FILM · 1974 · USA
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
58 archived facts 6 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
38 Interesting Facts About Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
- #001
The opening sequence was designed as a tribute to The Wizard of Oz (1939).
- #004
Diane Ladd's daughter, Laura Dern, can be seen in the final diner scene: the little blonde girl with glasses sitting at the end of the counter eating an ice cream cone. As Dern would recall years later, after the nineteenth take and exactly that many cones consumed, director Martin Scorsese told Ladd that her daughter would have to become an actress to do that without throwing up.
- #005
According to Martin Scorsese, the purpose of the highly stylized opening was to find a way to represent how Alice sees her past. "In her mind Monterey is a fantasy, a pure illusion. So I shot a flashback as if it were a Hollywood film made on a soundstage (around the late 1940s). Unreal. Because that's where Alice is."
- #006
The restaurant this film was based on is located at 1747 NW Grand Avenue in Phoenix, Arizona. The restaurant was once known as Mel's Diner, later as Pat's Diner. It recently changed again and is Mel's Diner once more (as of May 2023).
- #007
According to Ellen Burstyn, Warner Bros. executives wanted to cut the opening scene in which Alice performs as a little girl in Monterey, but Martin Scorsese told them that if they did, they would have to take his name off the picture.
- #009
At the beginning of the film, Alice promises Tommy that she will take him to Monterey, California before his birthday. The film's final shot shows Alice and Tommy walking along a road in Tucson toward a large sign for a shopping center called "Monterey Village." The shopping center is at the intersection of Speedway and Wilmot in Tucson.
- #011
The first cut ran three hours and sixteen minutes. Martin Scorsese reduced it to just under two hours for release, losing entire scenes and characters. He was especially unhappy about losing much of the Socorro sequence, which he believed would have turned Alice's husband into a more fleshed-out character. He wanted that part of the film to run about a third of the film's total length, but preview audiences grew bored with it and felt the film didn't really begin until she and Tommy hit the road.
- #012
Martin Scorsese later said that they occasionally had problems with the owners of the buildings they were shooting at, but that Kris Kristofferson was always able to smooth things over and buy the crew more time to finish its work.
- #013
The opening sequence, in which Alice is shown as a little girl in Monterey, was the last thing shot, filmed on the old Columbia Pictures soundstages on Gower Street in Hollywood, California.
- #016
Martin Scorsese said that Alfred Lutter III improvised the film's final line, "Mom, I can't breathe."
- #017
Martin Scorsese told Kris Kristofferson not to worry about the acting directions in the script and to think about how he himself would say it. He said he did everything to boost Kristofferson's confidence, including telling him compliments other people had said about him.
- #019
At roughly the 73rd minute of the film, Kris Kristofferson enters the restaurant and sits down at a table in the back.
- #020
Ellen Burstyn often drew on her own experiences, including her relationship with her son Jefferson Burstyn, who traveled with her wherever she worked and was a young teenager during the production. In the opening scenes set in Socorro, New Mexico, he played the neighbor's son and Tommy's best friend. She told Martin Scorsese about the conversations and events between herself and her son, and about what happened in front of the camera with Alfred Lutter III, and these were incorporated into various scenes.
- #022
Ellen Burstyn brought the project to Martin Scorsese and hired him to direct it. Scorsese then surrounded himself with an extraordinarily supportive crew of strong and very well-connected women, among them his girlfriend Sandra Weintraub (daughter of producer Fred Weintraub) as associate producer; film editor Marcia Lucas (George Lucas's wife); and production designer Toby Carr Rafelson (wife of director and producer Bob Rafelson).
- #023
Shirley MacLaine turned down the role of Alice Hyatt. She admitted she regretted it.
- #025
John Calley convinced Martin Scorsese that working successfully on the film would prove to Hollywood that he could make a commercial film from someone else's script, with established talent, a large budget, multiple locations and a woman in the lead role.
