up, kid.

• Arlo : What funny smell?

  [covering up the weed box] 

• Arlo : [unable to fill his urine-sample jar, at his Army physical]  Anybody got some to spare?

• Arlo , Pete Seeger : [singing]  Let's go ridin' in the car car, Let's go ridin' in the car car, Let's go ridin' in the car car, Let's go ridin' in the car...

• Draft Clerk : What's this huntington's chorea?

  Arlo : Incurable nerve disease.

  Draft Clerk : And you have it?

  Arlo : It runs in the family! My father has it and my grandmother had it.

  Draft Clerk : It says here, "Do you know of any reason as to why *you* might not qualify for military service?" Not your father, not your grandmother.

  Arlo : I could get it.

  Draft Clerk : But, you don't have it now.

  Arlo : No.

  Draft Clerk : [writes down on draft form]  "None." You'll hear from us.

  Arlo : Peace.

  [exits] 

• Arlo : I seem to have this habit of gettin' arrested.

• Arlo : It seems that schools have a habit of droppin' out around me.

• Arlo : It seems like Woody's road might've run through here - sometime.

• Ray : A place to be the way we want to be! At last!

  Alice : What more do we need?

  Arlo : Amazing Grace!

• Arlo : How old are you?

  Reenie : [Sniffing, takin off her shorts and shirt]  Seventeen.

  Arlo : Seventeen?

  Reenie : Fifteen.

  Arlo : Fifteen going on fourteen.

  Reenie : Okay!

  Arlo : What do you want? Jesus.

  Reenie : I'm no teeny bopper. I already made it with Dick Bogarde of the Raspberry Wristwatch. It's his shirt. And Jack Hennessy of the Unreal. And the drummer of the Democratic Convention. And the Wanderer. And lots of other big guys. With concerts and record deals and everything. And, I like - well - you know, with you. Because you'll probably get to be in an album.

  Arlo : [takes off his handkerchief]  Here. Keep this, as a souvenir. It's the same as if we made it. I just don't want to catch your cold.

• Arlo : Where is everybody?

  Shelly : Building Alice's Restaurant.

  Arlo : You're puttin' me on.

  Shelly : No, man.

• Alice : Maybe you could write us a singing commercial?

  Arlo : I could do that.

  [next scene has a DJ playing an album with Arlo singing, "You can get anything you want, At Alice's Restaurant...] 

• Arlo : [nighttime, church bells ringing]  Hey, what's that all about?

  Karin : An ancient custom of the manor. The lord and lady ring the bell after they make it.

  Arlo : Gotcha.

  Karin : Well, are you gonna make your move or aren't you?

• Karin : What is it? Like cancer?

  Arlo : Huntington's chorea.

  Karin : Oh, a war wound, huh?

  Arlo : It's not that kind of Korea. It's - Huntington's disease.

• Arlo : What'd I tell you, man? Alice is a groovy cook.

• Officer Obie : Kid, we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of garbage. Just wanted to know if you had any information about it?

  Arlo : Oh, yes sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie. I put that envelope under that garbage.

• Arlo : What did he say?

  Mari-chan : He said he'd glaze my pot.

  Arlo : That's what I thought he said.

• Arlo : They got a buildin' down in New York City called Whitehall Street where you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected.

• Arlo : [voiceover]  I proceeded down the hall, gettin' more injections, inspections, infections, neglections, and all kinds of stuff that they was doin' to me at the thing there. And I was there for two hours, three hours, four hours, I was there for a long time goin' through all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly things. And I was just havin' a tough time and they was inspectin', injectin', every single part of me, and they was leavin' no part untouched.

  Draft Doctor : Turn your head and cough. Turn your head and cough. Turn your head and cough. Turn your hat and cough...

• Arlo : [talking to Woody]  It's weird. Good things in my life always seem to come out of not doin' what I don't want to do. Now that they're not after me to do what I don't want to do, what do I want to do? It may take me some hard travelin' to find that out - for my own self.

• Arlo : Sort of sets you adrift. Lets you know your life is going by. All the sudden I feel in a hurry to find out what my things gonna be. Who - and where?