- #026
"Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" was the title of an episode of The Brady Bunch (1969) that aired on October 17, 1969. It was based on the 1933 song "Annie Doesn't Live Here Anymore," written by Joe Young, Johnny Burke and Harold Spina and popularized by Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians.
- #027
Ellen Burstyn initially considered Barbara Loden to direct the film, but settled on Martin Scorsese because she wanted the film to have a "rough" look.
- #029
While finishing work on the film, Martin Scorsese was also working on Italianamerican (1974), his documentary about his parents. Observers noted that the relationship between Scorsese and his mother in that film mirrors the exchanges between Alice and Tommy in this one.
- #030
Warner Bros. cast Ellen Burstyn after seeing the dailies of The Exorcist (1973). They sent her several scripts, but she felt that every woman in those scripts was either a victim, the hero's understanding wife or some kind of sex object, but never the main protagonist.
- #031
Ellen Burstyn was eager to work with Martin Scorsese because she loved the vivid intimacy of Mean Streets (1973) and thought that this sharpness could keep Alice from being too smooth and simple and from having too much of a "woman's picture" formula.
- #033
Martin Scorsese felt that Ben should be the "most accurately delineated" character in the film. He said that he and Harvey Keitel worked together to make Ben both funnier and crazier.
- #035
The fantastic opening scene that Martin Scorsese was especially proud of and excited about actually received the most negative reaction from critics.
- #038
While scouting locations in downtown Tucson, Martin Scorsese noticed a Manhattan Bar sign and put the bar in the film as a tribute to his hometown of New York City.
- #039
In an interview in March 1975, Ellen Burstyn stated that the film "broke the record for the first week at the Sutton Theatre (in New York City) and that all the men who said it wouldn't work ate crow."
- #040
Although the film opens in Socorro, NM, no part of the film was actually shot in New Mexico. All location shooting was done in Arizona.
- #042
Kris Kristofferson plays a significant role in this film. In Martin Scorsese's next film, Taxi Driver (1976), there is a scene in which Robert De Niro's character gives Cybill Shepherd's character a Kris Kristofferson vinyl record as a gift.
- #045
According to her autobiography, Anne Bancroft was brought onto the project.
- #046
Film critic Pauline Kael suggested to screenwriter Robert Getchell that Robert Altman might be a good choice to direct the film.
- #047
This led to the creation of the popular TV series Alice (1976), which aired for 9 seasons. The series has a two-part episode: Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore: Part 1 (1985) and Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore: Part 2 (1985).
- #048
The anecdote in which David tells Alice about turkeys drowning in the rain is a frequently repeated myth. Turkeys are in fact quite social and intelligent. Although they have a genetic tendency to look upward for a few minutes, turkeys have monocular vision, meaning each eye can focus on a different object but both eyes cannot focus on the same thing at the same time. If a turkey tried to look up at falling rain, it would have to turn its head to the side to see (there is no depth of visual field), and its open mouth would not catch the raindrops.
- #049
Martin Scorsese himself called it a "nice picture."
- #050
At least four actors in this film would later appear in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976): Harvey Keitel, Jodie Foster, Murray Moston and Harry Northup.
- #052
Diane Ladd, who played Florence Jean "Flo" Castleberry in this film, and Polly Holliday, who played her in the television series Alice (1976) adapted from this film, died 55 days apart. Holliday died on September 9, 2025, and Ladd, who took Holliday's place in the television series as a different character, Isabelle "Belle" Dupree, died on November 3, 2025.
- #054
Laura Dern (Girl Eating Ice Cream Cone) and Ellen Burstyn (Alice Hyatt) later worked together in The Tale (2018), as Jennifer and Nettie respectively.
- #055
Kris Kristofferson first appears in the film at the one-hour mark.
- #056
Martin Scorsese later directed Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver (1976).
- #057
Laura Dern appears in this film alongside Ellen Burstyn. She would later become known for two projects featuring a character named Ellen. She played Ellen ("Ellie") Sattler in the Jurassic Park series and appeared in the famous "coming out" episode of Ellen (1994). The character Ellen Morgan was played by Ellen DeGeneres.
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